Whitmire: Tell the truth, Steve Marshall. Alabama’s parole system is broken.

This is an opinion column.

Prosecutors are the only officials in the justice system who have a responsibility to the truth – to find the truth, to tell the truth, to protect the truth.

Or at least, that’s what a handful of prosecutors have told me over the years. I wish it were, well, true. In an ideal world, it would be. But most of the time it’s a platitude, always within arm’s reach – when I’m wrong.

And there are few I’ve met who have gotten it wrong as often as Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall.

My colleague Ivana Hrynkiw has spent the past year documenting the failures of Alabama’s parole system and examining his position that “there is simply no one else to ‘reform'” in Alabama prisons. The only comment Marhsall’s office made on her reporting was as haughty as a basket about to appear.

“We have nothing more to add as we disagree with the premise of every article you’ve written on this topic,” Marshall’s office said through a spokesman.

There may be no better endorsement of Hrynkiw’s work on this subject.

You see, when it comes to pardons and paroles, Marshall’s office has a messy relationship with the truth.

Take for example the case of Robert Georgewho accidentally shot a young girl during a drunken argument 31 years ago. At the time of the hearing, George was 85 years old and his health had declined to the point where he struggled to make his bed.

But that didn’t matter to the attorney general’s office.

It didn’t even matter that the victim’s mother forgave George and recorded a video message for the parole board, asking them to forgive him too.

Instead, the attorney general’s representative cited George’s criminal record, including crimes for which he had not been convicted.

George’s attorney, former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Sue Bell Cobb, corrected the attorney general’s representative, and George won his release in a split 2-1 vote.

Cobb isn’t the only former state Supreme Court chief justice to question Alabama’s unforgiving parole system or its attorney general.

When Willie Conner’s case went before the board (inmates are not allowed to attend their own parole hearings) was represented by Roy Moorewho had been troubled by Connor’s case for years.

Connor served 12 years to life in prison under the old three-strikes law. His last crime was stealing a nail gun from Lowe’s. He was charged with a crime involving a weapon – the nail gun he stole.

Even the attorney general’s representative expressed some doubts about the case, telling the parole board, “It’s kind of wild that we’re going through this when frankly, I think he’s shown that he might be worthy of parole.”

But then he reverted to the attorney general’s default setting — seeking the maximum sentence regardless of the circumstances and citing a history of violent crime.

Connor’s actual record was second-degree theft, receiving stolen property and drug possession.

So much for the truth.

Connor won parole by another 2-1 vote. This dissenting vote is an important one, a consistent one – Leigh Gwathney, who is not only the chairman of the board, but also a former assistant attorney general.

“People want justice. They want the bad people to stay in, they want the people who deserve parole out. That’s the system,” Moore told Hrynkiw. “That’s the way it should be. But that wasn’t it.

“What it was is a representative of the attorney general’s office controlling the parole board, in my opinion.”

But not everyone who goes before the Alabama parole board has a former chief justice on their side. Most don’t even have lawyers. And most don’t get the same consideration from this system as their customers.

This includes prisoners who are elderly and infirm. This includes others who roam the free public while on work release, but when their cases come before the parole board, they are deemed too dangerous to be released into society.

The Alabama Attorney General’s Office has taken an absolutist position on parole: everyone who deserves it is already free.

“Changes to our sentencing and incarceration laws have ensured that dangerous criminals are largely the only ones left behind bars,” Marshall said in 2022. Consequently, we should absolutely expect and demand that parole rates decline .”

But sit in on these meetings, as Hrynkiw has for the past year, and you’ll see the absurdity of such an argument. You will see the reality. You will see the truth—a parole system so dogmatic, so broken, and so dysfunctional that it deemed inmate Fredrick Bishop unfit for parole.

Bishop had been dead for 10 days before his hearing.

The parole board’s criteria say about 80 percent of the inmates it deems fit to be released. However, last year they released only 8%. It’s the same ridiculous odds as recovering a punt in the NFL. This year, under public scrutiny, it has risen by just over 20%. But it’s still way too low. Even the Texas key throw throws twice as many percentages.

This makes things even more difficult in the prisons themselves, which are notoriously overcrowded, and can provide little incentive for good behavior if there is little hope of parole anyway. Hrynkiw found that prisons even had to use a rare sick leave to send home some elderly, dying inmates who had been denied parole.

Alabamians can see what’s going on here. And not just citizens or voters, but parliamentarians who started asking their own questions.

It’s time for the truth to have its day before the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles. And if the truth cannot find a fair trial there, then perhaps before the Alabama Legislature.

It’s time someone stood up for the truth – because Steve Marshall never will.