A lawyer is suing the Alabama parole board for “violations of administrative and statutory duties,” arguing her client should have been paroled last year and asking a civil judge to intervene.

Lauren Faraino, the attorney who filed the lawsuit, is also asking the Montgomery County District Attorney to open a criminal investigation into the chair of the parole board, Leigh Gwathney, for “knowing neglect of mandatory duties.”

Cam Ward, the director of the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles, called the suit “flippant and frivolous.”

“The Bureau was only made aware of the lawsuit today,” said Ward late Friday. He runs the bureau, which oversees the 45,000 people on probation and parole across the state and isn’t responsible for parole decisions.

“However, we are confident the Board acted legally and in accordance with the law in making their parole decision. They will continue to do so, accordingly, should the Legislature wish to change or amend rules governing Alabama’s parole system.”

Ward said, “This is a flippant and frivolous lawsuit based on questions more apt for the legislature than Alabama’s court system.”

In the lawsuit filed earlier this month, Faraino asked a Montgomery County civil judge to “review the unlawful actions of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles and its members, Leigh Gwathney, Darryl Littleton, and Gabrelle Simmons, for violations of administrative and statutory duties” when they unanimously denied parole to her client, Kenneth Shaun Traywick.

Traywick, 49, was denied parole on June 18, 2024. Traywick is behind bars for 2008 charges of robbery and sodomy and has served 16 years of a 50-year sentence.

Faraino is asking the civil courts to review Gwathney and her colleagues’ “misconduct.” She wrote that their decision “was not grounded in evidence or structured assessment, and therefore violated the mandatory duties.”

Traywick, who said he’s innocent of the charges he was convicted of, was denied parole after a hearing last summer and the board set him for another hearing in 2029.

Faraino argued in the lawsuit there was “individual and coordinated misconduct of the members” during Traywick’s hearing. She spoke on his behalf that morning last June, along with his wife and a therapist.

Gwathney, the chairperson of the three-member parole board, has been under fire from the public and lawmakers alike for historic low parole rates, which dipped as low as 8% in 2023. The board ended 2024 with a 20% grant rate and is on track for a 21% grant rate this year.

Gwathney’s term as chair expires on Monday. State law requires the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, and the Senate pro tem leader to submit a list of five nominations for the seat to the governor’s desk. Then, Gov. Kay Ivey will choose her pick from that list within 10 days.

Gwathney, a former prosecutor for the Alabama Attorney General’s Office and Jefferson County, could be renominated or reappointed. She will serve in the position until a nomination is announced or she is put back in the seat.

The list of nominations has not been made public.

During Traywick’s hearing last summer, Faraino told the board: “Alabama’s denial rates foster despair with decisions driven by fear and political pressure.”

“The result? Rising violence and drug overdoses with death rates in our prisons now approaching a death a day.”

She said at the time that Traywick’s last disciplinary was in 2021 and he works as an autobody repair trainer. She added a “top clinical therapist in Alabama” was committed to working with Traywick for his long-term care.

The victim in the case spoke against Traywick’s parole that morning, along with a victim’s representative and a representative of the Alabama Attorney General’s Office.

“Words cannot describe what I’ve went through the past 18 years to know… that I couldn’t walk into my house without the fear of somebody following me home again,” she said.

All three board members, according to a standard document mailed to Traywick after the hearing, identified Traywick as “high risk” or “very high risk” on his risk assessment sheet—an internal document used to aid parole decisions.

Faraino said the board designated Traywick a high-risk category “without evidentiary support” and violated their own policies, the Alabama Administrative Procedure Act, and their statutory duties.

The designation came from Traywick’s Ohio Risk Assessment System analysis, which the state board uses as an aide in its decision making. They do not have to follow the assessment or their own parole guidelines, and have total discretion in decisions.

“This designation was plainly false,” wrote Faraino. “There is no valid evidence to support such a classification, and it is contrary to what the ORAS score would have shown had it been applied accurately.”

The inaccurate ORAS score, according to Faraino, influenced the board’s decision and Traywick’s denial of parole. According to the lawyer, an independent ORAS evaluator spoke with Traywick and rated him between low and medium risk.

The board members also cited two other reasons for Traywick’s denial: Negative input from stakeholders and the severity of the crime.

Traywick, also known as Swift Justice, is a co-founder of a prison advocacy group called Unheard Voices of the Concrete Jungle.

On Thursday, Traywick penned a letter to Azzie Oliver, the Montgomery County District Attorney, asking for Gwathney to be also investigated criminally “for knowingly and willfully neglecting her mandatory duties during the parole consideration process in my case.”

In his letter, obtained by AL.com, Traywick wrote that he believed Gwathney and the other two board members’ actions were “not merely administrative negligence but a targeted act of retaliation against me due to my public exposure of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles through media platforms and advocacy efforts that have criticized the Board’s systemic failures.”

Traywick mentioned a video that was played during his parole hearing, which his lawyer recorded of him in prison. The videos are a way parole board members can hear directly from an applicant, as inmates aren’t allowed to attend their own hearings. In his video, Traywick said he “expressed honest and forthright opinions about the Board’s dysfunction and abuse of authority.”

“It is no coincidence that, following this lawful exercise of speech and criticism, the Board—led by Chair Gwathney—falsely designated me as high-risk and denied parole based on a knowingly inaccurate record,” he wrote to the district attorney.

He asked the prosecutor to open a criminal investigation into Gwathney and to “ensure that state officials are held accountable to the same standards of justice as any private citizen.”

Faraino included a separate letter of her own with a similar call for a criminal investigation.

“I am fully aware that parole is a privilege, not a right; however, Alabama law is clear that every person is entitled to an impartial hearing before an impartial Board based on accurate facts — and that is not what is happening under Ms. Gwathney’s direction,” she wrote.

“At my client’s request, and because of the public trust at stake, I am also making this letter public. I believe that those with the power to determine who remains in prison should be held to the same — if not a higher — standard of compliance with the law as those whose freedom they control.”

She said Traywick’s denial “is not an isolated incident but part of a broader pattern of disregarding statutory requirements meant to ensure parole decisions are based on valid, objective criteria.”

Faraino told AL.com via email, “When the head of Alabama’s parole board admits to changing official scores and ignoring basic guidelines, that’s not politics — that’s a direct attack on the integrity of our laws. If people inside prison face felony charges for violating Alabama statutes, the people deciding their fate should face the same consequences when they break it.”

Gwathney did not respond for a request for comment before publication.