This is an opinion column.

Gov. Kay Ivey has a list. A list of names. A list of names submitted by a trio of presumably astute parties: Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, Senate President Pro Tempore Garland Gudger and House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter.

Names for the governor to consider appointing as chair of the Alabama Bureau of Pardon and Paroles — that less-than-august three-headed body that does very little pardonin’ and parolin’.

We don’t know the names on this list. The astute submitters sent a list of five. Then, of course, anyone could whisper a name in Gov. Ivey’s ear.

I’ll take a swing and presume one name in front of her, whether submitted or whispered, is Leigh Gwathney.

She’s the current pardon and paroles chair, a seat she’s coldly warmed since 2019 when Gov. Ivey initially appointed her to do exactly what she’s done: Close the gates.

That swiftly followed yet another knee-jerk move by our Republican super-majority state legislature, a bill rushed toward passage and law under the guise of “reform” after the then-board botched the case of Jimmy O’Neal Spencer.

Serving two life sentences after eight convictions, including robbery, escape and assault, going back to 1984, Spencer was paroled in November 2017. He went on to be convicted of seven counts of capital murder for killing Martha Dell Reliford, Marie Kitchens Martin, and Martin’s seven-year-old great-grandson, Colton Ryan Lee in Guntersville.

In the legislative session following Spencer’s arrest, state lawmakers wretched parole board nominating power from a commission and handed it to the aforementioned presumably astute parties.

“The paramount duty of this board is to protect and instill confidence in public safety,” Ivey crowed after signing the rushed bill into law.

So here we are: Six years after Gwathney, a former Alabama assistant attorney general, did exactly what she was supposed to do — allow almost no one to walk through the gates of Alabama’s horrid prisons into a second chance, no matter what the board’s own recommendations.

Keep them behind bars, behind the wall, even as many are deemed safe enough to work beyond the walls for companies (though for pennies, not even for Alabama’s paltry minimum wage) and interact with us as part of the prison system’s work release program.

Yet they’re not safe enough to live beyond the walls and pursue a life that embodies true reform.

In her time, Gwathney almost overwhelmingly voted no to freedom and yes to feeding the state’s prison work release machine, at a much higher rate than fellow board members Darryl Littleton and Gabrelle Simmons.

In her time, the grant rate plummeted to 31% in Year One. Then 20% in 2020, 15% in 2021, 10% in 2022 and a feckless 8% in 2023 (297 paroles granted in 3,583 hearings). The board’s own recommendation was that about 8 in 10 applicants should qualify for release.

In her time, too, Gwathney favored putting off the option for another hearing for five years, the maximum allowed by the law.

Call it The Gwathney Effect.

In 2024, that egregious effect was masterfully exposed by my AL.com colleagues, led by Ivana Hrynkiw, in the series Denied: Alabama’s broken parole system.

The board was shamed into ever-so-slightly reforming itself. Though Gwathney still voted no far more than otherwise, the board granted 20% of parole requests in 2024 and is on track for a 21% grant rate this year. (For context, rate was a high of 55% in 2017).

Before the most recent legislative session, before lawmakers who finally began to see the folly of the Gwathney Effect, the chair stumbled trying to explain the board’s process, why not only did it ignore its own recommendations – but why it didn’t even adhere to its required review of its guidelines every three years.

“Fair enough,” Gwathney said.

Governor, at the risk of repeating my call from last August: Gwathney must go.

Her time is up.

The chair’s term ended today and if her name is among those in front of you, governor, she must not be reappointed for another six-year term.

Not if true prison reform — if offering any counter to the lawsuit levied against the state by the U.S. Department of Justice (whatever’s left of it), charging our prisons with being inhumane and unconstitutional — means anything to you.

Not if fairness, empathy and common sense—while, yes, being mindful of public safety— mean anything to you.

Not if providing the deserved a second chance means even as much as spending $1.25 billion and counting on a new 4,000-bed prison (work release dorm?) in Elmore County.

Pick another name, governor. Or your legacy will be little more than slapping your name above a mega-prison gate.

We’ll call it The Ivey Effect.

Let’s be better tomorrow than we are today. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, Instagram @roysj and BlueSky.