JD Crowe: Up for parole in Alabama? Abandon all hope, yâall
This is an opinion cartoon.
My colleague Ivana Hrynkiw is taking a deep look at what’s crowding Alabama prisons — a parole system bent on not letting anyone out, even the elderly and the terminally ill. Read the first story – link posted below – and be sure to follow the series.
Alabama has stopped nearly all paroles: Explaining the Leigh Gwathney effect – al.com
Excerpts from Ivana Hrynkiw’s story:
Thomas Owens can’t move his arms or his legs, so his likelihood of committing another property crime is low.
Yet, one member of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles still voted last fall that the 34-year-old quadriplegic man should remain in prison. Board Chair Leigh Gwathney alone voted not to parole Owens to a long-term healthcare facility.
But Owens need not take it personally. Gwathney votes against nearly everyone whose case comes before the all-powerful parole board, a board that today serves as the cap on the shaken-up bottle that is the state’s troubled, jampacked prison system.
“I am convinced that the public should know that the chairman of the parole board voted to deny the medical parole of a nonviolent offender who is a quadriplegic, completely bedridden, and spends most of the day in a catatonic state,” said Sue Bell Cobb, whose legal foundation represents Owens.
“I don’t know how she sleeps at night,” said Cobb, the former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice who today runs a nonprofit that focuses on parole for prisoners with medical conditions. Alabama doesn’t grant many of those either.
Related: Parole denied for 68-year-old in Alabama: ‘A life sentence for growing marijuana’ – al.com
More related content:
JD Crowe: Alabama prisons: Missing a heart, literally and figuratively – al.com
Kay Ivey haunted by ghosts and governors of Alabama death penalty – al.com
Death penalty ‘needs killing:’ Alabama’s next execution should be its last – al.com
Alabama prison horror story – al.com
Alabama is a prisoner in its own horror story – al.com
Dead man talking: ‘I survived Alabama execution attempt’ – al.com
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JD Crowe is the cartoonist for Alabama Media Group and AL.com. He won the RFK Human Rights Award for Editorial Cartoons in 2020. In 2018, he was awarded the Rex Babin Memorial Award for local and state cartoons by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Follow JD on Facebook, Twitter @Crowejam and Instagram @JDCrowepix. Give him a holler @[email protected].
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