This newspaper’s recent reporting revealed Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Paroles dramatically increased the restoration of gun rights to felons in recent years and did so under the cloak of secrecy. That has stirred a public outcry, and appropriately so.
Surely the process of returning the right to possess weapons to convicted felons should be done carefully, openly and with an opportunity for input from victims, family members and other interested citizens. The fact that this process takes place behind closed doors with no accountability is a license for abuse.
But scrutiny of the secrecy surrounding the board should not end there. Various states around the country have been looking at the lack of transparency in their parole boards for years. The issue of prime concern to the First Amendment community is not whether any given defendant is released; rather, it is that the public knows almost nothing about the process of release.
For example, this past summer, when the death sentence of a convicted murderer was commuted at the 11th hour by the parole board, the Dawson County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution to go to the board asking that details of the commutation be released. The Georgia Sheriff’s Association also sent a letter seeking that information.
This newspaper has analyzed the secret proceedings of the parole board. While the board may be on legally solid ground, the policy reasons that belie such legality defy common sense.
The board purportedly has a mission to further public safety by reviewing, scrutinizing and limiting incarceration periods for convicted individuals. Yet looking at the bigger tapestry, a judge and jury listen to a trial in an open courtroom and make a public decision about a defendant. Why then, years later, should analogous decisions about that same defendant be made in a closed setting?
In its own rules and regulations, the parole board repeatedly cites the public’s interest. In reference to the commutation of sentences, the board’s rule purports to consider the “best interests of society.” In reference to withdrawing relief, the board’s rule nods to whether a decision is “in the public interest to do so.” Moreover, when the board issues an order, it notifies the parolee’s last known residence’s sheriff, district attorney and presiding judge. Even the board’s preamble rule notes that it should adopt and promulgate rules and regulations consistent with state law.
But while the state’s Open Meetings Act allows a narrow and limited exception for deliberations and votes for the parole board, all exceptions in the act should be narrowly construed, not broadly, as is the case with this board.
In short, the parole board gives lip service to the public interest. The reality is that the public knows very little about this board and its processes and procedures — and it needs to. On the flip side, the board has given no reason — even one to give lip service to — for its cloak of secrecy.
The term “public interest” is not merely a generality. An informed community is a better community, and the public needs information to make better decisions. To the extent the parole board commutes a sentence of a convicted felon, the defendant’s community wants to know why. To the extent the board does so, the crime victim wants to know why. The board reviews the sentences of defendants convicted of violent crimes, sex crimes, crimes against minors and crimes involving substances abuse and against property. And the board may decide to release these individuals.
Who but the public has a greater interest in knowing when, why and for what reasons a certain defendant is released to his former community? If this is not an interest of public safety — a term all too frequently and generally used — then what is?
Transparency becomes a popular concept usually upon the public’s discovery of some incident or other matter coming to light well after the fact, when the public has suffered some harm. Given the current closed nature of this particular state board, now is the time to push for a change in openness in its proceedings.
