Authorities had two chances to give convicted gunman Tremaine Lebis lengthy prison terms after he was arrested for illegally possessing handguns.
Instead of getting years of prison time, Lebis got six months in jail followed by six months in prison.
On Dec. 17, just seven months after his release, Lebis shot and killed a rookie Clayton County Police officer who had responded to a domestic disturbance, authorities said. Lebis, 41, was also killed in an ensuing shootout.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution review of court files dating back 20 years show there were plenty of warnings of Lebis’ propensity for violence and mental illness. They also show the tough decisions local prosecutors and the State Board of Pardons and Paroles must make when dealing with such offenders.
The parole board gave Lebis a second chance at freedom even though the convicted violent felon had been arrested while on parole for carrying guns. Henry County prosecutors could have used Georgia gun laws to give Lebis serious prison time but instead agreed to probation and a brief stint in jail after Lebis’ first parole was revoked. For them, it was a matter of weighing the risk of Lebis turning violent again against the goal of reintegrating him back into society under the supervision of a parole officer.
“He was a tragedy waiting to happen,” Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said. “Within six months after his release, he’s got a gun and is in an armed confrontation with police. … It really highlights the almost impossible job the Board of Pardons and Paroles has.”
Lebis was first convicted of a felony in December 1992 when a Gwinnett jury found him guilty of shooting his roommate and partner in crime, Donnie Joyce, in the back of the head. Police said it was nothing short of a miracle that Joyce survived the shooting.
The shooting occurred in the pre-dawn hours of April 14, 1992, after Joyce and Lebis decided to go “creeping” – their term for driving to neighborhoods with darkened streets to break in to cars and take whatever they could find inside. The men put on dark clothing, grabbed screwdrivers and flashlights and set off with two others.
What Joyce didn’t know, prosecutors would later say, was that Lebis had a festering grudge against him and was determined to kill him.
The group drove to Norcross and settled on Langhorn Way. Lebis and Joyce jumped out and quickly broke into a car, taking what they could find and then turning back to their friends.
With Joyce leading the way, Lebis, without warning, pulled a .38-caliber handgun from his waist and fired a round into the back of Joyce’s head from about three feet away, according to court records.
“This is basically, for want of a fraction of an inch, an-almost murder case,” Assistant District Attorney David Keeton would later tell jurors.
Joyce, who later was convicted of child molestation, wasn’t killed because the bullet, which entered the lower left side on the back of his head, deflected off a molar, Keeton said.
Before trial, a Gwinnett Superior Court judge had ordered Lebis to undergo a mental health evaluation. After interviewing him, a psychologist made some disturbing findings.
Lebis told the psychologist his father had committed suicide after being institutionalized. Lebis said he had tried to commit suicide, slitting his wrists when he was 18, and that he had twice been admitted for mental health treatment at two facilities in Florida.
Howard Albrecht, a senior psychologist at Georgia Mental Health Institute, wrote in the July 23, 1992, report, that Lebis had a “severe personality disorder.” Lebis had grandiose thoughts, was suspicious of others, had problems with self esteem and had difficulty controlling his anger, the report said.
“He is an individual who clearly pushes both things and people to their limits,” Albrecht wrote.
Albrecht recommended that Lebis receive psychological counseling. A Department of Corrections spokeswoman said the agency was not authorized to disclose whether Lebis received mental health treatment during his incarceration.
For his aggravated assault conviction, Lebis got 20 years in prison. But a few years later, he was convicted of a prison escape. He received another four years, making April 14, 2016 his maximum release date from prison.
Lebis obtained his parole in October 2008, but less than three years later Henry County police arrested Lebis again after he claimed an unknown assailant had shot him in his hand while he was driving his moped through the woods.
As it turned out, Lebis had accidentally shot himself in the hand. But he wasn’t about to admit to that because it would have made him a convicted felon who illegally possessed a handgun.
After police saw through the ruse, they charged Lebis with just that — a convicted felon who had two pistols, a 40-caliber Beretta and a 22-caliber Ruger. They also charged him with making a false police report.
Lebis faced five years in prison for the illegal weapons charge. But Henry County prosecutors plea-bargained with Lebis, giving him five years’ probation and six months’ time he had already served in jail awaiting trial in exchange for a guilty plea.
For his new convictions, Lebis also could have had his parole revoked and be required to serve up to five more years in prison.
Lebis’ parole officer did send Lebis back to prison, but the only reason cited was the false police report, parole records show. The state Board of Pardons and Paroles released him again in May, nine months after his parole was officially revoked.
The light sentence and the parole surprised veteran defense lawyer Lee Sexton, who represented Lebis for a time.
“One would think, with the revocation of parole and the new charges, he would serve the entire term,” Sexton said. “They’ll keep somebody charged with felony possession of marijuana and then somebody who shoots somebody on the street, they let him go.”
Henry County prosecutors also didn’t view the gun charge as warranting more time behind bars in part because Lebis hadn’t used the guns in a violent crime, said David Slemons, the assistant district attorney who handled the case.
In explaining the plea bargain, Slemons also noted Lebis had his parole revoked and his previous gun crime was two decades ago. “How much time do you want to give somebody for shooting himself?” the prosecutor said. “If he had pointed it at somebody else, that is a prison case, but he didn’t.”
Seven months after Lebis’ release from prison, Sean Louis Callahan, the 24-year-old rookie cop from Clayton County, responded to a fight involving Lebis and his wife Lisa at a Stockbridge motel.
Lebis had acquired another gun. He fled from Callahan, then turned and fired. The shots fatally struck the officer, who had been on the force just four months, twice in the head, according to police.
Veteran parole board member Robert Keller, a retired Clayton County district attorney, said he didn’t know why the board had paroled Lebis so soon after picking up another firearm’s charge while on parole the first time.
“I don’t know any of the facts of why we did what we did or the circumstances,” Keller told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Those are good questions: Why did we do what we did? And I’m sure we had a good explanation for it.”
The parole board staff was mum on the possible reasoning. Spokesman Steve Hayes said by law the reason was a “state secret.” “It is just a case by case basis,” Hayes said. “The board decisions are confidential.”
Former parole board Chairman Wayne Garner said the board often paroles inmates in hope that a supervised release will allow them to integrate back into society more successfully as opposed to just releasing him after his sentence.
“Do you max him out or do you let him out early and see how he does?” said Garner, a former commissioner of the state Department of Corrections. “It seems to work better when you have a cushion of a few years to work with him.”
He said the fact Lebis picked up a gun charge made the decision more problematic.
“That’s not a good indicator when you have had somebody in prison for what he did and then catch him with a firearm,” he said. “If you get caught with a shotgun that is one thing, but if you get caught with a Glock or some kind of assault weapon that is a whole other thing.”
But he said the parole board has a good batting average on deciding whom to release. While the recidivism rate wasn’t low, convicts generally returned for technical violations or drug offenses, not crimes of violence.
He noted the Lebis case would make those decisions harder for the parole board.
“It would be hard to determine if he had that level of violence in him after 16 years,” Garner said. “In this case, where a person who is paroled after serving 80 percent of his sentence, that he would go out and kill somebody, that is really rare. But when it happens, it is really tough thing.”
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