April 6, 2005

Thank you for writing to me. This letter is written in an effort to continue to keep you updated on the current issues regarding parole and parole related issues, as well as to address some of the repetitive questions asked in the letters I receive from the inmate population. I receive approximately 40 to 50 letters per week from inmates and although I do attempt to respond to each letter on an individual basis, it has become apparent to me the questions I am being asked over and over need to be addressed on a broad scale, thereby allowing me to spend more time addressing individual inmate concerns.

INMATE ELIGIBILITY DATE = TIME FRAME FOR HIRING AN ATTORNEY FOR PAROLE ASSISTANCE:

All inmates entering TDCJ-ID will receive an eligibility date, be interviewed by IPO and have a chance to present evidence to the Parole Board as to why he/she should be granted the privilege of parole and enter society under parole supervision. Most inmates are under the one -fourth rule - an inmate may be reviewed for parole when he/she has served one-fourth of his/her sentence. This is computed by adding together his/her accumulated good time and actual time served. When the sum of these two equals one-fourth of his/her sentence, he/she is eligible for parole. Presently the Parole Board is reviewing inmate files approximately 6 months prior to the eligibility date and can vote on the file any time during the four months prior and up to the eligibility date. The remaining inmates are under the one-half rule -these cases are usually cases in which there has been an affirmative finding of the use of a deadly weapon or the case is a 3g offense. Inmates with these particular cases must serve one-half of their sentence before they are eligible for parole. They also go into review six-months prior to the eligibility date and can be voted any time during the four months prior and up to the eligibility date.

Should an inmate or his family wish to hire an attorney for parole assistance, the attorney needs to be hired at least nine-months prior to the eligibility date to allow the attorney time to properly address the file and in some cases, make payment arrangements to assist the payee. For example: I am sending you this letter in April 2005 and as of today’s date, I am not accepting parole assistance cases for inmates whose eligibility date is any earlier than December 2005. If payment arrangements need to be made, a time frame needs to be allowed for that. I will diligently work for clients, but must ask my clients to give me time to do so. The earlier I am hired, the better I can assist the inmate. Hesitation to hire me for parole assistance has been a continuing problem in my efforts to represent inmates and can easily be alleviated by hiring me well in advance of the eligibility date.

PAROLE BOARD VOTING OPTIONS:

The following are the different types of Parole Board voting options for release to parole:

DISCRETIONARY MANDATORY RELEASE, HB-1433 & RULE 145.13 CASES ON OR AFTER 09-01-1996:

The Parole Board must answer yes to both of the following questions to vote DMS (Deny Mandatory Supervision):

The initial or first DMS shall be reviewed one-year from the date of the current vote, if there is subsequent DMS votes, they will be reviewed one- year from the current DMS date. The type of vote the Parole Board will make will be the following:

SB-45 VOTING OPTIONS:

COMMUTATION OF SENTENCE OR “TIME CUT”:

All of the following are required for an inmate receive a “Time Cut”:

As you can see from the above procedural requirements it is almost impossible to receive a “Time Cut” in the State of Texas.

PAROLE APPROVAL RATES:

Presently, I am unable to give you a complete breakdown of the parole release rates as I have done in the past. The Criminal Justice Policy Council which was the agency that compiled the statistical analysis of the Parole Board Members votes has been dissolved. This information is now being compiled by the Legislative Budget Board. The following are the release rates for February 2005. The percentage is the year to date percentage:

If you review my October 2004 letter you will see there has been a drop in the number of inmates receiving parole. In October 2004, the year-to-date release rate was 31.50%. Other examples are Aggravated no sex offense 28.22%,Non-violent no sex 37.34%, and Violent Not Agg.-no sex19.67%. This could be a very disturbing trend because, during legislative sessions the parole board attempts to keep the release rate at a politically acceptable rate. The rate appears to be dropping even though Senator Whitmire, the Chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee as well as various newspapers across the state have strongly argued for a higher release rate.

HOUSE BILL 681:

This is a very frightening bill which is proposed by the present Legislature. Please understand that this bill has not come out of committee yet and it has therefore not been voted by the full Legislature, neither the Senate nor the House and it has not been signed into law by the governor. The present bill proposes an inmate shall forfeit his good-time if the Court of Criminal Appeals deems his writ application to be frivolous. The Legislature has never before sought to impair the filing of writ applications. This bill is therefore unprecedented. While the Legislature did pass a law docking inmates for filing frivolous lawsuits, it has never passed a law doing the same for writ applications. You should have your loved ones contact the Corrections Committee at 512-463-0492 and voice opposition to this bill.

WHY SHOULD AN INMATE CONSIDER HIRING AN ATTORNEY FOR PAROLE ASSISTANCE:

In the 11 years I have been representing inmates before the Parole Board, I have discovered that inmates and their families creating their own parole packages do not include evidence which could convince the Parole Board why they should release a particular individual from prison; or, they totally disregard the evidence and insist on arguing a position which is not backed up by facts.

The Parole Board does not retry an inmate’s case. That is not to say that certain evidence could show the inmate was not an active participant of the crime, or the crime was not as heinous as it appears to be. Most individuals are not familiar with the Parole Board and attempt to make the evidence fit their theory of the case instead of allowing the evidence to lead them to a conclusion. If an inmate or the family members are not capable of objectively following the evidence to its logical conclusion and arguing from that evidence, then I believe representation by an attorney would be preferable.

Another problem with an inmate representing himself/herself or a family member representing an inmate, is the inability of the inmate or the family member to openly communicate and truthfully discuss the negative aspects of the inmate’s file. On many occasions I have seen the inmate or his/her family members argue that the inmate was not an active participant in the crime, but instead was merely an observer who happened to be caught at the scene. Quite often, this can fly in the face of numerous witness statements, police reports, or trial testimony. When this occurs, the inmate or his/her family members lose all credibility, and the Parole Board generally denies parole. Obviously, a good parole attorney, who has maintained his/her credibility with the Parole Board will have an advantage when presenting documented information and/or arguing in the inmate’s behalf to the Board. A good attorney will research every aspect of the case, the client’s life, both in and out of prison, and based upon the evidence he/she has accumulated be able to present a strong, persuasive argument as to why his/her client should be released to parole. If he/she has followed the trail of evidence and has tailored his/her argument to conform to the evidence as to why the inmate should to be released to parole, the chances of the inmate receiving a favorable vote are greatly increased because of the attorney’s credibility with the Parole Board Members and Commissioners.

Most family members do not understand that the Parole Board is made up of human beings and they, like anyone else, perceive certain information in a certain way. The easiest way to explain this is to understand the following: the Parole Board is the only entity available to release an inmate to parole. If the board believes an inmate has a particular problem and that particular problem has not been addressed, there is a strong probability the Parole Board will not release the inmate to parole. I often recommend that inmates take certain courses or follow certain courses of action even though there may not be any material facts contained within the file to cause the Parole Board to believe these actions are necessary. The cumulative evidence in an inmate’s file might cause the Board to perceive the inmate has a need for a particular course of rehabilitation. For example, an inmate might need to participate in drug treatment/counseling, although he/she has never been arrested for any drug offense or even used drugs.

I also recommend that an attorney be hired if the family is incapable of writing a short story about the inmate which will grab the Parole Board Members’ attention and cause them to want to read further about the inmate’s life and aspirations. On average, the Parole Board votes on a file in less than four minutes. It is important to grab the Parole Board Members attention and cause them to desire to read further into the file. When I represent an inmate, I submit a parole assistance package to the Parole Board, they read it and then I am almost always granted about 30 to 45 minutes of the first voting member’s time to argue in my client’s behalf.

An inmate and his/her family should expect an attorney to diligently investigate every fact situation and follow the facts to a logical conclusion. The attorney should gather all the necessary facts, organize and design a parole package, and submit same to the Parole Board in a timely manner. Doing so will help the Parole Board understand the inmate’s prior life, present prison life, the overall situation, and future goals. The package should be a means by which the inmate can communicate to the Parole Board. The attorney should request an appearance before the first voting board member. The inmate and his family should receive a copy of the parole package submitted to the parole panel. Finally, the inmate should be informed of the decision by the Parole Board whether it is favorable or not. If an attorney, or someone assisting the family, is not willing to do these things, then I would strongly recommend seeking assistance elsewhere.

ATTORNEY PRESENTATION:

One of the first things that an inmate or his/her family should know is that all documentation contained within an inmate’s file is negative. Part of what I do, is present a person to the Board, instead of just another TDCJ number that represents one more convicted felon(s) who is eligible for parole. The Parole Board generally spends approximately 2 - 3 minutes deciding whether to release and inmate to parole or not. I must get the Board’s attention, hold their attention and present a human being to them, who although convicted of a crime or crimes is a good candidate for release to parole and why.

Although I do not have any facts about the tasks performed by other attorneys representing inmates, I can explain to you some of the tasks I perform which may be part of why my fees are sometimes higher than other attorneys. I conduct a thorough investigation of the inmate’s life and gather any and all documented facts, among other things. Initially, a questionnaire exceeding 100 questions is sent out to each client, the trial attorney is contacted if possible, court documents are gathered, medical records and psychological reports are gathered, TDCJ records such as minute sheets, time sheets, disciplinary records, etc. are gathered, trial transcripts are purchased, appellate briefs and any and all other such documentation is gathered, read and analyzed. Upon completion of the investigative stage, a personalized package for each client is then prepared and submitted to the Board along with a request to appear before the Board to argue in my client’s behalf. Also, when I am hired well in advance, I am able to work with the inmate to assist him/her in preparing himself/herself to be as favorably viewed as possible. As you can see, there is an extraordinary amount of work involved to meet the standards and requirements I have set for myself in thoroughly representing an inmate and it is a very time consuming and work intensive job. Time is always of the essence and the more time I have to perform the tasks at hand by being hired well in advance of the inmate’s eligibility date, the better for my client. Every inmate is eventually going to be reviewed by the Board. If I am hired well in advance of an inmate’s eligibility date, I will have the needed time frame within which to help prepare an inmate to be a good candidate for release to parole, to gather the needed information and prepare the written documentation to be submitted to the Board, and to argue in behalf of my client before the Board if granted an appearance.

NO TIME TO WASTE FOR PAROLE ASSISTANCE:

Many inmates and their families contact me regarding parole assistance. Unfortunately, a great deal of the time, I am unable to offer my assistance due to the fact they have waited too late to contact me and there is just simply nothing I can do. Parole assistance is a time-consuming task and much of our work is done far in advance of the parole eligibility date. The packages prepared by this office are not some type of a form which simply requires us to “fill in the blanks.” Each package is individualized and therefore there is a lot of work that must be done well in advance of an inmate’s parole eligibility date. My packages will meet my very high standards as well as the Board’s expectations from me. I will not lower or compromise these standards or expectations for any reason. Should you decide to obtain my services to prepare a parole assistance package, do so well in advance of your parole eligibility date. Some Parole Boards are presently voting on some files 4 months prior to the first review date. Once a set-off is received, there is no appeal from the Parole Board’s decision and a special review is very difficult to obtain.

Time payment plan: If you decide to hire me and do so well in advance of your eligibility date, I can design a time payment plan for your family or loved ones, but I must be paid in full before I submit the parole package or request an appearance before the Parole Board to argue for the inmate’s release to parole. If you wait until the last minute, the entire fee is going to be due immediately. The time payment plan has been very helpful to many of my clients who have limited financial resources and thereby allowed them to hire me without causing them financial distress because they have hired me many months or even years in advance. (Example: I was able to help such a family convince the Parole Board to release an inmate who had been convicted of possessing 5 kilos of cocaine to a FI-1 parole on the inmate’s first parole review date, and an inmate charged with Involuntary Manslaughter received an FI-6)

Therefore, should you wish to hire me to assist you with parole or any parole related issues, time is of the essence. There is no time to waste. A competent parole attorney must have a minimum of 3 months prior to the 6 month review stage of an inmate’s file by the Board to investigate, gather documentation and produce a worthwhile parole assistance package. The investigative stage conducted by this office is a very time consuming and expensive matter and requires a considerable amount of dedication and work to complete. Do not wait until your file is almost in review status or in review status to hire an attorney. Documenting every aspect of my client’s life, his/her accomplishments, his/her rehabilitation, as well as many other factors, along with the credibility I have built with the Board Members, are some of the reasons I have been able to maintain an 80% release rate for my clients over the many years I have represented inmates before the Board.

WHO CAN REPRESENT INMATES:

I would like to state there are some individuals who are preying upon inmates and their families offering parole assistance who are not licensed attorneys. For your protection as well as your family members or loved one(s) please be informed, if you are considering hiring anyone other than a licensed attorney to assist you, take heed that the law requires under Govt. Code § 508.083 (a) A person who represents inmates for compensation must: (1) be a licensed attorney licensed in this state; and (2) register with the division.

Please do not send any of your documentation to me prior to retaining me. On numerous occasions, inmates who have not retained my services have sent documentation to me requesting that I review it. I am sorry to say that I cannot perform that type of free service. I am contractually obligated to spend my time working on the files of paying clients. Also, I cannot and will not be responsible for such documentation nor can I afford to pay postage cost to return it, therefore it must be destroyed. So please, unless I am your retained attorney, do not send any of your documentation to this office.

Again, thank you for writing to me. I hope I have answered some of your questions and also updated you on some of the current parole related issues. Whatever your decision may be, I wish you the very best of luck. Remember, now is the time to prepare for your possible release to parole.