Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 4, 1994 TAG: 9409060043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS AND BOB EVANS FOR THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
When Gov. George Allen sponsored a statewide television program in June to promote his no-parole plan, he began the broadcast with testimonials from five people whose loved ones had been murdered.
Allen said his anti-crime program would have prevented those deaths, as well as the rape of a Chesapeake woman and the murder of a Newport News policeman, by keeping "violent, career criminals behind bars, where they belong."
His aides acknowledge that the criminals in five of the seven cases would have been free to rape or kill, even under the Allen plan. In a sixth case, it's uncertain whether a previous conviction would have kept the criminal in prison long enough to prevent the crime.
Even though Allen told viewers that his proposal "would have protected all of the victims and the victims' families that we just saw at the opening of this show," only one crime clearly would have been prevented, according to court records and the Allen administration.
Allen and his aides have presented their plan as an assault on parolees. After showing the five testimonials, a narrator said: "Five separate cases of murder. Five different families affected. But all share a common enemy - parole."
In fact, four of the seven crimes did not involve Virginia parolees, court records show. In a fifth case, a person who was on parole would have been released a few months earlier under the Allen sentencing recommendations than he actually was.
An Allen spokesman said the governor was not trying to mislead the viewers of the broadcast and that Allen stands behind his claim that the crimes would have been prevented.
From "a strict constructionist point of view ... it certainly appears on the surface" that Allen's claim is incorrect, said Kenneth Stroupe, Allen's press secretary.
But Allen thinks his plan is so tough that the criminals responsible for these seven crimes would have been too afraid of the consequences to pull the triggers or rape their victims, Stroupe said.
Allen dedicated the June television show to Newport News police officer Larry Bland, who was gunned down in his patrol car in May. Carol Ann Schindler, a Newport News police officer who was Bland's fiancee, appeared on the program. She said Friday she was surprised to find out that Allen's plan would not have prevented the release of all the criminals responsible for the seven crimes featured on the show.
``I guess I thought all those people who did these things had committed something and then [been] released on parole,'' Schindler said. ``I'm so angry. I thought that redoing the parole system would accomplish something. And I wanted to help the governor.''
Schindler said she still wants to help Allen abolish parole and supports him "100 percent." Even though his plan does not go far enough, she said, it is still a move in the right direction.
Linda Pitman, who was raped in 1989 and appointed by Allen this year to the Virginia Parole Board as a victims' rights advocate, said she was surprised during the broadcast when the governor referred to her case as an example of a parolee's violence.
``I thought, `Maybe they know something I don't know,''' Pitman said Friday. She said she later did some research and sent a message to Allen through an aide that she did not believe her assailant was a parolee. At first, that message did not get through, she said, but now she says she's sure the governor knows the truth.
"Governor Allen would never, ever intentionally mislead,'' Pitman said. "I felt real bad for him ... It wasn't his fault.''
Stroupe said the Allen administration did not research the specifics of the crimes Allen referred to. He also said the governor could not have known during the broadcast precisely how his plan would affect the seven crimes because the details of his plan had not yet been worked out.
Last week, after agreeing to meet with reporters to discuss the seven cases, Allen staffers compiled a list of 18 criminals whose 28 violent crimes would have been prevented under Allen's plan. Stroupe said those names were only a few of the thousands of violent criminals whose future crimes would be prevented by the Allen plan.
Allen has called a special session of the legislature for Sept. 19 to act on his $850 million plan. The administration says the proposal will prevent 120,000 crimes over a decade and would have prevented about 1,600 violent crimes between 1986 and 1993.
Critics say those numbers are suspect, and - even if correct - represent only a small fraction of violent crimes during those years. The 78 murders that Allen says would have been prevented are 1.9 percent of the murders recorded by state police during that time.
Similarly, figures cited by the Allen administration represent 1 percent of reported rapes, 0.6 percent of reported robberies and 0.5 percent of aggravated assaults.
Key Democratic lawmakers say debate over Allen's plan to eliminate parole and dramatically increase some prison terms is likely to focus on whether the plan will prevent enough crime to be worth its cost.
To rally the public behind its cause, the Allen administration has gathered numerous crime victims to appear with him at public rallies and on television. The administration plans a television advertising blitz keyed to the special legislative session.
It's a strategy similar to that used during the June show, broadcast on all of the state's public television stations.
The show's opening segment consisted of five people describing how their loved ones' lives were taken. Allen parole commission member Jo Ann Bruce, whose daughter was murdered in 1990 in Henrico County, arranged the interviews for an earlier television program, said Eric Finkbeiner, an aide to the governor.
After the segment, Allen spoke:
"It's time for major reconstructive surgery on our entire criminal justice system ... What we're going to talk about tonight is not about politics and convoluted insider procedures.
"It's about establishing a criminal justice system that, if it had been in place, would have kept my commission member Jo Ann Bruce's daughter from being raped and killed, and would have protected all of the victims and victims' families which we just saw at the opening of this show.
"It's about incapacitating career criminals so that police officers like Larry Bland in Newport News are not viciously gunned down in the line of duty while protecting law-abiding citizens.
"It's about making sure that more violent sex offenders aren't released to go out and brutally rape another woman like Linda Pitman, a victim who I just appointed to the Parole Board."
In fact, Tony Brown, the man who raped Pitman, had never been convicted of a felony crime in Virginia, so he never had been released from prison, according to Paul Hedges, a policy assistant to the governor who researched the seven cases in response to reporters' inquiries. Pitman was the first of three women Brown raped, and Brown wasn't caught until three years after that crime, court records show.
Hedges also provided an analysis of the effect of the Allen plan on the other six cases featured in the June television show.
Robert Douglas Knight. Knight murdered Dawn Rachelle Bruce, the 22-year-old daughter of Jo Ann Bruce, in March 1990. Before that, Knight's only convictions were for misdemeanor assaults, crimes that carry no additional penalty under the Allen plan. Knight was not a parolee, Hedges said.
Michael Wayne Williams. Williams murdered Mary Elizabeth Keller, 36, and Morris C. Keller, 45, in Cumberland County in January 1993. He had been released on parole in July 1992 after serving 40 months of a 15-year sentence for stealing cars, possessing drugs and trespassing.
According to Allen's aides, Williams probably would have been released earlier under the Allen plan, which would call for a recommended sentence of 25 to 37 months for the theft, drug and trespassing charges.
Michael Fowler and Rodney L. Morton. Fowler and Morton were convicted of first-degree murder in the 1992 shooting death of Corey A. Vaughan near the state fairgrounds in Henrico County.
Fowler had no criminal record. Morton had been convicted of unlawful wounding in 1986 and served 15 months, about the same time the Allen plan would recommend for that offense. Hedges and Finkbeiner said Allen's parole commission considered increasing the penalty for unlawful wounding, but opted not to. The typical unlawful wounding is a barroom fight between drunks, not a premeditated crime, Hedges said.
In the video shown in June, Vaughan's mother described the murder: "They were just listening to music. They were out there having a good time. There were people sitting on the front porch. It was a nice spring Sunday afternoon. And these guys just came out shooting at them."
According to testimony at Fowler's and Morton's trials, Vaughan died while drawing a Tec-9 assault pistol, and a medical examiner found small packets of cocaine in Vaughan's socks. The prosecution alleged that Fowler and Morton were angry because Vaughan had tried to recruit Fowler's 14-year-old brother to sell drugs for him.
No mention was made in the video of Vaughan's possible drug involvement.
``I'm a little surprised," Stroupe said when a reporter told him of that testimony. He denied that the Allen administration had misled anyone with the broadcast.
Javis E. Holland. Holland was convicted of the July 1990 murders of Camellia Moon and George Scott Stone Jr. during a robbery in an Eastern Shore gun store. Although Holland had a criminal record in Delaware, he had never been convicted of any felony in Virginia. "He wasn't a Virginia parolee," Hedges said.
Maurice Boyd. Boyd is charged with the May 1994 slaying of Newport News police officer Larry Bland, who had stopped a stolen car driven by Boyd.
Although Boyd has a criminal record dating to age 12, including knifing his sister and killing a man in Lancaster County in 1983, Hedges said he is unsure whether Boyd's slaying of Bland would have been avoided by a longer prison term under the Allen plan.
Boyd was paroled after serving seven years, eight months of a 12-year sentence. Ten of those years were recommended by a jury for the 1983 killing, and two were imposed by a judge for grand larceny.
Hedges said whether Boyd would have been released in time to kill Bland depends on how much good time toward early release Boyd accumulated. If Boyd earned all the good time credit the Allen plan would allow, he would have been freed after 10 years - several months before he killed Bland. If Boyd had not earned any good time credits, he'd still be in prison until 1995, Hedges said.
Hedges also said he didn't know how to calculate the effect of a Pennsylvania charge on Boyd's record because he was not sure about the details of that crime. Crimes in other states, and crimes committed while a juvenile, can trigger the 100 percent to 500 percent increases in sentences included in the Allen plan, Hedges noted.
Everett Lee Mueller. Mueller raped, dismembered and murdered 10-year-old Charity Powers in Chesterfield County in 1990. His record of earlier burglaries, and a rape in California, would have called for a 44.8-year sentence when he was convicted of rape in Chesterfield in 1976. This is the one crime featured on the June broadcast that the Allen plan clearly would have prevented, his aides say.
This report will be followed by a five-part series beginning next Sunday. Both this story and the series are a combined project of The Associated Press, the Daily Press in Newport News, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Roanoke Times & World-News and The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk. Edds is a staff writer for the Norfolk and Roanoke newspapers' joint Richmond bureau; Evans is a staff writer with the Daily Press.
by CNB