The power of the California governor to arbitrarily deny parole to model prisoners has been curbed by the state Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Ronald George, in writing for the 4-3 majority, said the governor must show “some evidence” that a parolee is presently a danger to public safety before overturning a Board of Parole decision to grant parole.
The ruling came in the case of Sandra Davis Lawrence, 61, who has served more than 23 years for the 1971 killing of her lover’s wife. The Board of Parole found Lawrence to be a model, well-behaved prisoner who had expressed remorse for the killing. In 2005 she was granted parole for the fourth time in 12 years.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reversed the panel’s decision as he had done on previous occasions. He found the circumstances of the killing, in which Lawrence shot and stabbed Rubye Williams to death, to be of a particularly egregious nature.
The governor’s office released a statement condemning the court’s ruling as an infringement upon the governor’s ability to make rulings designed to protect the public safety.
In a separate but related case, the court used the legal standards previously set forth in its ruling on the Lawrence case to unanimously uphold the governor’s power to deny parole when there is a legitimate finding of danger to the public safety. The court upheld Schwarzenegger’s’ denial of parole to Richard Shaputis, convicted of second-degree murder in the 1987 shooting of his wife. Shaputis has refused to accept responsibility for killing Erma Jeanne Shaputis, 47.
