Idaho families see prisons as ‘petri dish.’ Parole commission won’t risk public safety
Mary Churchill says she always feared her son would die in prison.
As the coronavirus has ripped through prisons in other states, her fears have been exacerbated.
Churchill’s son, David Churchill, is incarcerated on two drug possession charges. The Sandpoint woman has written letters to legislators and the parole commission in Idaho, but there might be no hope.
“It scares me to death,” she said. “... It’s like a petri dish in there.”
David Churchill was one of the 8,857 people in the custody of the Idaho Department of Correction, as of June 1. Some of those people are housed in state prisons, others in county jails, and some are in a private prison in Texas that’s under a state contract because of overcrowding.
IDOC does not have the authority to release any of those inmates. That’s a decision that must be made by the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole, which has been conducting business as usual during this pandemic, although it did have more hearings in March and April than in January and February.
Idaho cannot let inmates out before they serve the fixed portion of their sentence or let offenders out without a parole plan, and commutation is more complicated in this state than in some others. So even though the pleas from Churchill and others to the commission are powerful, releasing people from custody is not as simple as loved ones hope — and truth be told, what families write likely won’t be the deciding factor.
“We’re not accepting inmate requests or public requests for specific cases,” said Ashley Dowell, the parole commission’s executive director.
To Churchill, the pandemic has raised questions about the humanity of incarcerating people for very long on nonviolent crimes.
“It’s like they’re herding cattle through,” she said. “They’re someone’s sons and husbands and fathers and mothers. These people matter.”
Churchill’s fears are typical for families who have a member incarcerated. The Idaho Statesman requested copies of the letters the parole commission had received from inmates and their family members who were inquiring about the release of offenders due to COVID-19. The Statesman sought letters received between March 25 and April 28, during Gov. Brad Little’s ordered pandemic shutdown.
Because of the volume of letters the commission had received and the cost to review and redact all of them, the Statesman settled on copies of the first 100. The Statesman paid a small fee for those copies.
The Statesman made the same request to IDOC, but most of IDOC’s letters were not about releasing inmates. Instead, they were inquiries about IDOC’s safety measures amid the pandemic.
As of June 5, IDOC had reported that none of its inmates had tested positive for the coronavirus in Idaho or Texas. The department had tested 64 inmates as of that date.
Several prison staff members have tested positive, but there’s been no reported spread to inmates, IDOC said.
Letters and pleas for mercy
The letters to the parole commission reviewed by the Statesman had a common theme: desperation.
Families wrote about how they would help an inmate should he or she be released. The letters discussed changes made and responsibility taken by the offender. There were pleas for mercy and requests for one more chance.
Other writers focused on their loved ones’ pre-existing health conditions and fears that an outbreak could kill them. One letter was more hostile than others, lashing out at the parole commissioners.
Among the pile of letters was one from from Diann Sivels, whose 28-year-old son, Samuel Sivels, is incarcerated for two drug possession crimes. In her letter, dated April 5, Sivels asked about the state’s plan for the outbreak.
“The people going to prison and jail for possession of drugs are nonviolent offenders. They are suffering from addiction, they are not selling it, they are getting it for their own use. Not knowing what is to come, may we find it in our hearts to release those who are at their fixed time?” Sivels wrote to the commission.
In an interview with the Statesman, Sivels, a Boise resident, said she was worried about her son’s health and the crowded conditions at the prison.
“I think they need to release a lot of them early,” Sivels said about the pandemic. “It will help them in the long run. Once it hits, they’re done. Each day there’s more and more and more cases.”
Her son, whom she affectionately calls Sammy, is eligible for parole in July, after being in custody since October, and she hoped the commission would move up the date. She knows her son isn’t perfect and struggles with addiction, but she said he is not a violent criminal.
“I wish they would let the nonviolent ones out,” she said. “... They’re not bad kids. They just made bad choices.”
‘Options or alternatives to incarceration’
Another letter written to the commission came from Donna Miller, of Boise. Miller’s fiance, Dustin Pattan, 32, is incarcerated for aggravated assault and past offenses. He’s eligible for parole starting June 30, and she wrote to the commission hoping his hearing could be moved up, noting that Pattan has been a model inmate.
“I am reaching out in hopes that the parole commission would consider revisiting and reviewing any possible options or alternatives to incarceration,” Miller wrote.
In an interview, Miller said she’s mostly worried about Pattan’s safety. She’s known him since childhood and they’ve been together for about five years, she said. While Pattan does have a criminal history and prior parole violations, Miller believes he’s a changed man. If released, she’s confident he could succeed.
“They have a lot of people there,” Miller said. “I know they have locked it down for visits, so they’re trying, but I just think the parole commission could be more understanding.”
She said she worries because Pattan works in the kitchen, so he is exposed to inmates other than just those in his unit, putting him around more potential virus carriers.
Although Idaho’s facilities have avoided COVID-19’s spread thus far, other states have not been as lucky. Ohio, Michigan, New York and elsewhere have had major outbreaks in state prisons, infecting thousands of inmates and hundreds of corrections staff.
Earlier this month, a group of inmates at Idaho’s largest prison sued the state for overcrowding, saying cell blocks are so packed that the prison department can’t maintain sanitary toilets, putting them at risk during the pandemic.
How does release happen?
The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole is made up of seven people from across the state, appointed by the governor, and the full commission meets quarterly.
The state of Idaho cannot release an inmate until he or she has served the mandated portion of their sentence. For instance, if an offender is sentenced by a judge to five years in prison, with three years fixed, that means they will be eligible for parole only after three years are served.
Three of the seven parole commissioners review an inmate’s case and parole plan, and then determine whether the offender is fit for release or needs to serve more of their indeterminate sentence.
The three commissioners must be in unanimous agreement on whether to release an offender.
The commission is not approving any early releases due to COVID-19 and is not changing the pardon and commutation process. During the pandemic, the commissioners have used maximum discretion when reviewing parole-eligible offenders, according to Dowell.
The commissioners have reviewed more cases than they did the first two months of the year and have granted more parole dates. The increase was modest, but notable.
2020 figures:
- In January: 406 hearings held, 211 tentative parole dates granted
- In February: 371 hearings held, 196 tentative parole dates granted
- In March: 424 hearings held, 233 tentative parole dates granted
- In April: 517 hearings held, 346 tentative parole dates granted
The commission did work with IDOC to look at cases that were eligible to be reviewed, including some people who had medical issues, Dowell said. They postponed some hearings for pardons and firearms restoration to allow for time to review the cases of people who are eligible for parole.
Commissioners also modified tentative parole dates for some inmates who had been granted parole already and had a release date between March and September this year.
“For the public, the biggest rumor out there is that they can request to have someone put on a list,” Dowell said. “We’re systematically looking at options for people who are parole-eligible.”
But it is a structured approach, Dowell emphasized.
The commission still looks at individual cases, the crime, the person’s assessments and institutional behavior. Offenders must complete their programming and have an approved release plan, she said.
Idaho’s inmate release compared to other states
The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole has fielded an overwhelming number of calls and letters inquiring about prisoner release during this time, Dowell said.
Confusion only increased when U.S. Attorney General William Barr ordered the release of some low-risk federal inmates due to the pandemic. Those would be inmates housed in federal prisons, not state prisons.
County jails in Idaho also have actively reduced inmate populations, but many there have not been convicted, so they can be released while awaiting trial. Additionally, law enforcement reduced the populations by actively citing and releasing more people, rather than booking them into jail. Notably, every person in a prison is a convicted felon, whereas jails house some people for misdemeanors.
Some states, such as California, have released large numbers of inmates serving time for nonviolent crimes. More than 3,500 prisoners there were released as the state tried to socially distance inmates to help stop the spread of the virus. The governor also put a temporary hold on bringing new inmates into California prisons.
“There’s not a process in Idaho to do these sort of mass commutations of a certain group of people,” Dowell said.
Commutation in Idaho
Pardons and commutations are constitutional in Idaho, and it’s a multistep process that can’t be expedited, authorities say. Commutation is essentially modifying the sentence a judge gave a defendant. All seven commissioners must review a commutation petition and decide who gets a hearing. The majority must agree on whether to commute a sentence.
It’s rare. In April, there were 103 commutation petitions submitted and only 11 were granted a hearing — set for October.
If granted a hearing, a report has to be generated, victims are notified and a notification must be made public in the newspaper, and then all seven commissioners must meet again.
“There’s a lot of confusion about what a commutation is and how fast the process can go,” Dowell said.
The process becomes more challenging for certain offenders. Some major crimes cannot be commuted by the commission and require approval from the governor.
New legislation, effective July 1, will alter the list of offenses that need the governor’s approval and those the commission can commute.
The governor must sign off on crimes such as first- and second-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, various sex crimes, and crimes connected to acts of terrorism.
Drug possession, delivery and manufacturing, burglary, manslaughter, financial crimes and others can be commuted by the commission without the governor’s involvement.
Dowell said the commission takes the modification of a sentence seriously, while also understanding the public has concern for inmates who are very susceptible to a coronavirus outbreak because of a prison’s logistics.
“We are trying to be thoughtful and systematic about it, with respect to both their loved ones and the overall public safety concerns that we’re charged with protecting,” she said.
