* Background is here and here if you need it…
Monday, March 28, 2022
Dear Governor Pritzker,
Thank you for the opportunity to serve the State of Illinois while on the Prisoner Review Board. I took seriously the responsibility to apply the law as it is written in our constitution. These laws direct the board to be fair to all without bias or prejudice. This too, is all you have ever asked of me. It is my hope I have fulfilled this request completely.
It has been an honor to be a member of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, please accept this letter as my resignation as of today 3/28/22.
Respectfully,
Oreal James
The Republicans and some Democrats are still not comfortable with PRB member Eleanor Wilson, who is the godmother of Barack Obama’s daughters.
By the way, the governor has withdrawn the appointment.
- Perrid - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 3:38 pm:
I just don’t understand why people are so out for blood that the mere idea that maybe we should be less draconian in our criminal justice system enrages them so much. Just the suggestion, the idea, that we shouldn’t hurt people as much as we can is an outrage. Whatever. Next.
- JR - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 3:41 pm:
No passive aggresive tone in that resignation letter at all, geesh.
- Anchors Away - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 3:43 pm:
What the Senate is doing to these people is disgusting. And I mean the entire Senate. Every vote the PRB takes is hard. Every single one. And the Senate Dems are advertising to anyone who might have an interest in serving that they will throw literally anyone under the bus for the sake of their own political fortunes.
- well... - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 4:00 pm:
==What the Senate is doing to these people is disgusting. And I mean the entire Senate. Every vote the PRB takes is hard. Every single one. And the Senate Dems are advertising to anyone who might have an interest in serving that they will throw literally anyone under the bus for the sake of their own political fortunes.==
Not really. How often did you hear about the Prisoner Review Board prior to the last few years? They’ve been voting to give parole to C-class (indeterminate sentence) inmates for decades. The difference was, PRB generally wasn’t letting cop killers and other notorious, heinous killers out. That’s the difference.
- Scuttle the Ship - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 4:02 pm:
-every vote the PRB takes is hard-
Actually no it’s not. Don’t free Murderers, until they have served their entire sentence or have passed away. It’s not easy for the prisoner, but it’s more than they deserve. It has at least some symmetry, some mercy, some justice.
- SaulGoodman - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 4:06 pm:
**Don’t free Murderers, until they have served their entire sentence or have passed away.**
Then change the law.
But we have a parole system for a reason, and these individuals are eligible for parole. These individuals didn’t receive a life sentence without parole, or a XX years sentence without parole.
The PRB is doing its job, as it is designed to do in the state constitution and state law. If you don’t like those things, don’t take issue with the PRB, take issue with the underlying laws that they’re following.
- Fun with numbers - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 4:15 pm:
We let people come out of prison. Simply because their victims were police doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have an opportunity to be released. The three individuals paroled didn’t get some easy pass here. Johnny Veal was 17 years old when he killed in 1970. He was paroled at age 68. I don’t know about you, but I’m a completely different person than I was when I was 17 and I’m nowhere near 68. Joseph Hurst was paroled at 77 years old for a crime committed in 1967. James Taylor was paroled at age 70 for the crime committed in 1976.
Why people think we need to keep geriatric folks locked up never ceases to amaze me. These 3 individuals lived for decades, like half a century, behind bars in prisons where people go without basic healthcare. Their remaining years of life aren’t going to be easy. We need people on the PRB to look at facts and make individualized decisions in the interest of justice and in accordance with the law. These PRB members did that. Why are our senators failing to recognize that.
- Gfalkes - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 5:01 pm:
I wonder what the lives of those police officers would have been like, or their children for that matter. What pain did their families endure, simply because they choose to protect and serve all of us. To run towards danger while we all got to run away from it. I can choose understand the notion that these offenders have served enough because they are different people now. I think about those who never got a chance to become different people.
- SaulGoodman - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 5:08 pm:
Gfalkes - but, again, if you don’t like the process, change the law. The PRB is following the law, and these people don’t have no-parole sentences.
And, those considerations that you named - those ARE taken into account in both sentencing and parole decisions.
- Gfalkes - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 5:35 pm:
Saul, I completely agree that is the law. I simply feel that it would deprecate the seriousness of the offense. They have the right to make that PRB decision, I simply don’t think it’s a wise decision to do so.
- Grace - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 6:11 pm:
Did the Gov withdraw the appointment of Eleanor Wilson or Oreal James, or both?
- Jean Maclean Snyder - Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 7:18 pm:
Oreal James is a wonderful person and was a skilled and hard-working PRB. Member. He put his heart and soul into it – and then the fool-hardy legislature did him (and us) wrong.
Too bad. We shouldn’t have let that happen,
Jean Maclean Snyder
Law office of Jean Maclean Snyder
Jeansnyder @sbcglobal.net