Parole Board

ATLANTA - Troy Davis, whose death row case ignited an international campaign to save his life, has lost what appeared to be his last attempt to avoid execution by lethal injection today. Rejecting pleas by Davis's lawyers that shaky witness testimony and a lack of physical evidence presented enough doubt about his guilt to spare him death, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles ruled yesterday that Davis, 42, should die for killing Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police officer, in a Savannah parking lot in 1989.

Son of Sam serial killer David Berkowitz has been denied parole by New York authorities for the sixth time. A parole board concluded on Tuesday his release would be incompatible with the welfare of society and would undermine respect for the law. The Son of Sam terrorized New York City in 1976 and ‘77 and took responsibility for a string of handgun assaults. He was convicted of fatally shooting six people and injuring several others. Berkowitz is 58. The former Yonkers resident is serving 25 years to life at the maximum-security Sullivan Correctional Facility northwest of...

The Governor’s Council is set to begin hearings on Governor Deval Patrick’s five nominees to the embattled state parole board. The seven-member board has been in turmoil since the December shooting death of Woburn police officer John Maguire. In January, Patrick accepted the resignations of five board members who voted in 2008 to parole Domenic Cinelli, the career criminal who authorities say shot Maguire during a botched jewelry store heist. Among Patrick’s nominees is a former prosecutor, Josh Wall, to chair the panel.

After her family's farmhand went to prison for burglary in 1983, Carol Klima wrote the Ohio Parole Board to support his bid for early release. Freed in October 1984, Mark Wiles broke into Klima's house — which he had also burglarized as an employee — less than a year later but was caught in the act by Mark Klima, the couple's straight-A son. Afraid of leaving behind a witness who could return him to prison, Wiles stabbed and beat the boy...

A psychologist joined the state Parole Board yesterday, a gubernatorial appointment that drew criticism from victims' rights advocates and cheers from others who say that law enforcement voices have dominated the panel. Leticia Munoz is the first behavioral scientist appointed to the seven-member board since the Dukakis administration, said advocates who hope that she will bring new perspective to the panel when debating whether inmates are ready to return to society. "They're predicting behavior," Patricia Garin, a defense lawyer who represents inmates at parole hearings,...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio Parole Board yesterday recommended that the governor not pardon a woman who was jailed for using her father's address to enroll her children in a neighboring school district. Kelley Williams-Bolar of Akron served nine days in jail earlier this year for falsifying information on records that she used to send her daughters to a school outside the city. She said her conviction for felony records tampering threatens her efforts to earn her teacher's license.

With talks planned for today, state Parole Board members are nearing a decision on whether to adopt a policy to make their votes public when ruling on whether to grant parole to inmates serving life sentences. The issue exploded late last year after Dominic Cinelli, a repeat violent offender who was paroled in 2008 despite serving a life sentence for shooting a security guard, was identified as the killer of a Woburn police officer during an attempted robbery the day after Christmas.

Governor Deval Patrick's revamped Parole Board has voted since last April to grant early release to 17 serious criminal offenders, most of them probably convicted murderers, but the panel has not notified any of the inmates - or the families of their victims - that they are on the path to freedom. The delay in processing applications for parole by so-called lifers - inmates serving sentences of 15 years to life - is part of a broader backlog that has built up at the Parole Board since a paroled lifer fatally shot a Woburn police officer, triggering a shake-up...

Son of Sam serial killer David Berkowitz has been denied parole by New York authorities for the sixth time. A parole board concluded on Tuesday his release would be incompatible with the welfare of society and would undermine respect for the law. The Son of Sam terrorized New York City in 1976 and ‘77 and took responsibility for a string of handgun assaults. He was convicted of fatally shooting six people and injuring several others. Berkowitz is 58. The former Yonkers resident is serving 25 years to life at the maximum-security Sullivan Correctional...

NEWARK -- New Jersey sex offenders who face supervision under Megan's Law will be confined to their homes on Halloween and will be under orders not to answer the door when trick-or-treaters come calling. It will be the first time sex offenders in New Jersey are subject to a curfew. A lawyer who represents offenders questioned whether the ban will protect children. The rules were issued by the state parole board in a recent letter to the 2,200 offenders it supervises. The offenders must be indoors by 7 p.m. Monday and cannot answer their door when...

CORCORAN, Calif. - A prison panel denied parole Wednesday to mass murderer Charles Manson in his 12th and perhaps final bid for freedom. Manson, now a gray-bearded 77-year-old, did not attend the hearing, at which the parole board ruled he had shown no efforts to rehabilitate himself and would not be eligible for parole for another 15 years. "This panel can find nothing good as far as suitability factors go," said John Peck, a member of the panel that met at Corcoran State Prison in central California.

An imprisoned convicted murderer will plead guilty to another slaying in the fatal stabbing of a Lexington woman in 1992, according to his lawyer. Craig Conkey signed an affidavit during a status hearing in Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn on Friday waiving his rights to an investigation and to motions to suppress prior statements he made implicating himself in the murder, said Bernard Grossberg, Conkey's lawyer. Dr. Prudence Baxter, a forensic psychiatrist, testified during the hearing that a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation revealed that Conkey is competent to stand trial,...

The Massachusetts Parole Board announced decisions Thursday to parole three convicted murderers, marking the first time a so-called lifer has been granted early release from prison since the 2010 fatal shooting of Woburn police Officer John Maguire by a career criminal who had been paroled while serving three life sentences. Each of the three decisions was dated Monday, the same day the Globe reported that the Parole Board had held 139 votes over the last year on whether to grant parole to serious offenders serving sentences of 15 years to life, but had informed only 13...

Governor Deval Patrick's revamped Parole Board has voted since last April to grant early release to 17 serious criminal offenders, most of them probably convicted murderers, but the panel has not notified any of the inmates - or the families of their victims - that they are on the path to freedom. The delay in processing applications for parole by so-called lifers - inmates serving sentences of 15 years to life - is part of a broader backlog that has built up at the Parole Board since a paroled lifer fatally shot a Woburn police officer, triggering a shake-up at the agency.

Q. My friend "Jodi" is 27 and very sheltered. Her parents still pay her rent and bills. I'm worried because Jodi has been acting out of character. She cheated on her husband with a 59-year-old man. He's now her new boyfriend and "soul mate. " He's creepy. He talks down to her and gropes her in public. She gives him her paycheck and the use of her parents' credit cards. Jodi has a daughter from her marriage, and the little girl lives with her father. I work for Child Protective Services and know this "dream boyfriend" is a sex offender.

During his first run for governor in 2006, Deval Patrick declared repeatedly that the old-boy culture of Beacon Hill would become a thing of the past. Patronage would be out, merit would be in. None of it was terribly original, but he said it all with such memorable intensity. All of which makes Mark Conrad's comeback in state government - as an administrator at Bridgewater State College - more than a surprise. You may not remember Conrad's name, but I'm willing to bet you remember the mess that cost him his last state job. Conrad was head of the state Parole Board, the panel the governor forced to resign...

ATLANTA -- Georgia's parole board denied clemency yesterday for a death row inmate who argued that the prosecutor improperly suggested at trial that the Ten Commandments do not recognize insanity as a defense for murder. Parole board spokeswoman Heather Hedrick said the defense arguments were not compelling enough to stop the execution of Robert Karl Hicks, 47. Barring any successful last-minute appeals, Hicks will be put to death tomorrow for killing 28-year-old Toni Strickland Rivers in 1985.

LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- A teen killer who told the parole board that he regretted letting witnesses survive was executed yesterday for a shotgun murder during a $15 robbery. Adremy Dennis was put to death by injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. His court appeals were exhausted last week, and Governor Bob Taft denied clemency. Dennis was 18 when he and an accomplice tried to rob two men outside an Akron home in 1994. One of the men gave up $15. The other, Kurt Kyle, 29, began searching his pockets, and Dennis shot him to death.

JACKSON, Miss. - Pardon files are missing or do not exist for four convicted killers and another man who worked as trusties at the governor's mansion and were pardoned by former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour during his final days in office. The Associated Press made public records requests for such documents, but state officials said yesterday that they do not have them on the trusties and some others pardoned by Barbour, a two-term Republican governor who left office this month.