Morris News Service
ATLANTA --- When the state Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency Friday for condemned murderer Troy Anthony Davis, it did not disclose what influenced its decision.
It doesn't have to.
As much as transparency in government is cherished, board members are under no requirement to make public the content of their deliberations. Even the testimony and evidence presented to them remains forever secret.
The board, one of only a handful of such panels in the nation that is independent of a governor's office or prison system, is authorized by state law to keep confidential the factors it weighs in making life-or-death clemency decisions.
Not even board members know how their colleagues voted in the closely guarded rulings. Only the board's attorney and the chairman are privy.
In many states, governors either sit on the parole board or act on its recommendations for clemency in death sentence cases. But Georgia's board has sole discretion to overrule the jury to reduce a death sentence to life in prison, with or without parole.
Though board members don't discuss decisions, they seem to base them on a hybrid of personal information and legal considerations, from high school records to new evidence.
Representatives for the condemned, the victim and the prosecution all go before the board in separate, private meetings during clemency hearings, with no opportunity for one side to question the presentation of the other.
Defense attorneys, while historically on the losing end in the fight for clemency, say the secrecy serves the board's purpose as a safety valve. It's the last stop along a line of public institutions with power to right a wrong and provide a sense of fairness and justice to cases, said Atlanta criminal defense attorney Jack Martin.
"Perhaps that's best done in private," said Mr. Martin, who has represented at least three death-row inmates before the board.
The confidential votes also shield board members from being improperly influenced by outside parties, said Scheree Lipscomb, the board's spokeswoman.
Board members declined to be interviewed about the commutation process so close to a clemency hearing, Ms. Lipscomb said.
Reach Jake Armstrong at (404) 589-8424 or jake.armstrong@morris.com.
BOARD'S BACKGROUNDS
Members of the board have backgrounds in either law or law enforcement.
Garfield Hammonds Jr. is a former undercover agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Milton E. "Buddy" Nix Jr. spent 23 years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and became head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in 1993. Garland Hunt, an ordained minister, is a former staff attorney for the U.S. District Court of Appeals. Vice Chairman Robert E. Keller served as district attorney for Clayton County. Chairwoman Gale Buckner served as an undercover operative for the GBI.
-- Morris News Service
