On Michigan PB hearings
My memories of Parole Board public hearings are not fond. It all began with the hearing for my friend Maurice Carter in 2004, when a stern-faced board chairperson stuck with his belief that Carter was guilty, and a crack-pot representative of the Michigan Attorney General's office recommended no release for this dying prisoner because he might get a gun after his release and start blazing away. In a later public hearing, the same AG attorney shouted at a dying woman in a wheelchair, seeking release for medical reasons, until he reduced her to tears. Sitting next to me was former Governor William Milliken who was appalled. So my hopes were not high yesteday, as I drove to Jackson for a medical commutation hearing for inmate Tracy Snay. She's dying of cancer, and has been given less than a year to live. I don't know her, but I promised her friends in prison at Huron Valley that I would put the reputation of HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS behind her request for release. I must say