Keeping You Updated

To all our of family, friends and supporters, we want to Thank You for your help. We have good news from the Governor, he has appointed a new Chairwomen for the parole board. William's case will be reviewed by the parole board and a recommendation will be given to the Governor. The new change will make William's chances even better in receiving the conditional pardon. So, please keep up your support in getting signatures and get the word out for Freedom4William. Thank You and God Bless You All. McAuliffe replaces parole board chairwoman in effort to speed reforms By PATRICK WILSON Richmond Times-Dispatch Jan 10, 2017 www.richmond.com/.../Virginia/...parole-board. Gov. Terry McAuliffe dumped the chairwoman of the Virginia Parole Board amid concerns that the five-member panel was not moving quickly enough on reforms proposed in 2015. McAuliffe’s administration announced Friday that board member Adrianne Bennett, a lawyer from Hampton Roads, is replacing Karen Brown as board chairwoman. Then-Gov. Bob McDonnell appointed Brown to the board in 2011. McAuliffe named her chairwoman in 2014. The move by McAuliffe removes Brown from the five-member board and adds a new member, former state delegate Jean W. Cunningham, a lawyer who represented Richmond in the House of Delegates from 1986 to 1998. The decision also means McAuliffe has now appointed four of the five parole board appointees. McAuliffe on Tuesday praised Brown’s service but said he wanted a “new set of eyes” in his final year as governor. “I want to make sure that we are moving expeditiously on these parole hearings,” McAuliffe said. “I want to make sure that we’re doing everything that we possibly can.” As of October, 2,765 inmates in Virginia prisons were eligible for parole, according to Department of Corrections data. The board reviews those cases, among other duties such as reviewing requests for pardons. Virginia abolished parole for felonies committed in 1995 or after. A McAuliffe-created commission studied parole and made recommendations in December 2015. Before parole was abolished, it was granted in about 41 percent of cases that came before the parole board, according to the report. That dropped to 3 percent before rising more recently to 6 percent, according to the McAuliffe administration. The state pays an average of $28,000 to incarcerate one inmate annually, putting the estimated cost of housing parole-eligible inmates at more than $77 million. And older inmates can have medical issues that boost the cost of incarcerating them. But the Parole Board often rejects requests from inmates convicted of violent crimes.