The Associated Press has reported that 71-year-old Henry Montgomery, whose appeal led the Supreme Court to ban mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles, has been denied parole. Montgomery has been incarcerated since age 17, when he shot sheriff’s deputy Charles Hurt.
A three-member panel from the state parole board voted 2 to 1 to keep Henry Montgomery imprisoned. The hearing was his first chance at freedom since his conviction decades ago.
Montgomery now must wait another two years before he can request another parole hearing. A vote to free him would have had to be unanimous.
Montgomery won the right to seek parole for himself and about 2,000 other people who were sentenced to life without parole for offenses committed as juveniles. All signs pointed to Montgomery having at least a shot at parole.
Last June, a state judge who resentenced Montgomery to life with the possibility of parole called him a “model prisoner” who appears to be rehabilitated.
Montgomery’s lawyers said he has strived to be a positive role model for other prisoners, serving as a coach and trainer for a boxing team he helped form at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
The reasons offered by the two board members who blocked Montgomery’s parole were vague.
[T]he two parole board members who voted against Montgomery questioned why he hadn’t accessed more programs and services that could have benefited him in prison. One of the panelists, Kenneth Loftin, also said he was disappointed in some of Montgomery’s statements during the hearing but didn’t specify which ones.
The former critique, that Montgomery hadn’t completed enough programs, is especially troubling given that Montgomery did, by his attorney’s account, maximize his opportunities.
[Keith] Nordyke said Montgomery completed every course required by law to be eligible for parole. However, during his first three decades behind bars, prisoners at Angola were prohibited from taking any courses.
Although Montgomery expressed remorse, Hurt’s family advocated for his continued incarceration.
Montgomery told the board he has asked for forgiveness from the deputy’s family and from God.
“I’m sorry for all the pain and misery that I’ve caused everybody that’s involved in this case,” he said.
The board also heard from two daughters and a grandson of Hurt, all of whom opposed Montgomery’s release. Hurt was married and had three children.
Linda Woods, his youngest daughter, said she and her sister met with Montgomery in prison last year and forgave him for what he did.
“But I do believe that justice has been done and he needs to stay there,” Woods added.
The parole board’s decision flies in the face of the intent behind the Supreme Court decision in 2012 that prohibited sentencing juveniles to life without parole.
In the court’s majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy said prisoners like Montgomery “must be given the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable corruption; and, if it did not, their hope for some years of life outside prison walls must be restored.”
The case Montgomery took to the Supreme Court has helped dozens of people sentenced as juveniles and stands to help hundreds more. Unfortunately, it has yet to do much to help Montgomery himself.
Criminal justice reform cannot simply be a top-down effort; the Supreme Court cannot remedy the endemic biases and inconsistencies infecting local, state, and federal criminal justice proceedings, because rulings must be enforced.