A parole board in Alabama denied a dying woman parole last week. Leola Harris, a 71-year-old in a wheelchair suffering from end-stage renal failure, was denied parole on Jan. 10.
The Alabama Parole Board denied Harris’ parole in Macon County and only considered her application for a mere six minutes. She has been a model prisoner for the past 12 of her 19 years of incarceration at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka.
The head of Redemption Earned and former Alabama Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb called the parole denial an injustice and a waste of money.
“This denial is an injustice and a waste of tax dollars,” Cobb said in a statement. “They are supposed to ask if someone has been adequately punished. She’s 71 and has served 19 years, without violations in 12 years. Then the next question is: Do they pose a risk to public safety? The woman is in a wheelchair and cannot even go to the bathroom by herself. She’s dying and they just denied her parole. It is an injustice. It is shameful.”
Cobb also said the parole board failed Harris as well as the people of Alabama.
“Any reasonable person would conclude that 19 years is a sufficient sentence for a 71-year-old woman who is dying in prison,” said Cobb.
“No one would say that a dying woman, who is confined to a wheelchair, who cannot perform basic personal body functions unassisted, is a danger to the public. This Parole Board not only failed Ms. Leola Harris, but they also failed the taxpayers of the State of Alabama. This denial of medical parole to a wheelchair-bound, weak, and dying woman is an injustice that the people of…
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