Judge says inmates suing Parole Board for inaction aren’t entitled to immediate relief
A judge on Friday ruled against a dozen state inmates who said the Kentucky Parole Board has left them in jail for months longer than allowed for technical violations of their parole.
Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate denied an injunction that the inmates sought for relief, ideally through their release back into community supervision. Wingate said the inmates failed to show they will suffer immediate or irreparable harm or that the status quo will be unjustly altered without immediate action. However, their lawsuit can continue at a normal pace, he said.
The inmates — housed at various county jails around the state — sued the Parole Board through their public defenders at the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy.
State law requires the Parole Board to hold a hearing within 30 days of a person being incarcerated for alleged parole violation to decide if there is enough evidence to revoke parole or whether release is justified, the inmates say in their suit. Some of the plaintiffs have been held in jail since December.
“I’ve been in for 110 days, which is more than 30,” said Dustin Russell, one of the plaintiffs, in an interview Friday from the LaRue County jail.
Russell said he was arrested at his Kenton County home in January for failing to report to his parole officer on the scheduled date.
The plaintiffs are worried about spending endless months confined in jail because of the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed seven state and federal prison inmates in Kentucky so far, Russell said.
“We’re just sitting here and waiting for it,” Russell said. “I think every one of us has in the back of our minds that it could happen to us at any given time.”
In its response to the suit, the Parole Board said the inmates’ argument is erroneous because state law does not set the 30-day deadline for revocation hearings until parolees are “returned to prison.” All of the plaintiffs are being held in jails, not in prisons, attorneys for the Parole Board argued.
In his opinion on Friday, Wingate noted that previous decisions from state and federal courts have agreed with the Parole Board’s interpretation of the law.
