HOW WE SEE IT Justice Forgotten In Early Parole

The murders of four police officers in Washington state last month left our state’s justice system with a black eye, considering that the man who allegedly ambushed those officers had been granted parole from prisonin Arkansas not once, but twice. Regardless of which individuals you choose to blame for allowing Maurice Clemmons to go free - and there is plenty of blame to go around, both here and in Washington state - it made Arkansas look bad

Hard on the heels of that incident, the Arkansas Parole Board gave us another doozy of a decision.

As reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the board granted parole on Dec. 14 to Michael Butler, a 38-year-old who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2003 after being convicted of assaulting a 19-yearold woman in Mississippi County. Originally charged with rape, Butler pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree sexual assault.

Butler has been eligible for parole since 2005, but he has failed to complete the 14-month Reduction of Sexual Victimization Program that originally was a requirement for him to be considered for early release. A Department of Correction spokesman said Butler had been kicked out of the program four times for disciplinary problems, and another time he voluntarily withdrew.

Earlier this year, however, Arkansas Department of Correction Director Larry Norris asked the Parole Board to waive completion of the sex-offender program from conditions of his parole eligibility.

This request stemmed from settlement of a lawsuit that Butler had filed in 2007, alleging that he had been beaten by officers at a prison in east Arkansas.

If Butler was indeed mistreated in prison, he should be compensated in some way - but not like this.

True, the board is requiring that he attend sex-offender counseling outside prison once he is released. But as Mississippi County Deputy Prosecutor Curtis Walker pointed out, there’s no reason to think Butler will be anymore motivated to complete counseling outside of prison than he was inside it.

In dismissing an important component of Butler’s rehabilitation, the Parole Board sends an awful message. Yes, Butler’s sentence called for him to be released in 2012, regardless of whether he completed the sex-offender program. But why shouldn’t society insist that he complete the program, at least as a condition of his early release? Of course, no amount of counseling can guarantee that he wouldn’t reoffend, but we have to believe that it would have some positive effect; otherwise, we would wonder why the Department of Correction has this program in the first place. While we cannot speak for the victim of Butler’s crime, we think that if we were in her shoes, we would feel deserted by the system that is supposed to hold people accountable for their actions.

It is also disturbing to learn of these alleged disciplinary problems that forced Butler out of the program four times. Four times? Such behavior does not convince us that this man is worthy of parole.

Again, Butler deserves justice for whatever wrongs were done to him in prison, but the victim of his crime is entitled to justice of her own. It is improper for one person’s justice to come at the expense of another’s, which is essentially what happened when the Parole Board decided to let Butler out of prison early. By giving him a get-out-of-jail-free card, the board diminished the seriousness of Butler’s crime.

Arkansans deserve better from their justice system.