A Conviction of Arson in North Carolina is the Subject of a New Federal Lawsuit

In 2019, Joy Smith, a part-time case analyst with the North Carolina Parole Commission, passed along allegations to her colleagues that Brett Abrams had locked his brother in a camper and set it on fire in 1982, killing the young boy.

“It appears Abrams was jealous of him,” Smith wrote of the man eligible for parole for another crime.

Excluded from Smith’s case summary was that local law enforcement had deemed the boy’s death an accident in 1984.

Abrams was ultimately denied parole, as he has been since 1993.

That omission is included within court documents filed earlier this month in an ongoing federal lawsuit challenging the North Carolina Parole Commission’s review process for people who were sentenced to prison when they were still children.

The plaintiff is Abrams, sentenced to life in 1984 for a second-degree murder he committed when he was 14 years old.

Documents filed with the court in early March give an unusual glimpse into the machinations of the Parole Commission, typically an opaque agency where commissioners do not meet in public for case reviews but instead individually assess incarcerated people’s files and then independently vote whether they should be paroled (Rivera-Burgos et al., n.d.).

Paroling people who committed crimes as children is rare. Data from court documents indicate that between 2018 and 2022, just 34 of the 362 people reviewed for parole were ultimately granted it.

Abrams’ case hinges on a federal judge’s 2015 decision, Hayden v. Keller, which found that the state Parole Commission’s review processes for people imprisoned for crimes they committed as children were unconstitutional; the court ruled that those prisoners were not being given enough opportunity to show that they had matured and been rehabilitated since their crime (Boyle, 2015).

Specifically, the judge wrote that the commissioners did not consider “children’s diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change (Berryessa, 2019).”

The state Parole Commission came up with a new plan two years later that made their practices compliant with that ruling, but Abrams’ lawsuit claims that the policy still violates the US Constitution.

In 2018, the commission asked the General Assembly to add another commissioner and for the money to hire a staff attorney so it could comply with the ruling and mitigate its “very heavy caseload.”

Documents in Abrams’ lawsuit state that commissioners vote on 100 cases every day, in addition to their other responsibilities, which include establishing conditions of supervision for people released from prison, reviewing requests from probation officers, and presiding over revocation hearings.

The General Assembly did not grant either request.

Denied help from the legislature, the commission made Smith the parole case analyst for everyone who was eligible for parole and who had committed a crime when they were minors.

Smith started working for the Parole Commission in 1991. She retired in 2013 but returned part-time in 2016.

In a deposition for Abrams’ lawsuit, an official with the Parole Commission said Smith had not received any training or guidance about assessing the credibility of information passed along to commission members — information members rely on when deciding whether to grant someone parole.

Smith has given the commissioners inaccurate or incomplete information at least twice, according to documents filed in Abrams’ lawsuit. Reviewing Abrams’ case in 2018, Smith wrote that if he were paroled, Abrams would live with his mother, who lives on the same block as the mother of the young woman he killed (Whisenant, 2023). However, that was not true, and Smith admitted it in a deposition.

“The Parole Commissioners relied on Joy Smith and assumed that the information she provided them was accurate and credible,” Jake Sussman, an attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and Abrams’ lawyer, wrote in a court document. “Misinformation provided by Joy Smith could mislead and misinform a commissioner during their review.”

Treating children the same as adults:

Assigning Abrams to those juvenile lifers’ cases was not the only change the commission made after the Hayden decision. It also started providing those incarcerated people a “life sentence interview” — a 30-minute video meeting between commissioners, Smith and the prisoner. A representative from the Parole Commission said in a deposition that the goal was to “spark a conversation” between the commissioners and the incarcerated person. Still, neither Smith nor the commissioners have received any training on how to engage the potential parolees.

Advancements in scientific understanding of brain development have led to broader reconsiderations about how children should be treated in criminal justice settings. Still, a designee from the Parole Commission said in a deposition that the commission does not tell its commissioners to “consider youth and its various characteristics when assessing the nature or brutality of the underlying crime in juvenile offender cases (Tyler, 2015).”

Sussman also wrote in a court document that, “While under deposition, the Parole Commission was unable to confirm whether juvenile offenders have diminished culpability compared with adults who may have committed the same underlying criminal acts.”

Limited ability to improve chances at parole:

Another part of the commission’s reforms after the Hayden decision was to send information to incarcerated people after their denial so they could make changes to improve their chances in a future parole review. In 2019, the commission recommended that Abrams enter psychological counseling and complete rehabilitation to increase self-awareness and continue on work release (Boyle, 2015).

Abrams met with a prison psychologist shortly after receiving the suggestions. That doctor’s notes state that Abrams worked on his emotions and developed “insight about his crime and past behavior.”

However, Smith never saw those notes, nor did the commissioners who considered Abrams’ parole review in 2020. A former chairman of the Parole Commission said in a deposition that commissioners could not review Abrams’ psychological assessments from when he was a teenage boy in 1984 to when he was a 55-year-old man in 2020 because of “the absence of those records.”

Another way Abrams could improve his chance at parole is through the Mutual Agreement Parole Program, also known as MAPP. Considered “a pathway to parole” by a former Parole Commission chairman deposed in the Abrams lawsuit, MAPP prepares eligible incarcerated people for supervised release by giving them a checklist of activities and programs they can complete (Rivera-Burgos et al., n.d.).

The Parole Commission noted Abrams was a good candidate for MAPP as far back as 2007 since he does not have an adult record, has been incarcerated since he was 14, has strong family support, and has been well-behaved in prison. (Per state records (Abrams, 1984), he has received 11 infractions over the 40 years he has been imprisoned, the most recent of which was in 2005 (Abrams, 1984).)

However, in 2012, Smith did not recommend Abrams for MAPP because “this inmate is already doing everything that a MAPP could provide for him to do.” She said the same thing six years later in another parole review.

In a deposition, a former chairman of the Parole Commission said the only way MAPP would have helped Abrams in a 2020 parole review was if Abrams had “fallen back” and regressed in his rehabilitation.

In a document filed with the court in July 2022, Sonya Calloway-Durham, a special deputy attorney general defending the state, wrote that MAPP is not required for parole.

Commissioners do not base their decision on a single factor, such as whether to parole someone. Instead, they consider the nature and context of the crime, the individual’s criminal record, their conduct in prison, and their participation in rehabilitative programs while incarcerated (Boyle, 2015).

In 2020, for instance, Calloway-Durham noted that the commission denied Abrams’ parole because a majority felt he could commit more crimes, that he would benefit from continuing rehabilitation in prison, and that his release “would unduly depreciate the seriousness of the crime or promote disrespect for the law.”

Calloway-Durham wrote on behalf of the commission that it denied depriving Abrams of his constitutional rights.

On March 4, 2024, Sussman filed documents asking the court to find the Parole Commission’s practices unconstitutional and require it to come into compliance by giving people eligible for parole for crimes they committed as children a chance to demonstrate that they have changed for the better during their imprisonment. No ruling has yet been issued.

#criminaljustice #juvenilejustice #probationandparole

References:

Abrams, B. A., Orange County Corrections. (1984, May 22). Nc dac offender public information. Retrieved March 25, 2024, from https://webapps.doc.state.nc.us/opi/viewoffender.do?method=view%26offenderID=0000400&searchLastName=Abrams&searchFirstName=Brett&searchMiddleName=A&searchDOBRange=0&listurl=pagelistoffendersearchresults&listpage=1

Berryessa, C. M. (2019, October 11). Why do judges need to understand the "developing brain" for juvenile sentencing? Scholars Strategy Network. Retrieved March 25, 2024, from https://scholars.org/contribution/why-judges-need-understand-developing-brain-juvenile-sentencing#:~:text=The%20developing%20brains%20of%20juveniles,they%20will%20use%20poor%20judgment .

Boyle, T. W., District Judge. (2015, September 25). Shaun Antonio HAYDEN, Plaintiff, v. Alvin KELLER, et al., Defendants. casetext.com . Retrieved March 25, 2024, from https://casetext.com/case/hayden-v-keller

Rivera-Burgos, L. A., Silverman, E. J., & Wehner, T. C. (n.d.). Myths and truths about the parole process. NC Department of Adult Correction. Retrieved March 25, 2024, from https://www.dac.nc.gov/divisions-and-sections/post-release-supervision-parole-commission/myths-and-truths-about-parole-process

Tyler, M. (2015). Understanding the Adolescent Brain and Legal Culpability. American Bar Association. Retrieved March 25, 2024, from https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/resources/child_law_practiceonline/child_law_practice/vol-34/august-2015/understanding-the-adolescent-brain-and-legal-culpability/

Whisenant, D. (2023, November 21). The family of a woman murdered in Iredell Co. in 1983 fights to keep the killer in prison. https://www.wbtv.com . Retrieved March 25, 2024, from https://www.wbtv.com/2023/11/21/family-woman-murdered-iredell-co-1983-faces-toughest-fight-yet-keep-killer-prison/