In December, state Department of Correction Secretary Alvin Keller testified in court about his department's response to a Supreme Court ruling regarding life sentences that were handed down in the 1970s. The ruling involved an inmate named Bobby Bowden, who was sentenced to life for murder. Memos and e-mail messages written by Keller and his subordinates seem to contradict his court testimony that prisoners were never considered eligible for release.
| Keller in court | What the documents say |
| "I never ordered anyone's release. And two, I - what we did do was we asked our Combined Records folks and our information folks to do - to run test runs on each of the Bowden types of inmates. But those were strictly test runs. We never - I never ordered the release of anybody." |
Memo sent from Director of Prisons Robert Lewis to wardens Oct. 16: "As I'm sure you are aware, the North Carolina Supreme Court recently issued a ruling in the above referenced case causing the Department of Correction to re-calculate the release dates of some life sentence inmates. A number of these inmates will be released later this month and the others will be released in the coming months and years as their new release dates are reached."
|
|
"We also had a responsibility to contact victims of these Bowden type of inmates. And you need to keep in mind that some of those - some of those victims were children at the time that - that offenses occurred. And some had moved out of state. But, nevertheless, we felt that we had a responsibility to try and contact those folks also to let them know that that was - there was the possibility that these folks would be released on the - on the 29th."
| A letter from Keller addressed to victims of the 1970s lifers: "Inmate will be released on or about Oct. 29, 2009. Please note this is not a discretionary release by the DOC and the Department has no legal authority to hold the inmate beyond the scheduled release date." |
|
"They [the inmates] certainly were advised that there was a possibility that they would be released on the 29th. ... But clearly, I never told anybody that - that the Bowden type of inmates were going to be released on the 29th. I mean, short of a court order, no. They weren't going to be released."
| A memo from Mary Lu Rogers, chief of auxiliary services, to prison wardens Oct.13 advises them to tell inmates they are to be released Oct. 29. "The facility head is to personally meet with the inmate and advise him/her of their release on [Oct. 29]." She further orders the wardens to help figure out the inmates' plans after their release; she also tells the wardens to gather information on any mental health or medical problems. |
| Sources: Court transcript; N.C. Department of Correction | |
