NEW HEAD OF PAROLE -- Breaking News

Alan says it best, so I'm just printing the whole thing...

It’s old home week in the Ritter administration, as multi-pensioned top cops who worked with the guv when he was Denver’s DA find new state criminal-justice jobs. Former Denver police chief Ari Zavaras was recruited to try to fix the bloated budget at the Department of Corrections — again; and today ex-DPD chief Dave Michaud was nominated to head the Colorado Parole Board, a supposedly thankless job that still manages to render $91,428 a year in bare-bones compensation.

Michaud replaces Al Stanley (above), who presided over a board that, through the Owens years, squeezed discretionary parole to a trickle and helped to shape the prison overcrowding problem that we now have.

The bigger problem, though, is that in the Owens years the board neatly evaded the statutory requirement to have four ordinary “citizens” among its seven members, in addition to representatives of law enforcement. Stanley’s board was made up of two citizens, an ex-parole officer, an ex-police chief, an ex-state trooper, a former corrections officer and Stanley himself, who has thirty years in law enforcement.

Will Michaud’s board be any different? That will depend on who else Ritter appoints as vacancies become available. In the meantime, for a better understanding of how the parole failure rate costs us all, check out the feature “Over and Over Again” and “I Shall Be Released,” our ongoing blog series about the parole struggles of Casey Holden. –Alan Prendergast

Westword blog

Rocky Mountain news;

Former Denver Police Chief David Michaud has been nominated by Gov. Bill Ritter to serve as chairman of the Colorado Parole Board.

Michaud served as chief from 1992 to 1998.

During those years, he was one of the highest-profile chiefs in Denver's history, overseeing The Summit of the Eight, the Oklahoma City bombing trial and the pope's visit.

"David truly understands the reforms we are trying to initiate to lower Colorado's unacceptably high prison recidivism and repeat offender rates," Gov. Ritter said in a formal announcement today. "He is a decorated law officer who will help keep the people of Colorado safe while bringing an unmatched mixture of skills, leadership and vision to the parole board."

Rocky Mountain News