Cancer Stricken Inmate Wants To Go Home To Die
The Denver Post
David O. Adams wants to go home to die.
Stricken with terminal brain cancer, Adams has only a few weeks to live.
"I want to die in the companionship of people who care for me," Adams said. "I don't want to die in that cell up there in the infirmary."
Adams, 47, who shot and wounded a man in 1998, is serving 24 years in prison. He asked to be paroled at a hearing last month at the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center.
The Colorado Parole Board denied his release.
Parole Board chairman David Michaud said he can't legally disclose why Adams was not granted parole, just that he did not meet all the criteria.
"The decision was not made for lack of compassion," he said.
Adams also is not eligible for "special-needs parole," offered to terminally ill and elderly offenders, because he committed a violent crime.
Michaud said he moved Adams' parole hearing up from April 2010 at the request of Adams' uncle.
Parole is denied for a variety of reasons, including victim input, the inmate's behavior in prison and their commitment to sobriety, Michaud said.
Hearing officers also try to determine if the prisoner has completed anger-management and drug-rehab programs, prior criminal history and if there is adequate family support upon release, Michaud said.
Recently, the issue of compassionate release for violent offenders has raised questions about what is an appropriate balance between public safety and mercy.
In California, Charles Manson family member Susan Atkins — who stabbed pregnant actress Sharon Tate to death in August 1969 — was denied parole and compassionate release as she lay on a prison hospital gurney. She died Sept. 24, 22 days after her parole hearing.
4 comments:
"To err is human, to forgive is devine." and we call ourselves Christians or any other religion? I am not a religious person but as a moral issue this is revealing. Morally, "an eye for an eye" is wrong. It seems to me that people who have lost family members to a violent death or people who have been injured by a violent act are spiritually blacked out by their need for revenge. As a country we feed into this, as indicated by all the tests that need to be passed in order for the release of a dying inmate to his/her family. Sad! All who hold on to the blackness themselves will carry it forth to the hear-after, whether the hear-after be generational on earth or in an afterlife in heaven. It would seem to me that by releasing the hate/revenge a person would gain back a lightness of being or some sort of serenity.
Anonymous 1# has said it perfectly. djw
David Michaud and the Colorado Parole Board never cease to amaze me! This man has a "few weeks to live" and they won't parole him so he can die at home? What purpose does it serve to hold him until he dies?
Did you see the Denver Post on Thursday, October 15th? The 10 inmates who were paroled early were featured in color photos on the front page. One of them was released 26 days early and another 18 days early. Big deal! You've got to be kidding me! The parole board calls that "early release!" What a bunch of baloney! Let's release some inmates six months or more early and call that early release.
If Colorado is going to post the color photos and names of the inmates who were released a few days early, I would think most inmates would say, "No thank you" to "early" release. The state can continue to support these people at a cost of $30,000 to $40,000 per year.
I hope David Michaud and the rest of the parole board wake up soon! But, I'm not holding my breath! I don't think there's any hope for Michaud or the board members.
David Michaud is a certified "piece of ****". He and his fellow board members do not have the best interests of the inmates or the general public in mind. They are there to find reasons to keep people incarcerated as long as they can. There are so many people in Colorado prisons who do not belong in prison and the parole board does all they can to keep them there or send them back. It is political and monetary. It is not for public welfare or well-being.
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