Inmate Freed After Winning Parole Battle

A murder convict whose 1994 release date had been abruptly rescinded by the state Board of Prison Terms was freed this week after the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found he no longer was dangerous and had been unlawfully denied parole.

Lawyers for other inmates said the release late Wednesday of Carl McQuillion, who had served 30 years for two murders in Long Beach, marked the first time in memory that a court has ordered a convict freed due to an error by the parole board.

“This could be a watershed,” said Donald Specter of the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit firm that has represented inmates seeking parole. “It certainly shows that the federal courts are fed up with the Board of Prison Terms and willing to take action when a case warrants it.”

McQuillion’s attorney, Monica Knox of the federal public defender’s office in Los Angeles, said she was delighted that her client had finally won his freedom.

“But I’m really, really disappointed in a system that took almost a decade to correct this incredibly gross error, keeping him in prison nine years longer than he should have been,” said Knox.

McQuillion, 54, was convicted of two counts of murder after he and a partner robbed a Long Beach sporting goods store of $1,000 and 17 guns in 1970. During a struggle over a gun, McQuillion shot one of the store owners, and his accomplice later shot the other.

The men then fled the state, committing a series of armed robberies in Indiana and Louisiana. McQuillion was arrested in Louisiana and extradited to California, where he was convicted and sentenced to a term of seven years to life with the possibility of parole.

Immediately after his incarceration, he set on a course of rehabilitation, becoming a motivational speaker who sought to deter others from crime and counsel incoming prisoners, records show. He was even permitted to give speeches off prison grounds, sometimes unescorted, his attorney said.

In 1979, the Board of Prison Terms found McQuillion suitable for parole and set a release date in 1998. At progress hearings after that initial parole grant, his release date was advanced because of good behavior, meaning he would have been eligible to go free in 1994.

However, six months before McQuillion was to be released, the board rescinded his parole date. In justifying its decision, the board said that the parole commissioners who had approved McQuillion’s release had not sufficiently weighed the gravity of his crime and prior criminal history.

McQuillion challenged that action in state court, without success. He then took his case to federal court, alleging that his due process rights had been violated by the reversal of his parole.

Knox argued that her client’s release had been blocked because “the politics of parole had changed,” in part due to high-profile crimes that have made governors -- who appoint the Board of Prison Terms -- leery of allowing any convicted killers to go free.

“By 1994,” Knox said, “they just didn’t think lifers should get out at all any more, so they were taking everybody’s dates away.” She noted that under Gov. George Deukmejian in the previous decade very few inmates had their parole dates rescinded.

The federal district court initially rejected McQuillion’s arguments, but the 9th Circuit reversed that decision, finding that there was no justification for the parole board to overturn his release.

The court noted that the warden at San Quentin State Prison had once said he “observed more growth and potential in Carl McQuillion

The 9th Circuit Court ordered McQuillion released, but that was delayed by an additional appeal by the state, which sought to force him to go through another hearing before the parole board.

That effort was rejected by the district court and last week by the 9th Circuit, allowing McQuillion to walk out the prison gate Wednesday evening.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Julie Garland, who handled the case for the parole board, said she was disappointed that the court had agreed with McQuillion.

“The court seemed to think justice required that he be released,” Garland said. “Obviously, we disagree.”

A spokesman for the Board of Prison Terms, Bill Sessa, said officials could recall only one other inmate who had challenged his denial of parole in court and won his release. That inmate, Chester Johnson, was released in the early 1990s but rearrested after he lost his case on appeal, a scenario that cannot happen with McQuillion’s case. Johnson remains in prison.

Knox picked up her client Thursday after his release from the state prison in San Luis Obispo. She said he would be flying today to Louisiana, where his mother is in ill health.

“He is very grateful,” Knox said. “He’s very happy and he is adjusting to a world that bears very little resemblance to the one he knew 33 years ago.”