The State - News from March 22, 1988

A state board, tangled in an unusual legal web, delayed a decision on whether to parole former Black Panther member Johnny Spain, whom a court already has freed after 21 years in prison for murder. The full state Board of Prison Terms voted unanimously to have one of its smaller three-member panels reconsider parole of the “San Quentin Six” member, even though he was released from Vacaville state prison March 10 on court orders that required $350,000 bail. The board’s chief legal counsel, William Cashdollar, said the new hearing will take place within 45 days, in effect, canceling a Feb. 11 decision by one of the board’s three-member panels to parole Spain, 38, sometime in 1989. “After weighing all the evidence, they (the full nine-member board) determined a new hearing was appropriate,” Cashdollar said, but refused to provide any further details.