Davis Blocks Parole in ’85 Malibu Murder

Defying a judge’s order, Gov. Gray Davis has blocked the parole of a Calabasas man convicted of killing a schoolmate who attacked him and exposed him as a homosexual on the night of his high school graduation.

Declaring that Robert Rosenkrantz has not served enough time for his 1985 crime, Davis reversed a decision by the state Board of Prison Terms that would have freed the model inmate in January 2001.

The governor has said publicly that no convicted murderers will be released on his watch, and he has blocked all 18 parole grants sent to him for review so far by the board.

The Rosenkrantz case stands out because Davis’ action conflicts with an order last March by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge.

In a strongly worded decision, Judge Kathryne Ann Stoltz said there was no evidence that Rosenkrantz remains a danger to society and ordered him paroled.

Stoltz also found that the Board of Prison Terms had abused its discretion in an earlier denial of parole to Rosenkrantz and said two board members were biased against him.

The state has appealed Stoltz’s order. But in the meantime, the parole board has complied with it--reluctantly--and granted Rosenkrantz a release date.

Davis canceled that date in a letter to Rosenkrantz last week. Noting that the prisoner had served only 15 years of a 17-year-to-life sentence, the governor said he “is not currently suitable for parole.”

“The governor has been pretty consistent in his feelings,” Davis spokesman Michael Bustamante said Tuesday. “Taking a life is such a serious offense that he’s hard-pressed to see any reason why these folks should be let free, particularly early.”

Rowan Klein, a Los Angeles attorney for Rosenkrantz, questioned the governor’s authority to block his client’s release, given the judge’s decision.

“There’s a concept called separation of powers,” Klein said. “Our position is that [Davis] can’t intercede.”

The state Constitution gives governors the authority to reverse or modify parole decisions affecting convicted murderers. Bustamante said that authority supersedes the judge’s order.

Donald Specter, director of the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit group that handles litigation for inmates, questioned that logic. “The court has made a judicial determination that this is the law and he’s entitled to a [release] date, and the governor can’t just say, ‘No it isn’t,’ ” he said. “At the very least it’s disrespectful of the role of the court in interpreting the law.”

Housed at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo, Rosenkrantz is described by corrections officials as an exemplary inmate who has had no disciplinary infractions during his incarceration. He has earned a college degree while in prison and spends his spare time tutoring other inmates.

Prison psychiatrists say Rosenkrantz is not a threat to society, and a long list of supporters is lobbying for his release. Among them are Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, the judge who presided over the murder trial, the sheriff’s detective--now retired--who investigated the case and the victim’s grandmother.

The judge, James Albracht, said Rosenkrantz “is one of the true success stories” of the correctional system and characterized his offense as an “act of angry, irrational desperation by an otherwise law-abiding 18-year-old young man who was faced with an emotional crisis.”

Only one letter--from the Sheriff’s Department--said the gravity of the crime requires that Rosenkrantz serve more time.

Hours after graduating from Calabasas High School, Rosenkrantz was hosting some friends at his family’s beach house when a younger brother and the brother’s friend, Steven Redman, burst in, called him a “faggot,” clubbed him and shot him with a stun gun.

Redman then exposed Rosenkrantz’s secret--his homosexuality--to his father, who disowned him and ordered him out of the house. Rosenkrantz bought an Uzi, confronted Redman outside his Malibu condominium and demanded that Redman retract his story. When he refused, Rosenkrantz shot and killed him.

Davis’ action marks the second time that Rosenkrantz has had a parole grant overturned. In 1996, the Board of Prison Terms set a release date, but it was reversed after an internal review.

Klein said his client was “very disappointed” by the latest news, but not surprised. “Davis has made it clear he has this policy that he’s not going to release anybody,” Klein said.

In an interview with The Times earlier this year, Davis said he would not free any convicted murderers eligible for parole--even those whose crimes carry extenuating circumstances, such as battered spouses who shoot their abusers. “If you take someone else’s life,” Davis said, “forget it.”

Critics say such a blanket policy is illegally arbitrary and violates laws requiring that each situation be considered case by case.