Post on Parole Board in Jeopardy

Gov. Gray Davis’ appointment of a retired Los Angeles police officer to the state parole board ran aground Monday over the agency’s refusal to obey the court-ordered release of a convicted Calabasas murderer.

The Senate Rules Committee delayed for two weeks a confirmation vote on the nomination of Leonard G. Munoz, a member of the Los Angeles Police Department for 30 years.

Munoz, appointed to the state Board of Prison Terms by Davis last year, must win confirmation of the Senate by May 20 or leave the post.

President Pro Tem John L. Burton (D-San Francisco), who earlier derailed the reappointment of board Chairman James Nielsen, announced at the outset of the hearing that a vote would be delayed for two weeks to give the committee more time to examine Munoz.

Committee approval of Munoz had been expected to be routine, until last week when the state District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles ruled that the board had abused its discretion in refusing to parole Robert Rosenkrantz, 34. His case has become a cause celebre among critics of the parole board’s policy of refusing to release convicted murderers.

In 1985, Rosenkrantz fired 10 bullets from an assault gun into a classmate, Steve Redman, after Redman exposed him as a homosexual on the night of his graduation from high school in Calabasas.

Rosenkrantz was sentenced to 15 years to life for second-degree murder and had been a model inmate while imprisoned, including earning a four-year college degree.

The board repeatedly has denied him parole. The Superior Court in 1998 ordered him released, finding he was no danger to society.

The board agreed to a hearing, but ruled him ineligible for release. The appellate court Thursday agreed with the lower court and ordered the board to set a hearing within 30 days or face contempt of court charges. Remarkably, the court said it “anticipated” that Rosenkrantz would be freed.

But when he appeared before the Rules Committee on Monday, Munoz was met by a barrage of opposition from Democrats, who asserted that the board had gone beyond its legal authority in denying parole for murderers and other life-sentence convicts.

Although the board last year recommended parole of more than a dozen “lifers,” Davis, a hard-liner on crime, has rejected every one.

Munoz conceded that Rosenkrantz had compiled an excellent record in prison, but said he also considered “the gravity of the offense itself” when he voted last year against releasing him.

In reaching parole decisions, Munoz said, members “sometimes have to try to get into the mind of the judge” who issued the sentence.

But two powerful Democrats, Sens. Richard Polanco of Los Angeles and John Vasconcellos of Santa Clara, accused Munoz and other board members of claiming more power than the law allows them in rejecting paroles.

“The record does not support the confirmation of this man,” Vasconcellos told the committee.

Polanco asserted that the board has made it a practice to substitute its own will for that of juries and judges who originally convicted and sentenced criminals to prison.