Inmate Wins Parole After Long Dispute

Convicted kidnapper Tommy Davis, whose release was opposed by Gov. Gray Davis, walked out of San Quentin Prison on parole Monday after a victory in his long-running battle with state authorities.

“I’m home!” the new parolee shouted as he arrived at his father’s Vallejo home across San Francisco Bay from San Quentin, his lawyer reported. “It’s great to be free.”

Freedom for the 34-year-old felon, who spent nearly 13 years locked up for a violent kidnapping, came almost two months before his scheduled Dec. 23 parole date.

But even so, Tommy Davis spent seven months longer in San Quentin than he should have because the state Board of Prison Terms blocked his earlier release, said his attorney, Keith Wattley.

Parole reformers and some Democrats in the Legislature say the board deals unfairly with life-term convicts who perform well in prison, play by the rules but whose paroles are delayed or denied by hard-line appointees of Gov. Davis or the governor.

They say that under Davis and his predecessor, Gov. Pete Wilson, the board has routinely manipulated bureaucratic processes and procedures to deny due process to deserving parole applicants.

“You cannot give Tommy Davis back the seven months he served that he shouldn’t have served,” Wattley said.

Along with three crime partners, Tommy Davis, a senior and outstanding football player at Southern Oregon College, was convicted of kidnapping for his part in the 1987 armed robbery, rape and abduction of a 19-year-old woman in Sacramento.

He had no previous criminal history and compiled a virtually spotless record behind bars. Tommy Davis, who declined to be interviewed, now wants to work with at-risk young people, his lawyer said.

After two unsuccessful tries, prisoner Davis in 1998 was granted a parole date of Dec. 23. Later, as a panel of parole commissioners was about to start a hearing last March to examine Davis’ progress toward parole, one commissioner abruptly sent the case to the full board for additional examination.

The full board ordered a hearing in which Davis’ suitability for parole was at stake before a three-member panel last summer. The panel upheld his suitability.

However, Gov. Davis refused to go along, saying the convict’s crime was so grave that he deserved more time in prison. The governor urged the full board to reconsider the parole. Over his objections, the board last month reaffirmed the Dec. 23 release.

It refused, however, to credit Tommy Davis with nine months of early release credits that Wattley said his client had earned since the progress hearing was canceled.

Even though Tommy Davis could not take advantage of the full nine months, he deserved to walk free immediately, Wattley told the board.

Wattley sued the board in Superior Court to grant the early release based on the accumulated credits that would have built up if the progress hearing had gone ahead as scheduled. The court ordered the board to show cause why the credits should not be awarded and set a hearing for Nov. 17.

Wattley disclosed Monday that the board met privately Friday for a catch-up progress hearing for Davis and then reversed itself, granting the early release credits immediately. Inmate Davis waived his right to be present.

Wattley said he believes the lawsuit forced the board to hold the delayed progress hearing.

A board spokeswoman confirmed the board held the hearing Friday.