Davis OKs Parole for Battered Woman

Gov. Gray Davis agreed Saturday to parole a battered woman imprisoned for 22 years in the killing of her abuser, marking only the fourth time in 194 cases that Davis has permitted a convicted murderer to go free.

But in announcing his decision, the governor said he would keep Maria Suarez of Azusa in state prison until March 2004, saying lingering questions about her role in the slaying justify another 11 months behind bars.

“This was a difficult case, and it appears we will never know the full truth about what led to the crime,” Davis said in a statement. The governor added that he was convinced Suarez had suffered from “psychological, economic, social and physical abuse and isolation” at the hands of Anselmo Covarrubias during their five-year relationship.

In Los Angeles, relatives of Suarez, 42, said they were grateful for the governor’s action but disheartened that he was delaying her release.

“We’re overwhelmed and we’re happy because it has been a long fight to get to this point,” said Patricia Valencia, Suarez’s niece and the family’s principal advocate for her release. “But to make her wait another year is just torture, and so that part of it is very sad.”

It was the second time Davis considered the Suarez case, which has attracted widespread attention from groups working on behalf of women prisoners. Last June, he overruled his parole board’s recommendation that she be freed, asking for further investigation because of conflicting accounts about whether she had joined in a conspiracy to kill Covarrubias.

In November, Suarez went before the parole board again, and was again approved for release. Board members concluded that Suarez had suffered “an extreme amount of abuse” from Covarrubias, including violent rapes and beatings, and that there was no evidence that she had conspired to have her abuser killed.

According to parole board documents, Suarez was 16 when she moved from Mexico to live with a sister in Duarte. While walking in her neighborhood, Suarez was approached by a woman who offered her work as a housekeeper. She wound up in the home of Covarrubias, who allegedly paid a $200 “finder’s fee” for her.

Covarrubias, then 68, was considered by neighbors to be a “brujo,” or warlock, documents show. Throughout their relationship, he subjected Suarez to “an extreme level of torture and control,” according to an expert on battered women’s syndrome who evaluated the case for the parole board. The expert said Suarez, reared in a rural area of Mexico where superstitions were widely embraced, was afraid Covarrubias would use witchcraft to harm her family if she fled.

In August 1981, a neighbor, Rene Soto, killed Covarrubias by hitting him with a wooden table leg. Authorities said Suarez, who washed and hid the weapon, had conspired with Soto to kill Covarrubias. She and the assailant were convicted of first-degree murder.

Soto and his wife initially implicated Suarez in a conspiracy, but later told investigators that she had not been involved. Soto’s Spanish-speaking wife has said that she believes a translation error led officials to conclude that she had told them Suarez was involved.

In his four-page statement on the case, Davis said he was troubled by the conflicting statements on the culpability of Suarez, and therefore was ordering the longer prison stay. Until her release, Suarez will remain at the Institution for Women in Chino, where she has been a model prisoner and earned certificates in graphic design and plumbing.

The Suarez case is one of dozens being reexamined by the parole board to determine whether battered women’s syndrome may have played a role. Experts say battered women’s syndrome is a behavioral condition that afflicts those who have been systematically abused. Feeling powerless or fearing reprisals, victims often see homicide or suicide as the only way out of abusive relationships.

Testimony about battered women’s syndrome was not allowed in court until 1992 and so was not presented when Suarez was on trial.

Among those supporting Suarez’s parole was her former attorney, who has said that he botched the case and that he has been haunted by it for 20 years. Also backing her release was the now-retired sheriff’s homicide detective who arrested her.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has opposed parole, saying Suarez was an active participant in a murder conspiracy.

Since Davis was elected in 1998, his Board of Prison Terms has approved parole for 194 murder convicts. The law requires the governor to review each, and he has upheld his board’s decision only four times -- three for battered women who killed their abusers, and the fourth for a 71-year-old Stockton man who had served 15 years for killing a neighborhood vandal.