Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board is turning to online collaboration tool SharePoint to improve its processing of stage one commutation applications.

District attorneys must get access to applications within 10 days of pardon and parole completing their review. Files for each applicant will be accessible on an agency SharePoint site, which should provide faster access than hard copies.

District attorneys should get automatic notifications when a case from their area is uploaded.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3–1 on Monday to hold a second, in-depth hearing on Julius Jones’ commutation application. 

Commutation is a two-stage process in Oklahoma. Jones' application, the first in the state being considered from an inmate on death row, was on Monday's docket for its stage one hearing. Board members Kelly Doyle, Adam Luck and Larry Morris voted for it. Board member Allen McCall voted against it.

State parole investigators have finished reviewing 1,800 commutation applications from a backlog of around 3,000, according to an executive director's report given to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board on Monday.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board’s new leader said Monday he’s spent the past few weeks making a plan to tackle a backlog of commutation requests.

Executive Director Tom Bates said he expects there will be some training soon to help sort through around 3,000 applications that have built up as the board has taken up smaller dockets because of concerns about the review process.

"The whole purpose of this is to divide these up into some manageable buckets by objective criteria that allows us to help you as a aboard prioritize these pending applications," Bates said.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board is set to ease up on its recent approach to commutations, at least temporarily.

With more than 2,700 pending applications, the agency had scheduled monthly dockets with 425 cases through March 2021, but board members would like to see dockets in the 150-case range for a couple of months after potential issues came to light.

Concerns include district attorney notifications not being made, misconduct reports not coming over from the Department of Corrections and information like past convictions missing from files.

Turbulent times continue at the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board.

Former Executive Director Steven Bickley resigned, effective Friday, following a dispute with board member and retired judge Allen McCall over the board’s ability to consider commutation requests from death row inmates. McCall threatened Bickley with a grand jury investigation, and he followed that up by telling the board last month he knew of issues agency staff had with Bickley.

McCall publicly specified Monday those were instances of derogatory language directed at staff.

The head of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board resigned this week after being threatened last month by a board member with a grand jury investigation of unspecified criminal activity.

Pardon and parole Executive Director Steven Bickley had asked the board earlier this month to approve an extended leave after board member and retired judge Allen McCall sent him an email accusing him of trying to force an anti-death penalty view on the board. That happened after an exchange about whether the board could consider commutation requests from death-row inmates.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board is getting to work on rules for how it will handle commutation applications from inmates sentenced to die.

An attorney general opinion last month confirmed the interpretation of the board’s general counsel that it may consider their requests. Parole board member Kelly Doyle said Monday she’d like to hear from the inmates themselves in the first step of the process, in which the board generally gets a packet on their case.

Updated June 9, 11:45 a.m. to include a statement from District Attorney Laura Austin Thomas. 

In response to a request from the district attorney for Logan and Payne Counties, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board said Monday it has no authority to disqualify members from hearing cases over potential conflicts of interest.

Executive Director Steven Bickley said DA Laura Austin Thomas made a blanket request based on Adam Luck and Kelly Doyle’s previous work with organizations that help inmates transition to life outside of prison.

Governor Kevin Stitt’s office said last week 404 inmates with sentences commuted to time served will be getting out of prison Thursday, but that’s not the case.

According the the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, 111 inmates will be released.

Others are serving time for felonies other than drug or property crimes that have since been reduced to misdemeanors, and discharging those other crimes requires more steps from the parole board, not just those Stitt took Friday.

Updated April 13, 7 p.m. 

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board could speed up the commutation process because of COVID-19.

Executive Director Steven Bickley said during a meeting on Monday they would try to get the turnaround time for commutation applications down to 30 days.