The chair of the Texas Parole Board, Rissie Owens, has rejected Brown’s request that someone other than former prison officials hear his case for parole.
Bill Habern, Brown’s parole attorney, and the lawyer who helped defend him in two of his murder trials for drowning a Texas warden in 1981, told the Austin American Statesman’s Mike Ward that he expects Brown will not be paroled this year.
One of his hearing officers will be a former Texas prison warden, Tony Garcia. A second, Pamela Freeman, is a former Texas correctional officer. Owens wrote of them:
“These individuals have and continue to perform their duties and responsibilities with the utmost respect and appreciation for each individual case they are charged with reviewing to make a release decision determination,” Owens wrote.
“Their backgrounds have never been called into question to date and I do not anticipate such in the future.”
Habern doubts they can be fair.
“How can you be a disinterested voting parole panel member if you’re an ex-warden or an ex-corrections officer in the same system, at a prison in the same town where the incident took place?” Habern said.
“How that can that not affect your consideration of this case?”
Although 35 of 36 jurors acquitted Brown of murder by reason of self-defense, Texas prison officials have continued to regard Wallace Pack and Billy Moore as heroes. The Pack unit near Navasota was named after Wallace Pack. Brown testified that Pack pulled a revolver and threatened to splatter his brains all over the road. A stone monument at Ellis prison declares that the two officials’ “devotion to duty, service to Texas and courage will always stand as our guide and standard.”
