Michael King has updated his coverage of Eroy Brown’s parole chances.
Huntsville attorney Bill Habern was on Brown’s original defense team and represents him in his parole case. In what he acknowledges is an extraordinary circumstance, Habern has asked that former TDCJ employees (or their immediate relatives) be recused from the three-member panel assigned to decide Brown’s parole – the current panel would include two Huntsville-based former TDCJ employees, including a retired warden. “We are acutely aware that those selected to make up the Brown Panel,” Habern wrote on Jan. 18 to Rissie Owens, chair of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, “face the potential of extremely negative reactions from their old friends and social contacts who are employees of the Texas prison system, especially if they were to vote in a favorable manner.”
Owens has told told Habern she trusts the former prison officials to vote in a fair and professional manner.
