Correct decision by the board.
Via CBS News:
A former radical who drove a getaway car during a Brinks armored car robbery that led to the deaths of two police officers and a security guard has been denied parole.
The New York state Parole Board denied Judith Clark’s bid for parole on Friday even after Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo met with Clark in prison and made the decision to commute her sentence.
Clark has served 35 years of a maximum 75-year sentence for her role in the 1981 robbery.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo granted Clark clemency this past New Year’s Eve, CBS New York reports. She had been sentenced to 75 years to life in prison for being the getaway driver in the Oct. 20. 1981 doomed armored truck heist. The governor reduced her sentence to 35 years to life to give her a chance at parole.
In a 2002 sworn statement, she expressed regret and said she had rejected her radical beliefs. Behind bars, she has helped found an HIV/AIDS education program and done other charitable work.
But law enforcement groups opposed Clark’s release, and Republican state senators said nearly 10,000 people signed a petition urging the state Board of Parole to keep her locked up.
A spokeswoman for Cuomo said the governor respects the parole board’s decision.
Clark’s lawyer, Steve Zeidman, said the decision ignores Clark’s “extraordinary record of achievement and transformation.”
The New York State Parole Board said it commended Clark’s “personal growth and productive use at time,” CBS New York reports. But the board also said it must consider whether someone’s release “is release is not incompatible with the welfare of society and will not so deprecate the seriousness of (their) crimes as to undermine respect for the law.”
The board ruled that Clark failed that test.
The Parole Board noted that Clark – a University of Chicago graduate who was arrested in the 1969 “Days of Rage” protests in Chicago – had a prior criminal history in Illinois of aggravated battery, aiding escape and mob action. The board said Clark was “attracted to violence to demonstrate total commitment to revolutionary ideas” for more than a decade between her 20s and 30s.