Parole Commission

Arthur Herman Bremer, who paralyzed former Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace and then spurned his offers of forgiveness, has argued he should be freed from prison because shooting "segregationist dinosaurs" is not as serious as harming mainstream politicians.The comments came in an angry, disjointed letter that Bremer wrote to Maryland parole officials last year and that was obtained yesterday by The Sun. Wallace died Sunday at 79.Bremer has never publicly discussed his case. The three-page letter and a 33-page transcript of Bremer's 1996 parole hearing provide the new clues about his feelings toward the Southern populist who "stood in the schoolhouse door," as he once bragged, in a failed attempt to keep blacks out of the University of Alabama.

Terrence G. Johnson, convicted of killing a Prince George's County police officer in 1979, says state prison officials denied him parole in 1991 because they were overly concerned about the negative publicity that might accompany his release.Lawyers for the Maryland Parole Commission say no one ever promised Johnson that he would be paroled before his mandatory release date, July 6, 1997.Now, a hearing before Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Warren B. Duckett Jr. could end tomorrow with a decision to release Johnson.

The nomination of Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr.'s son for a District Court judgeship is prompting a vow of resignation from at least one member of the Anne Arundel County Judicial Nominating Commission and raising old questions of nepotism and political interference. Thomas V. Miller III, a 12-year veteran of the Maryland Parole Commission, was passed over by the 13-member nominating commission in February when he applied for one of three vacant positions. But after Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, issued an executive order in April requiring all such panels to produce at least three nominations per vacancy, the commission voted Wednesday night to recommend Miller and four other previously rejected candidates for a spot on the bench.

Man who violated probation was guilty in '89 murder of his mother A convicted murderer who spent years in prison before regaining his freedom through a reduced sentence, only to have his probation revoked, was mistakenly released this week after serving less than three months of a new seven-year term, a state parole commission official said yesterday. Brian J. Dancik, convicted in 1989 of beating his mother to death in her Pikesville home, was set free after serving 76 days of the seven-year prison term imposed in June.

The 29-year-old son of the Maryland Senate president has been approved by Gov. Parris N. Glendening for a newly created spot on the state Parole Commission, a $56,000-a-year job.The appointment of Thomas V. Miller III to the six-year slot was announced yesterday by Bishop L. Robinson, state secretary of public safety and correctional services, after being approved Friday by the governor. The selection was made by Robinson.Miller, who must be approved by the Senate over which his father has presided since 1987, would become the eighth member of the parole board.

The House of Delegates has joined the Senate in demanding that the governor act on recommendations by the state parole commission to free inmates serving life sentences. The House voted Friday to give the governor six months to deny a parole recommendation by the commission. Under the legislation, if the governor does not file an objection before the deadline, the inmate would be freed automatically. Lawmakers took up the measure earlier this year in frustration that Gov. Martin O'Malley had not acted on any of the 50 parole or commutation recommendations pending during his four-plus years in office.

As festively dressed New Year's Eve revelers ducked into restaurants for Annapolis' First Night celebration, a more solemn group stood outside the governor's mansion seeking freedom for 10 prisoners serving life sentences. Del. Salima S. Marriott, a Baltimore Democrat, and her group, Campaign for Justice Under the Law, held the vigil as part of a last-ditch effort to persuade departing Gov. Parris N. Glendening to parole prisoners whom he has previously denied release because of his "life means life" policy.

Anne Furst McCloskey already has seen the death sentenc for her brother's killer reduced to life. Now she has learned that Derrick Q. White could be paroled when he comes up for a hearing in January.Alarmed by the possibility that White might be freed, she has asked members of her victim's rights group to write the state parole commission to oppose his parole."We are asking your help in preventing the parole of this cold-blooded killer," Mrs. McCloskey wrote as chairwoman of the Maryland Coalition Against Crime.

Vernon Lee Clark of Elkridge appeared in court yesterday to get a new sentence for his murder conviction, but he left the courtroom with the same one he got in 1991.At a Howard Circuit Court hearing, Clark, 39, again was sentenced to life plus 28 years in prison for the 1989 murder and rape of Kathleen Patricia Gouldin, a 23-year-old Elkridge woman who was a popular bar manager at a Baltimore nightclub.The case was sent back to Circuit Court for a second sentencing hearing after the state Court of Special Appeals ruled last year that a judge could have considered sentencing Clark to life in prison without parole, the penalty originally sought by county prosecutors.

The Maryland Parole Commission, meeting in Baltimore, granted boxer Mike Tyson parole yesterday. As long as Indiana authorities, for whom the heavyweight champion is also serving time, agree, Tyson's release should occur by June 4.In a news release, the parole commission said it based some of the decision on "the expressed intent of the victims" that Tyson "should not have been incarcerated" for attacking two motorists in Gaithersburg last summer.In a 5-1 vote, the parole board decided Tyson will have a two-year supervised release -- he will have to report twice a month to parole officials who could revoke parole and return the boxer to jail.