Mobile Police Chief James Barber asked the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles to deny early parole to two men convicted of violent felonies, both of whom were up for consideration during the month, according to the department.
In a release, Mobile Police Department public information officer Ashley Rains laid out the department’s objections to the release of the two men, pointing to extensive arrest records that stretched back nearly two decades.
The first case
Rains said Frank Moore Howard was eligible for parole on July 8. In November 2012, Howard was found guilty of two counts of first-degree robbery and was ordered to serve 10 years in prison.
According to Rains, Howard had been arrested by Mobile police 16 times since 1995 before that conviction, five of those arrests involving violent felonies. She said he had also been named as the key suspect in 27 other cases, a history the chief cited in arguing against his early release.
The second case
The second man, Lawrence Dwayne Roscoe, was eligible for parole on July 22. Roscoe had been found guilty of murder and first-degree robbery and was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison, Rains said.
Prior to that conviction, Roscoe had been arrested by Mobile police on eight other felony charges since 1996, three of them violent robberies, according to the department.
A police voice in the parole process
The chief’s request reflected a broader practice in which local law enforcement agencies weigh in when offenders from their jurisdictions come up for parole. The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles considers a range of factors in deciding whether to grant early release, and input from the arresting agency and prosecutors can figure into those deliberations.
By publicizing the two cases, the Mobile Police Department signaled its intent to press its objections through official channels before the board acted. The department framed both men as repeat offenders whose records, in the chief’s view, argued against release ahead of the terms handed down at sentencing.
Parole decisions in Alabama turn on more than the original sentence. The board reviews an inmate’s conduct, the circumstances of the underlying offense and any objections raised by victims, prosecutors or law enforcement. Chief Barber’s appeal placed the department squarely on the side of keeping both men incarcerated, at least for the near term.
The two eligibility dates fell within the same month, prompting the department to address both cases together. For Howard, the 10-year sentence imposed in 2012 meant early parole would have cut short a defined term; for Roscoe, whose sentence was life in prison, the stakes of the board’s decision were higher still.
The department did not detail what additional steps it planned to take beyond the public appeal, but the release made clear that the chief wanted the board to weigh the men’s full arrest histories, not just their most recent convictions, in reaching a decision.