Georgia's Abu Ghraib's

We are tax paying citizens of the United States, and we object to our tax money being used to
fund corruption, and human rights abuses that are equal to, or exceed the abuses at Abu Ghraib
that are prevalent in Georgia prisons, therefore we are asking for a federal investigation into the
Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles for the following reasons.

We believe the overcrowded prisons in Georgia has nothing to do with protecting the public, it
has to do with greed, and political corruption. Rather than reducing the sentencing periods as
other states did in order to comply with the 85\% requirement for federal funding pursuant to the
Violent Offenders Incarceration-Truth in Sentencing Act {VOITIS}, 42 U.S.C. 13704, et seq.,
Georgia went the other way requiring inmates in the seven most serious violent offender
categories to serve mandatory sentences without parole.

And we believe that when a similar legislative attempt failed to increase sentences to serve for
violent felonies, the Board adopted, and retroactively implemented an unpublished policy that
all offenders in twenty other violent offense and residential burglary categories must serve 90\% of
their judicial sentences before becoming eligible for parole, to qualify for the VOITIS grant
money.

The Georgia Parole Board whose illegal enforcement of their ninety percent to serve policy to
extend the sentences to serve of thousands of inmates, without legal authority, and rulemaking is
contrary to the parole laws, and the Parole Decision Guidelines and has now been held to have
been in violation of the Georgia Administrative Procedure Act.

Not following the parole laws and guidelines is tantamount to lawlessness by the Members of the
Board. The members of this Board have not only a sworn duty to follow the laws of our state,
but not following the enacted parole laws and guidelines, and making up their own, and enforcing
them, without Legislative, or Judicial authority, makes a mockery of our justice system by the
Members of the Board who should be setting a legal example for the inmates in their charge.

This unpublished policy had an effective date of January 1,1998, but the Board applied the
ninety percent to serve policy retroactively to inmates whose offenses were prior to January
1,1998. Judge William C. OKelley in the Coleman Jackson v. State Board of Pardons and
Paroles, United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Civil No.
2:01-CV-068-WCO {May 29.2002}, held the Boards actions were unconstitutional, and in
violation of the Ex Post Facto prohibitions.

Following the holding that the retroactive application of the ninety percent to serve rule was
unconstitutional, the Members of the Board on the advice of the office of Attorney General
Thurbert Baker adopted a Resolution Amendment, September 9, 2002, resolving that offenders
who committed their offenses before January 1, 1998, shall be reconsidered for parole under the
parole decision guidelines that do not include the ninety percent policy.

However the Board only gave lip service that they would reconsider over a thousand inmates
convicted of offenses before January 1, 1998, they did not follow the parole decision guidelines in
one single inmates case, and continued to retroactively apply the 90\% rule to inmates whose
conviction was for an offense prior to January 1, 1998

Members of the Board re-sentences inmates to what they think their sentence to serve should be,
and often re-convict because of the circumstances of your offense and due to the seriousness
of your crime. The seriousness of the offense is already calculated in the crime severity level of
the offense, and should not be decided by the members of the Board, or the staff,.

Testimony of the Boards Legal Director Tracy Masters in the Coleman Jackson v. State Board of
Pardons and Paroles was that in 80\% of the cases the Board reviews, hearing examiners make the
parole decision. The legislatively mandated rule that all five members of the board make parole
decisions, are ignored.

Twice now the courts have told the Members of the Board that they have violated the law in
applying extended sentences to serve policies. And they continue to ignore the law. This extended
sentence to serve policy is the driving force of the explosion of inmate populations, and has
caused the Department of Corrections budget crisis. Making it impossible to provide humane
medical care, and failure to provide properly trained guards.

Many thousands of inmates are being held in Georgia prisons unconstitutionally, beyond the time
that they should be paroled, leading to extreme prison overcrowding, breeding violence, rapes of
young inmates, mixing mentally ill, and normal inmates, putting lives in danger causing killings,
the spread of infectious disease, and other human rights violations, and all of it can be attributed
to the abuse of power, and despotism at the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles.

The extended sentences to serve policy is perpetrating one of the most massive Civil Rights
Violations of our times. Georgia now has the most incarcerated and offender supervised per
capita rate of any state or country in the world, and especially of African Americans.

Inmate records are government secrets in Georgia, and inmates, their families, or their lawyers are
not allowed access to what theyre using to deny paroles to deserving inmates. We believe these
records hold evidence that could free inmates, and possibly prove corruption.

We ask for a federal investigation into the illegal actions of the Georgia Board of Pardons and
Paroles, and we ask that any further federal funding of our tax money, not be used to fund this
illegal activity, and abuse of power.