Commutation plea carries a political risk for Patrick

Commutation plea carries a political risk for Patrick
Killer's request OK'd by Parole Board
By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff


NORFOLK - Arnold King's supporters say he is the model prisoner.
In 36 years behind bars, he has earned undergraduate and master's degrees, published articles, mentored fellow inmates, and counseled high school students about the pitfalls of drugs and violence.

But it was the reason he ended up in prison that will forever define his life. On Oct. 20, 1971, King, then 18 years old and high on marijuana and alcohol, stuck a gun in a car window on Newbury Street and fired a shot into the head of John Labanara, a 26-year-old campaign aide to Mayor Kevin H. White of Boston. King was convicted of first-degree murder eight months later and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Now, after two-thirds of his life behind bars, King is asking for a second chance. He is the first inmate whose plea to be set free has made it to the desk of Governor Deval Patrick, and his attempt has met with the unanimous approval of the state Parole Board.

His request for a commutation - a reduction in sentence - along with the Parole Board's support, marks the first test of whether Patrick's attitude toward prisoners will be different from that of his Republican predecessors, who last commuted a sentence 11 years ago. It also forces the governor to wade into what has been a political minefield.

"In this society, everybody gets a second chance," said King, 55, in a recent interview in a bare conference room at the Bay State Correctional Center, a medium security prison.

"I think what I want people to understand is there is a possibility for change," King said. "I want to portray myself not as a teenage killer, but as a person who has done a lot of work and tried to make myself a better person. I think I have done that, and other people think I've done that."

King's supporters include the Massachusetts Black Legislative Caucus, academics, ministers, and community leaders, among them Harvard Law School professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr., Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, and former Boston mayoral candidate Mel King. But Labanara's family, Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis, and Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley oppose King's release.

Labanara, a graduate of Boston University and Suffolk Law School, had just passed the Massachusetts bar exam and was coming from a celebration with friends when King shot and killed him during an attempted robbery.

"He snuffed out a life that was full of promise and hope for no reason whatsoever," said Stephen Bowen III, a close friend of Labanara's who worked with him on political campaigns. "For all those people who have sympathetic ears to Arnold King, let them have one of their children killed on the happiest day of their life and call me and tell me they forgive."

The state's six-member Advisory Board of Pardons, which is also the Parole Board, cited King's "exceptional strides" and sent his commutation petition to Patrick's desk Dec. 18 with a unanimous recommendation that he accept it. The governor's approval would move it to the Governor's Council for a final decision.

As the governor addresses the issue, the specter of Benjamin LaGuer looms large. LaGuer is a convicted rapist whom Patrick and many other community leaders rallied behind until DNA tests linked him to the crime. Patrick's actions - he donated money to LaGuer's defense - proved a controversial issue during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign.

Since then, Patrick has cautiously approached criminal justice issues, emphasizing his belief in rehabilitation, while not wanting to appear soft on crime. He declined through a spokesman to talk about his views on commutations and pardons. A statement released by his press secretary said: "The Governor is inclined to believe that offenders should serve their sentences in full. There is, however, a process in place where it is the responsibility of the Board of Pardons to review individual cases and make recommendations. The Governor will take advice from the Board under advisement and will make his own decision on a case by case basis."

Commutations and pardons are politically risky, and politicians over the last 20 years have been generally unwilling to grant any leniency for inmates, according to Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist.

"It seems that in politics today it's not a risk worth taking because of the potential backlash that can happen," said Marsh, citing the oft-referenced 1988 presidential campaign of former governor Michael S. Dukakis. "Whether you stay in office or run for higher office, it certainly will come up again."

Dukakis was lambasted for granting 48 commutations during his first term as governor, including 45 for first- and second-degree murderers. He was also criticized for a state furlough program that allowed inmates to go home for weekends. One inmate, Willie Horton, raped a Maryland woman and stabbed her husband during a 1986 furlough.

During his presidential bid, Mitt Romney, Patrick's Republican predecessor as governor, touted the fact that he had granted no commutations or pardons. Political rivals accused Romney of being inflexible for refusing to pardon a decorated Iraqi war veteran who could not become a police officer because he grazed a classmate with a BB gun when he was 13 years old.

The last commutation in Massachusetts was granted to Joseph Salvati in 1997, amid evidence he had been wrongly convicted of a 1965 murder. His conviction was later overturned.

Since Patrick took office last year, the number of commutation and pardon petitions has spiked, with 131 filed in 2007, compared with 49 during Romney's last year in office. King's commutation request and two pardon petitions were the only ones approved by the advisory board and forwarded to Patrick.

King, whose five prior commutation requests were denied, said he is sorry for killing Labanara.

Three days after he had been paroled from a New Hampshire prison after serving seven months for robbery, King and a friend were planning to rob a drug dealer when they came upon Labanara at 1:30 a.m., King said.

"I was young, on drugs and alcohol, it was more that I was out of control," said King, a high school dropout who was raised in Portsmouth, N.H., and started drinking and doing drugs by the time he was 13.

John Labanara grew up in Belmont, and played hockey at Belmont High and at Boston University. He served in the National Guard.

His mother, Margaret, who was widowed when Labanara was 2 and worked full time as a telephone company supervisor to raise her two sons, was devastated when her son died on what had been one of the happiest days of his life, said Lynne Labanara, widow of Labanara's brother, Frederick, who died in 2006.

"How lucky he is to have the opportunity to do all the things he is doing - and I strongly feel that he should continue to do that in prison," she said.

Labanara's family and friends also voiced concern about the more than 50 disciplinary reports King has received in prison.

"I don't believe he's been rehabilitated one bit," said Bowen, Labanara's friend. "He's just a conman who is . . . trying to get out on the street."

The advisory board denied King's first three petitions, citing his disciplinary record, the nature of the crime, and his failure to accept responsibility for the murder. But, the board voted 3-3 on his fourth petition, and 4-3 in favor of his fifth bid, which was then rejected by Romney.

King said he had difficulty adjusting to prison initially, but changed after getting educated, joining self-help groups, and founding programs that involve counseling high school students and other inmates. It is that kind of counseling work that supporters say is not only proof of his reform, but would make him a valuable resource in the community.

Sam Williams, chief operating officer of the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry in Roxbury, says he owes much of his success to King. "There are a lot of men in the community who are doing as well as I am who got taught and were mentored by Arnie," said Williams, who was released from prison in 1996 after serving 11 years for killing a man during a drug deal.

Ogletree, among King's most prominent supporters, said he understands the pain of being a victim because his sister, a police officer, was murdered 25 years ago.

"The fact that he could fall and go all the way to the lowest possible place and have the fortitude to rise above his misconduct and bad judgment to be someone that others look to for advice, for direction, that's why I think he has earned what I hope the governor will grant," Ogletree said.