HOPELESS': PAROLE DENIAL FOR ALABAMA WOMAN WITH TERMINAL ILLNESS HIGHLIGHTS INJUSTICE

The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles meets just 20 miles from the prison where Leola Harris, a 71-year-old woman in end-stage renal failure, has been incarcerated for 19 years. But for Harris, those 20 miles might as well be the moon, as far away as her chances of being released from prison before she dies.

Harris was a first-time offender when she was convicted of murdering a friend in her home. She has been a model of good behavior inside the prison for the almost two decades she has served of a 35-year sentence.

Harris uses a wheelchair for mobility and undergoes dialysis three times a week. She has diabetes. She is unable to go to the bathroom by herself and has spent extended periods in the infirmary of Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women. A nursing home has agreed to take her to live out her final days. But in January, the parole board took just six minutes to deny her parole.

Harris never traveled the 20 miles to the boardroom, where just two members of the three-member board made the decision because the other member was absent. In Alabama, unlike in every other state where parole hearings are held, incarcerated people aren’t permitted to attend their parole hearings, in person or virtually.

https://www.splcenter.org/news/2023/04/07/freedom-denied-71-year-old-woman-terminal-illness