The person who gave me a copy of Jesse James Cowans' record had a question: ''How can the same parole board that let him out refuse parole to someone like Debbie Hill?''
Good question. Debbie Hill of Loveland never had a speeding ticket before she was pushed over the edge by a stalker, and finally shot a former boyfriend who had threatened to kill her and her son and her parents.
She tried the courts and the law, but finally even a cop told her to get a gun and keep it handy. She did. And one night in 1994, she used it to kill Omar Pierson, probably saving her own life and her son's. She took a plea bargain, assured she would serve no more than a year.
Yet the same board that paroled Cowans twice has denied even a work furlough to Debbie Hill, and refused to hear another parole request until year 2000, citing ''the serious nature of the crime.''
But if murder is so serious, why did Cowans serve only 12 of his minimum 15 years? And why is the parole board ordering Debbie Hill to serve at least five years - more than twice the minimum in her 2-10-year sentence?
The last time I did the math, the parole board's workload would require 54 hearings a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Maybe they need help. Or maybe we should just forget about parole, forget about time off for good behavior, and add time to the crime for bad actors like Jesse James Cowans.
Maybe we should stop letting the Parole Board hide its own crimes behind a wall of ''secrecy.'' Ohio residents like Clara Swart pay the price for parole board mistakes - so we should have a right to know what kind of walking grenades they are turning loose and what the prisons have done to ''rehabilitate'' them - if anything.
Cowans is probably not the only dangerous outlaw who has been turned loose to open up cell space for new inmates. But it only takes one to figure out that the Ohio Parole Board is a bigger risk to public safety than Debbie Hill.
