S FR E P O RTE R .CO M / N E WS
Re-arrest of man featured in 2021 SFR cover story raises questions about vague, overbroad parole standards
BY J E F F P RO CTO R j e f f p r o c t o r @ s f r e p o r t e r. c o m
S
hane Lasiter was done with the Lea County Correctional Facility—until he wasn’t. “It’s horrible,” Lassiter tells SFR. “In my mind, I hadn’t done anything wrong, but now I’m sitting here looking at these walls again. I have a daily routine, but nothing concrete. I don’t have any intention of staying. It feels like I’m underwater and I’m holding my breath.” Lasiter was paroled last spring after serving 40 years in prison—part of it at the Lea County facility—on a murder conviction. But he was re-arrested in January for being in the company of a 19-year-old woman in Albuquerque who had a warrant out for her arrest in an alleged armed robbery case. That association, in the view of the New Mexico Adult Parole Board, amounted to a violation of Lasiter’s parole. The board ordered him re-incarcerated for 18 months to five years. Lasiter, 57, had no idea the woman had a warrant, he says. One of his lawyers, Denali Wilson of the American Civil Liberties Union, is fighting the parole revocation in state District Court in Santa Fe. The case spotlights two broad, confusing parole conditions that govern the freedom of thousands of people under state supervision in New Mexico. The first says, “I will not knowingly associate with any person who is a detriment to my parole.” The other: “I must maintain acceptable behavior and conduct which shall justify me the opportunity granted to me by the Adult Parole Board.” “Revocation under these two conditions is a part of a broader policy issue that has surfaced in our state before—the issue of ‘technical’ parole violations, re-arrest
and re-incarceration for things that are fast, maybe, and I know I need to work on says, and the experience pained him. The not crimes or even legitimate public safety some areas like recognizing things and peo- woman who later caught the warrant was concerns,” Wilson says. “Parole revocation ple that might not be good for me. I’m not trying to help him with companionship for technical violations is punishment for very good at that, I guess, but there’s help and getting him out of the apartment. punishment’s sake and a major contribu- for that.” “The warrant was five days old,” Lasiter tor of over-incarceration in our state.” He had grown close to a woman in town says. “There was no way for me to know It is not clear exactly how many pa- who died somewhat suddenly, Lasiter about that. But when they came to serve role revocations hinge on the two condithe warrant, they arrested me, too…I was tions that ensnared Lasiter or whether in shock. I was angry and extremely disthe board is considering changes. As of traught. It never dawned on me that I was Tuesday, there were 13,536 people on probreaking any parole rules. This girl was bation—which typically comes as a sentrying to help me.” tence in lieu of prison time—and parole, Authorities took Lasiter to the a supervision mechanism for people who Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention have been released after serving time. Center, then transferred him to the prisEveryone on parole is subject to the “assoon in Los Lunas, then to Lea County. The ciation” and “behavior” conditions. board revoked his parole, and Wilson went Board Chairman Abram Anaya to work. But she couldn’t appeal the revocould not be reached for comment, and cation to the board—because the board Probation and Parole Division Director has no appeal procedure, which Wilson Cisco McSorley declined via email to ansays is a violation of due process. swer questions for this story. Further, Lasiter was not allowed legal Lasiter’s despair about sitting in the counsel during the revocation hearing. state prison in Hobbs is understandable. So using a special court rule, Wilson He’d spent a large chunk of his four defiled a writ in April challenging the consti-Denali Wilson, attorney, cades behind bars in that lockup after fatutionality of the board’s rules and the “asAmerican Civil Liberties Union tally shooting a Dairy Queen owner during sociation” and “behavior” parole conditions an armed robbery in Lordsburg. That was that led to Lasiter’s revocation. It’s been in 1981, when Lasiter was 16. assigned to First Judicial District Last spring, following Judge Maria Sanchez-Gagne, who his fifth parole hearing, the must decide whether the state board granted him parole Supreme Court should hear the after retooling its criteria case. No hearing has been set. to require a more individu“You have far more rights bealized look at each case and fore the MVD in New Mexico more consideration of how than you do before the Parole someone had spent their Board,” Wilson tells SFR, citing time in prison instead of a phrase often used by longtime a cold rehash of the crime criminal justice reform advocate that put them there. SFR reSheila Lewis. “Despite the broad ported on Lasiter’s case in a implications of this issue, from June 2021 cover story about start to finish, the Parole Board parole standards and youth has failed to adequately or meansentencing. ingfully contemplate due process Life was improving for in their revocation proceedings.” Lasiter after his release, deLasiter has now been back inspite the challenges freedom side nearly as long as he’d been presents to someone who’d free. spent the vast majority of “I’m ready to go,” he says, addhis life in a cell. He’d done a ing that he has several strategies stint in a halfway house, then in place to avoid running afoul of rented an apartment near the the state’s sweeping parole conAlbuquerque International ditions when he is released again. Sunport. He had a job as a gas He offers those as advice to othstation clerk, plans to start a ers who are getting out of prison power-washing business and after serving long sentences. an investor ready to help. He’d “Be able to account for everykept up with his counseling. thing you’re doing, because the “I was paying my bills, I Parole Board is not happy about was employed and everything letting us out,” Lasiter says. was running pretty smooth,” “Make sure that your life is comLasiter tells SFR from the pletely transparent. Be careful Shane Lasiter, pictured here after being released from prison last year, prison in Hobbs. “Things felt who you talk to. It’s a hard way to is back behind bars on alleged parole violations. like they were moving a little live.”
Parole revocation for technical violations is punishment for punishment’s sake and a major contributor of over-incarceration in our state.
DENALI WILSON
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SFREPORTER.COM SFREPORTER.COM • • JUNE JUNE22-28, 22-28,2022 2022
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