Parole Board OK with commutation

For at least the 16th time, the Arkansas Parole Board has recommended shortening the life sentence of Shirley Danner, a former prostitute who fatally shot a man in West Memphis and later became the leader of a gospel choir in prison.

The board’s vote recommending that Gov. Mike Beebe grant the commutation was 41, with board member Joe Peacock citing the seriousness of the offense in voting against the recommendation.

Danner, 60, is the inmate leader of the Prodigal Daughters, a choral group of women inmates at the McPherson Unit in Newport, which performs at churches and community events in northeast Arkansas.

In 1975, she killed T.G. Poteets, a longtime employee of the West Memphis Utility Department.

In her application for a commutation, Danner wrote that she had been “drinking and drugging” on the night of the shooting. She wrote that Poteets wanted a “date” with her and another woman.

Poteets drove Danner and the other woman down a deadend street, stopped the car and “asked if I knew where he could have a date with a younger girl around 12 or 13 years of age,” Danner wrote.

“At that moment, everything changed and I shot him,” Danner wrote.

Another woman convicted in the slaying, Brenda Faye Jones, was paroled in June 1981.

Danner, a mother of three, wrote that she’s had “wonderful jobs” while in prison. Her current assignment is as a domestic worker for Warden John Maples, Department of Correction spokesman Shea Wilson said.

The board recommended that Beebe make Danner eligible for parole.

Hearing examiner Ashley Vailes noted on the voting sheet that Danner is working toward a college degree and that there were no outside objections to the commutation request.

Crittenden County Sheriff Mike Allen said Wednesday that he wasn’t familiar with the murder case and didn’t have an opinion on the request.

Second Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington said he would defer to the Parole Board’s recommendation.

The Parole Board first recommended Danner for a commutation in 1979, then recommended against a commutation in 1980 and 1981. Since then, the board has voted in favor of each of Danner’s clemency requests, including one that was denied by Beebe in 2008.

The latest recommendation will go to Beebe after a 30-day waiting period.