Jail, parole board to face grand jury
DA cites allegations of corruption
A grand jury is being convened to investigate the Oklahoma County jail and the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board.
The Oklahoma County grand jury was given the power to issue subpoenas, investigate and charge by indictment, and make accusations for removal. Jury selection was set for Oct. 18.
Oklahoma County’s presiding judge, Ray C. Elliott, agreed Wednesday to convene the grand jury at the request of District Attorney David Prater.
Gov. Kevin Stitt called Prater’s request “the latest political stunt to intimidate the Pardon and Parole Board and obstruct the Constitutional process as high-profile cases that his office prosecuted are being considered.”
The Pardon and Parole Board is set to conduct a clemency hearing Oct. 26 for high-profile death row inmate Julius Jones. Prater opposes Jones’ clemency request.
In his grand jury application Wednesday, the district attorney told the judge there are “credible allegations that
involve official corruption and/or official neglect ... committed by State and/or County officials.”
Testimony will be taken in closed proceedings at the Oklahoma attorney general’s office.
Prater called for an investigation of the jail because of the poor living and unsafe conditions there uncovered by health inspectors. He called for an investigation of the parole board because inmates have been released from prison by mistake.
The convening of a county grand jury has become rare in Oklahoma because prosecutors rely on the state’s multicounty grand jury for help with investigations.
Prater pointed out in his application that the latest multicounty grand jury adjourned this month.
The next multicounty grand jury is not expected to be impaneled until January.
The county grand jury could bring removal accusations against the jail administrator, jail trustees and parole board members, according to the application.
“Such persons also may be subject to criminal penalties,” Prater wrote.
Health inspectors found dozens of violations during surprise visits in February and June at the 13-story jail west of downtown Oklahoma City.
Both times, inspectors found a bedbug infestation, cockroaches, overcrowded cells, insufficient staffing, missed sight checks, standing water, trash, cold showers and problems with the emergency phone system in inmate housing pods.
Inspectors also found the jail failed to properly check on an inmate who died June 24 after a struggle during the booking process.
“The Oklahoma State Department of Health has faithfully reported unhealthy and even lethal uncorrected mismanagement of the Oklahoma County Jail,” the district attorney wrote in the application.
A trust took over operation of the jail from the sheriff ’s office on July 1, 2020. Since then, it has repeatedly come under fire because of inmate deaths, escapes and other highly publicized incidents.
That criticism intensified after an inmate took a detention officer hostage on March 27.
Jail officials said Wednesday many improvements have been made since the February inspection by the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
“We appreciated the visit from OSDH because it identified many of the problems we had already been addressing in a concise way,” the jail administrator, Greg Williams, said. “We know there are more improvements to be made, but we continue to be proactive in removing barriers to quality of life for those who live and work within the Oklahoma County Detention Center.”
Prater has been at odds with trustees and has repeatedly called for the trust to be dissolved.
He also has been at odds with the parole board for years, most recently over the handling of a commutation request by Jones.
The parole board voted 3-1 to recommend commutation to life in prison. The governor Tuesday said he could not accept that recommendation “because a clemency hearing, not a commutation hearing, is the appropriate venue for our state to consider death row cases.”
Prater did not mention Jones in his grand jury application. Instead, he told the judge that violations of state law and parole board rules may have led to the release of drug offender Lawrence Paul Anderson, another inmate and “perhaps others.”
Anderson, 42, is accused in a murder charge of fatally stabbing three people in Chickasha in February three weeks after his release.
Anderson confessed to cutting out the first victim’s heart to eat, according to court affidavits.
He was released in January after the governor commuted his sentence for drug dealing and other crimes to nine years.
The governor signed the commutation after the parole board recommended it by a 3-1 vote last year.
Records show the parole board rejected Anderson’s commutation request 3-2 in July 2019. That denial should have blocked any further consideration for three years.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation has been looking for months into Anderson’s release at the request of the governor. The OSBI is planning to give a final report to a special counsel soon.
Prater in March asked an Oklahoma County judge to block Stitt from granting any commutation or parole request “tainted by ... improprieties” at the parole board.
The district attorney ended up not pursuing that legal action and dismissed it in September.
An Oklahoma County grand jury hasn’t been convened in decades.
In 1998, an Oklahoma County grand jury rejected conspiracy theories about the Oklahoma City bombing after hearing from more than 100 witnesses.
“This was an act perpetrated by Americans on Americans.”
That grand jury was impaneled after a state lawmaker and others collected more than 10,000 signatures during a petition drive.