Star Tribune
New Minnesota Parole Board seeks citizen members to decide who gets out of prison
The Minnesota Department of Corrections will soon seek citizen help with deciding who gets out of prison and who remains locked up.
Because of a 2023 change by the Legislature, Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell will no longer make release decisions on his own. Starting in July, a new citizen panel will decide which inmates serving life sentences are released and which stay in prison.
“This has been one of the most incredible experiences of this job, the parole responsibilities,” Schnell said. “It’s really brutally difficult, and yet I’ve met some of the most incredible people.”
The idea behind the change is to have a broader group of Minnesotans decide who is released rather than only the commissioner making the call. Schnell said the new approach will be more open and balanced, including appointees from both political parties. A simple majority of the panel will determine what happens with a release request.
Until 1982, the state Board of Corrections decided who was paroled. That board was abolished and the authority was vested in the commissioner.
When he was appointed by Walz five years ago, Schnell said he wasn’t initially aware that the commissioner made these decisions on his own.
“One of the things that the governor and I talked about was this is an incredible responsibility and perhaps this is one of those places where there should be a higher level of shared governance,” Schnell said.
Walz said Wednesday he supported the change as a way to bring in experts and depoliticize the process. He will appoint the members, but the legislative caucuses will make recommendations.
The board will handle requests from inmates serving mandatory minimum life sentences, most of them convicted of first-degree murder. About 500 inmates are in that category and most will be paroled at some point, Schnell said. Those inmates must serve 30 years before seeking release. The board will also consider rapists sentenced to mandatory minimums of 15 years.
Under the current system, the number of inmates granted release has varied and climbed in recent years as more inmates became eligible.
Since 2019, Schnell has held 318 parole hearings and released 46 inmates.
Before him, Commissioner Tom Roy held 272 hearings and released 51 inmates. Roy served under DFL Gov. Mark Dayton from 2011 to 2018.
Commissioner Joan Fabian served in the role under GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty from 2003 to 2010. Fabian held 196 hearings and released 17 inmates.
Commissioner Sheryl Ramstad served from 1999 to 2002 under Gov. Jesse Ventura. She conducted 140 hearings and released 12 inmates. No commissioner before her paroled more than nine inmates.
Ramstad is among the more than two dozen Minnesotans who have applied. Schnell wants more applicants. “We believe there are people out there who would certainly qualify,” he said.
There’s no deadline to apply, but Schnell encouraged anyone interested to apply soon, with training starting in mid-April.
Two of the positions require a background in neurology, psychology or something similar with knowledge of adolescent brain development. The other four positions require a background or experience or a degree in the law, criminal justice, sociology, corrections or a related social science. More information, including the names of applicants, can be found on the state’s website.
The panel will review information from a variety of sources including prison staff, prosecutors, the community and surviving family members of the victim.
Schnell will chair the panel and be joined by four public members. In cases where the inmate was a juvenile when the crime was committed and tried as an adult, an additional two members will join the panel.
“The decisions are not easy to make because there may be people that are opposed. Some of these decisions come up against general public sensibilities,” Schnell said.
Board members will receive a $250 daily allowance. They must commit to two to four full days of hearings per month and are expected to serve four-year terms. They will also be required to do significant homework, reviewing documentation, including information about crimes, community impact, victim sentiment and the inmate’s life in prison.
Appointees must meet with victims’ families and visit at least one state correctional facility a year.
“I’ve met so many people who lost loved ones to the actions of another person, and I’ve been struck by their unimaginable pain and their incredible resilience,” Schnell said. “The role has also provided me the opportunity witness to incredible change and transformation by some of the people who’ve engaged in conduct for which there is no explanation or ability to remedy.”
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
