Parties locked in an ongoing dispute over the legality of the V.I. Parole Board and the enforcement of the territory’s medical and geriatric parole law each asked a Superior Court judge this week to issue a summary judgment in their favor.
The filings came more than a month after Judge Alphonso Andrews Jr. granted a temporary restraining order to the government, which argued that the board has lacked a quorum for two and a half years. The Justice Department filed an emergency motion on behalf of Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. in May to halt parole proceedings after three men convicted for participating in the so-called Fountain Valley killings and another convicted of aggravated rape applied for parole under a new law establishing parole eligibility on medical or geriatric grounds. Bryan signed the measure into law as Act 8791 last January.
During the hearing in June, Assistant Attorney General Christopher Timmons said the board is supposed to have seven members but has only had three since December 2022. The board’s current members are Dennis Howell, Chesley Roebuck and Bentley Thomas, and Attorney General Gordon Rhea also sits on the board as a nonvoting member. Timmons argued that the board’s lack of a quorum prevents it from taking any action.
The government further argued that Act 8791, applied retroactively, “unconstitutionally violates the separation of powers, and is therefore invalid under the Revised Organic Act.”
Andrews granted the government’s request for a TRO (temporary restraining order) after agreeing with the quorum issue,  effectively putting all parole decisions made over the past two and a half years in limbo.
Andrews indicated that the question of Act 8791’s constitutionality could be dealt with later.
The government argued in its most recent filing that statutes “are presumed to be applied prospectively, and not retroactively” and that “retroactive application of the geriatric parole statute would impair the rights of the People because eligibility for parole is part of the prosecution of a case and is to be determined at the time of sentencing.”
“To the extent that the geriatric parole statute gives eligibility to prisoners who would otherwise never become eligible for parole… retroactive application would impair the sentencing right of the judge who sentenced them; it would impair the rights of the prosecutors who determined which charges to bring and which penalties to seek; and it would impair the rights of the general public who prior enactment [sic] of the geriatric parole law could rest assured that these violent and notorious criminals never walk the streets again,” Timmons wrote.
For their part in the Fountain Valley killings, which left eight people dead and at least eight more wounded, Warren Ballantine, 76, Beaumont Gereau, 68, and Meral Smith, 74, were sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences in prison. At the time of their sentencing, Virgin Islands law required them to serve a minimum of 10 years for each life sentence in order to be eligible for parole. Timmons argued that 80 years’ imprisonment was “for all intents and purposes longer than their anticipated lifespans.”
“It was clearly the Court’s intent that they are not eligible for parole ever,” he wrote. “To in essence overturn the Court’s determination that Defendants Ballentine [sic], Gereau, and Smith never see the outside of a prison clearly invades the power and authority of the judiciary in a way that cannot be compensated monetarily.”
Timmons later argued that Tydel John, 74, has only served a decade of his 50-year sentence and wouldn’t be eligible for parole for another five years, unless approved by two thirds of the Parole Board.
An attorney for Ballantine, Gereau, Smith and John said in a filing of their own that the statute at the time of their sentencing gave the Parole Board discretion to grant parole earlier.
“In other words,” attorney Vincent Colianni II wrote, the trial court knew “that they could be paroled literally at any time if the parole board, with the approval of the governor, determined that early parole was warranted.”
The government also argued that retroactively applying Act 8791 harmed Bryan, who previously “had control” over parole eligibility.
“He has been stripped of this authority and control in a way that cannot be compensated,” Timmons wrote.
An attorney representing members of the Parole Board, who asked the judge to either dismiss the case or declare summary judgment in their favor, fiercely rejected any suggestion of harm to Bryan.
“First,” attorney Pedro Williams wrote in an 18-page memorandum of law, “if the injunction is removed, there is no certainty that the Board of Parole will approve Parole applications for the applications in question. Secondly, even if the Board of Parole does approve the applicants’ parole applications, Plaintiff/Governor still retains the option to appropriately challenge the Board of Parole’s decision at that time.”
Williams repeatedly noted that Bryan himself signed the measure into law and called the government’s argument about the board’s lack of a quorum “simply wrong,” arguing that the board only has fewer than four members because Bryan failed to appoint more.
“There have been vacancies on the Board of Parole for many years,” he wrote. “Thus, Plaintiff/Governor cannot be heard to complain about a situation that he created or because he failed to fulfill his statutory duties.”
Williams also cited statute and a section of the board’s bylaws which states that the “affirmative votes of three… members of the Board shall be necessary to authorize any action of the Board.” The government has repeatedly argued that the board still needs a four-member quorum for any vote to be legitimate.
The next hearing on the matter is scheduled for Sept. 8 on St. Croix.