Editorial: Putting parole in sunshine

Monday, Feb. 6, 2006 | 12:30 p.m.

Confusion abounds over whether the Nevada Parole Board's workings, much of which are currently done in secret, are subject to the state's open meeting law.

A Las Vegas Sun story last week revealed that the Parole Board can change its agendas without notice, can examine evidence in private, and that inmates are not always allowed to know what evidence the board has considered or why parole was denied. And the board's hearings are not recorded or transcribed.

Prison inmates and their advocates say these practices violate Nevada's open meeting law. But the Parole Board disagrees, claiming their legal advisers at the state attorney general's office, in their most recent opinion on the issue, have said the board is an extension of the judiciary and, therefore, is not required to abide by the open meeting law. Court proceedings, while typically open to the public for viewing, are exempt from the open meeting law.

Still, the opinion that the Parole Board also is exempt hasn't always been the prevailing one.

Nevada statute characterizes a parole hearing as "a public meeting held to consider a prisoner for parole." And in an earlier opinion, the attorney general's office's said parole hearings were subject to the open meeting law. The attorney general's Open Meeting Law Manual says, "Nevada law is not settled on this issue."

The Parole Board has twice proposed legislation that would clearly exempt its hearings from Nevada's open meeting law, the Sun reports. But the measures failed. Board members say their hearings are not like a typical city council meeting, where time must be set aside for public comment. They fear holding the board to that standard would result in long, free-for-all displays that would result in costly, lengthy proceedings.

We disagree with the Parole Board's stance. All of its proceedings should be open and recorded, as other public meetings are. Inmates, whose futures are determined by these hearings, should know what evidence was presented, by whom and the reasons parole was denied. And should parole be granted, the public, including victims and their families, should know why and how that happened as well.