Recently, the Louisiana Board of Pardons & Parole conducted its hearings inside Uptown Hall, a multipurpose room at Loyola University New Orleans.
Often conducted within cinderblock rooms within state prison, the transplanted hearings offered New Orleans locals and Loyola criminal-justice students a rare public look at how the state decides who goes home and who remains in prison.
As the audience watched, board members questioned applicants and delivered decisions in real time. Some deserved freedom, the board ruled, as it granted parole. Others showed visible disappointment when they were deemed not ready for release.
The hearing began when the board members arrived, and sat at a long table, with small monitors in front of each seat. People in the audience took out their phones and silenced them. Some students opened notebooks.
The room became quiet, as the Zoom session began on a big screen at the front. Incarcerated men walked onto the camera and sat at a table, some dressed in blue jeans and shirts, while others wore prison jumpsuits.
Parole board members Chuck Tillis, Sheryl Ranatza and Steve Prator asked the men questions about accountability, rehabilitation and plans for life outside prison.
The Loyola hearing served an important civic function, allowing community and students to see an often-invisible stage of the criminal justice system, said Andrew Hundley, executive director of the Louisiana Parole Project, who described it as a chance “for our future leaders to peek behind the curtain.”
For Bobby Wallace, who sat in the front row of the audience with his hands resting on his knees, the proceedings felt instantly familiar, taking him back to his own parole hearing 12 years ago.
“When you walk in that room, the air gets stale because you realize your life is in somebody else’s hands,” he said. Wallace was one of several formerly incarcerated men who attended the hearing, watching others face the same board they had once faced.
Incarcerated men at Angola created a parole-preparation class
Inside the dormitories at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, men talk through upcoming and past parole hearings, often pointing to how a missed answer or a moment of hesitation can lead to denial. Everyone has heard the stories about the guy who froze up during his hearing, unsure how to answer a question.
“By working through identified issues (such as a bad temper or an addiction) through therapy, rehabilitation and hard work while incarcerated, an offender will improve his or her chances of impressing the Committee as a low risk to society when it is time for parole consideration.”
– Louisiana Board of Pardons & Parole guidelines
Many have spent decades preparing for this moment, earning their GEDS, completing vocational training, and staying clear of any disciplinary violations.
As parole-board guidelines advise, “offenders should begin planning for their tentative parole date the moment they are confined.” They must show a proper level of remorse for their crimes and prepare a post-release housing and work plan, demonstrating accountability and a clear understanding of how they have changed.
They must also show introspection, explaining what “weaknesses” may have contributed to their decision to commit that crime.
Or as the parole board explains: “By working through identified issues (such as a bad temper or an addiction) through therapy, rehabilitation and hard work while incarcerated, an offender will improve his or her chances of impressing the Committee as a low risk to society when it is time for parole consideration.”
The stakes are high: anyone not granted parole must wait between three and five years for another hearing, depending on the level of charge.
Preparing for the parole hearing
For Norris Henderson, founder of Voice of the Experienced, the Loyola hearing mirrored what he saw during his 27 years inside Angola. Men with decades of good conduct were often undone by fear, miscommunication, and hesitation in their responses.
In the mid 1980s, Henderson helped build a parole-preparation curriculum to help people navigate these crucial hearings.
“I’ve watched guys with certificates and programs get in that room and freeze,” Henderson said. “They’re practicing a script instead of being prepared for the questions.” The popular parole-prep class taught people to expect three categories of questions, including what led to prison, who they are now, and what they plan to do if released.
“It’s intimidating,” Henderson said. “You’re meeting somebody for your freedom.”
Certificates alone aren’t enough for a parole candidate, he said. People must practice being able to explain their growth clearly, under pressure. “Fear derails even the most prepared,” he said.
After years of preparation, parole denied
The first man to appear on the Loyola screen was Zzeundre Jacobs, 52, who had served 21 years of a 60-year sentence for manslaughter in the death of an Alexandria woman. A Class A trustee since 2014, Jacobs had earned his GED, learned trades, and completed multiple self-help programs.
His qualifications were strong. And he had people ready to vouch for him.
A prison warden testified on his behalf, telling the board that Jacobs was assigned to graphic arts as a job and had maintained good conduct while incarcerated. “We haven’t had any problems with Mr. Jacobs. He has been a model inmate,” the warden said.
Kerry Myers, deputy director of the Louisiana Parole Project, urged the board to consider Jacobs’ rehabilitation. “He’s demonstrated what the Parole Project is about — the capacity for people to change,” Myers said.
Religious fellowship leader Malcolm Matthews of West Monroe also stood by Jacobs’ request for release. “He committed the crime and he owns responsibility for what happened,” said Matthews, noting that he and many other held Jacobs “in high regard.”
The hearing seemed to be going well.
Board members asked Jacobs why he believed he should be granted parole.
“I ended up taking the life of this beautiful and innocent woman, all because I was unable to manage my life,” Jacobs told the board. “There’s no excuse for my actions. I take full responsibility for them.”
“My time here at Angola has been about one central goal – to ensure that the person who committed that terrible act is not the same person sitting before you today,” Jacobs said.
Then the board called upon people opposed to his release, starting with Amanda Andrus, daughter-in-law of the victim, Theresa Dawkins. “The pain of her absence is something we carry every day – a void that can never truly be filled,” Andrus said. “Her murder has caused unbearable pain to all of our lives.”
Next came Phillip Terrell, the district attorney of Rapides Parish who also believed that Jacobs should not be released, citing the severity of the crime. “For the purpose of public safety, he should remain in prison,” said District Attorney Phillip Terrell.
The board ultimately denied parole.
“Due to law enforcement and family opposition, my vote today is to deny,” board member Chuck Tillis said.
Another member said that the amount of time Jacob had served was “insufficient.”
After the board voted unanimously to deny Jacobs, someone in the back of the room said quietly, “Oh man. I thought he was gonna make it.”
Throughout the day, the Loyola proceedings hinged on punishment, but also redemption. How much punishment is sufficient for a life taken? Can a person’s years of good works offset the worst thing he did in his life? What if a victim’s family member isn’t ready to offer redemption, no matter how much the parole candidate has changed his life?
For Wallace, the outcome illustrated what he says happens even when people do “everything right” inside. “You can’t change your past,” Wallace said. “A person can change 190 degrees, but the circumstances won’t change.”
After 30 years inside, James Fuller gets a second chance
James Fuller, serving 30 years for a first-degree murder conviction out of Shreveport, faced a different outcome.
As he addressed the board, Fuller expressed remorse, apologizing repeatedly. “I’m sorry,” he said.
His supporters spoke. Fuller’s sister asked members of the board to consider the decades he had already served and the progress he had made during that time. Pastor Ron Hicks described Fuller’s rehabilitation, and his personal and spiritual growth during his years in prison, while a warden from Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola told the board Fuller had made significant progress.
One woman opposed Fuller’s parole: Leone Fitzgerald, the victims-assistance director for the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Office.
Then the family of the victim, Willie Graham, expressed support for Fuller’s release.
“I believe he has served enough time on this crime,” wrote the victim’s daughter, Tatiana Graham, in a letter read into the hearing’s record. “I love and miss my dad, but he has been gone for 30 years.”
Fuller had previously appeared before the board in 2020 and was denied so he could complete a substance-abuse class.
This time, the board voted to grant parole.
“Your parole’s been granted, Mr. Fuller,” said board chair Sheryl Ranatza.
Fuller bowed his head and broke down in tears after hearing the decision.
Inside the classroom, the room stayed quiet. The students who remained didn’t quite know what to do. Some looked at the floor or jotted notes. Others fidgeted in their seats. In front of them, on the screen, Fuller wiped wetness from his eyes as he sat quietly in a brightly lit administrative room at Angola, his home of three decades.
Role of victim opposition
The board also handled a few parole revocation cases, where the question was not release, but whether someone already on parole would be sent back to prison.
Wallace found himself moved by the proceedings, both the approvals and the denials. “When parole gets pushed back, it takes something out of a person,” Wallace said. “Mentally, psychologically, and emotionally.”
Recent legislative changes have made parole more restrictive, particularly after reforms passed during the 2024 crime session. Lawmakers extended the two-year time between hearings. In Fuller’s case, had he been denied, he would have had to wait five years before appearing again.
But one constant factor has not changed: the integral role of victim opposition, said Hundley, of the Louisiana Parole Project.
While programming, disciplinary records and reentry plans matter, Hundley said, opposition from law enforcement, prosecutors and victims’ families often carries the greatest weight.
“If you have opposition present, your hearings are going to look different,” he said.
Hundley was particularly struck by the difference of opinions between Graham’s daughter — who extended mercy to Fuller — and the official Caddo Parish representative, who opposed his release.
“Sometimes people who claim they’re speaking on the behalf of victims don’t even take the time to contact victims and see how they feel,” Hundley said.
Another factor shaping outcomes, Hundley said, is a person’s ability to articulate remorse and change. “It often comes down to who can communicate their growth,” he said. “Not necessarily who has changed the most.”
Board chair Sheryl Ranatza, who spent her entire career in corrections, said that her job is both procedural and moral, and requires board members to weigh comprehensive files and conflicting testimony to make decisions that can echo through families and communities. Often, she spends her commute in prayer, she said. “Because it is a lot of due diligence and I take it very seriously.”
The board’s task is tremendously difficult, Hundley said. “They’re making decisions about someone’s future in 30 minutes,” Huntley said. “That’s a lot to weigh.”
Gus Bennett provided reporting to this story.
