Tuesday, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles denied parole for five more offenders deemed too violent for early release.
The Board denied parole to Vondale Parker is a violent criminal who just last week punched a prison employee in the face. Parker has had a long criminal career, with seven convictions in Marshall County.
Parker was sentenced in 2017 to five years in prison for first-degree robbery and 15 years for promoting prison contraband. In 2013 he was sentenced to 10 years for possession of chemicals with the intent to manufacture drugs. Parker was sentenced in 2005 to 15 years in prison on a case from 2003 for second-degree assault in Marshall County.
The Gadsden Times reported on December 4, 2002 that Parker was charged by the Albertville Police Department with second-degree assault of his estranged girlfriend. The newspaper reported that according to Albertville Police Chief Benny Womack, Parker “picked up a sharp object and started cutting (the victim) with it.
Parker reportedly said that “it was time for her to die.” Marshall served only five years of the 15-year sentence for that violent assault before he was paroled back to society in 2008. In 1999 he was he sentenced to 15 years for a conviction for offenses-other class C felony. In 1996 he was sentenced to 15 years for second-degree arson and third-degree burglary. Court of Criminal Appeals records show he had originally been given a split sentence for the arson and burglary cases, to serve six months in prison and the rest on probation, but that probation was revoked, and he was sent back to prison. The Appeals Court records show he was released from prison again and placed on probation but that again he violated probation and was sent back to prison in 1999.
Despite accumulating a combined 90+ years in prison time for his various offenses and having served just two years of his most recent sentence, Parker was actually eligible for parole. That was denied.
Frank Everett Rowe also was denied parole. He has been convicted three times for violating the sex offender notification law. He was arrested in Mobile County in December 2018 and charged with violating the sex offender notification law and for being a sex offender with a Facebook account.
WPMI Television in Mobile reported on December 19, 2018 that Rowe, according to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency’s sex offender registry, raped a 16-year-old girl in DeKalb County. Rowe was convicted in 1986 of two counts of second-degree rape in DeKalb County and sentenced to one year in prison. After he was released from prison, he committed a third-degree robbery in Marshall County and was ordered back to prison for seven years in 1994.
Rowe escaped from prison, was caught and then sentenced in 1998 in Madison County to two years for escape. In 2001 Rowe was sentenced to two years for felony DUI in DeKalb County. Rowe was sentenced in 2006 to two years for violating the sex offender notification law in Jackson County, and to another three years in 2008 for violating the same law in Chilton County. Then he violated the notification law again in 2016 in DeKalb County and was sentenced to 15 years. A representative of the Alabama Attorney General’s office attended Tuesday’s hearing to oppose Rowe’s parole, which was denied.
Parole was also denied for Joshua Tyler Phillips. Phillips has an extensive criminal history, having been convicted of crimes 11 times. He was paroled once before; but he committed more crimes and was sent back to prison. He was sentenced in 2016 to 16 years in prison for escape, five years for possession and receiving controlled substances, and six years for theft of property in Houston County. He was sentenced in 2011 to three years in prison for first-degree robbery in Dothan and 10 years for three counts of theft of property, one count of receiving stolen property, and third-degree burglary. The Dothan Eagle reported April 20, 2010 that Phillips pleaded guilty to the home invasion robbery, admitting to ransacking the home and stealing a rifle and $700 cash. He was sentenced in 2012 to five years for another conviction for receiving stolen property in Dale County. In 2008 he was sentenced to two years for obstruction of justice in Houston County.
Joshua Lynn Wilcutt was paroled less than a year ago when he was sentenced to five years, 11 months for criminal possession of a forged instrument. In 2011 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for third-degree robbery in Morgan County, but he was paroled from the robbery sentence in 2013. In 2010 he was sentenced to one year, six months for illegal possession of and fraudulent use of a credit card. His parole was also denied on Tuesday.
Levert Antwun Jefferson was also denied parole. Jefferson was sentenced in 2001 to life in prison for trafficking cocaine in Jefferson County. He was later paroled, but he violated the condition of his parole in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
The next parole hearings are scheduled for Dec. 10, 2019. Former Attorney General Judge Charlie Graddick is now the Director of the Alabama Pardons and Paroles Board. Earlier this year, the Governor and the legislature tasked the Board with releasing fewer violent offenders after several Alabamians were harmed, and even murdered, by recent parolees. The Alabama Department of Correction s is planning to build three new megaprisons to house most of the state’s inmate population.
