Tennessee Board of Parole Spanked for Failing to Make Recommendation to Governor on Prisoner’s Clemency Application
In Tennessee, a state law—T.C.A. § 40-27-101—allows prisoners to apply for clemency in the form of commutation of their sentence or a pardon. When the Board of Parole receives an application, it is supposed to make a recommendation to the governor as to whether clemency should be granted or denied. The final decision belongs solely to the governor under Article III, Sec. 6 of Tennessee’s constitution. In practice, however, this hasn’t always been the case.
Tennessee prisoner William Lanier, convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, applied for clemency in June 2022. He sought commutation to reduce his sentence to 15 to 25 years with lifetime parole supervision. The Board denied his application more than a year later, after deciding that his case did “not merit a hearing.” Importantly, no recommendation was made to the governor.
Lanier then filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in Davidson County Chancery Court, arguing that his clemency application met the applicable criteria for commutation and that the Board “summarily denied” it without making a nonbinding recommendation to the governor, in violation of state law. The Board moved to dismiss Lanier’s petition, but the motion was denied, and the court ordered the administrative record to be filed. In a ruling on the merits on January 8, 2025, the court held that the Board had “acted illegally or exceeded its jurisdiction.” It granted Lanier’s petition and remanded the case to the Board.
While the governor is the only official who can grant clemency, the court said that the Board has the duty, “upon the request of the governor, to consider and to make nonbinding recommendations concerning all requests for exonerations, pardons, reprieves or commutations,” under T.C.A. § 40-28-104(a)(I0). The Board then considers numerous factors when making a recommendation, including the “nature of the crime and its severity,” the prisoner’s institutional record and criminal history, input from the trial judge and prosecutor, and the views “of the community, victims of the crime or their families, institutional staff, Probation/Parole officers, or other interested parties,” as laid out in Tenn.Comp.R. & Regs. 1100-01-01-.16.
The issue raised by Lanier involved interpretation of state law and administrative rules, and although courts give “consideration and respect” to an agency’s interpretation of the statutes controlling its operation, “courts are not bound by the agency’s statutory interpretation,” the chancery court declared. Further, laws take precedence over administrative rules.
The chancery court first found that consideration and denial of Lanier’s clemency application was a judicial or quasi-judicial function, thus a petition for writ of certiorari was the proper vehicle to challenge the Board’s decision.
Per its own administrative rules, the Board then argued that it was required to provide a nonbinding recommendation to the governor “only when it grants the applicant a hearing.” However, the court noted, T.C.A. § 40-28-104(a)(l 0),requires the Board to make such recommendations “concerning all requests,” not just those of prisoners granted a hearing.
While an application that does not meet the governor’s criteria can be rejected—e.g., it isn’t signed or notarized or is incomplete, or the applicant has recently “been in ‘close’ or ‘maximum’ custody, or had a ‘Class A disciplinary action’”—all other clemency applications trigger the Board’s duty to make a nonbinding recommendation.
“The Board is to apply the criteria and guidelines supplied by the Governor, not to determine whether or not to make a nonbinding recommendation, but to determine whether its nonbinding recommendation should be favorable or unfavorable,” the court wrote. To the extent that its rules conflicted with this statutory obligation, moreover, the “express provisions of the statute” controlled.
As the Board had not made a recommendation with respect to Lanier’s application, the chancery court found that the Board had acted illegally and exceeded its jurisdiction. Therefore, his application was remanded, and the Board was ordered to make a nonbinding recommendation to the governor within 60 days. Lanier filed his petition pro se, and Nashville attorney David L. Raybin represented him at the hearing on the merits of the case. See: Lanier v. Tenn. Board of Parole, Tenn. Chancery 20th Jud. Dist. (Davidson Cty.), Case No. 23-1274-1.
Related legal case
Lanier v. Tenn. Board of Parole
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | Tenn. Chancery 20th Jud. Dist. (Davidson Cty.), Case No. 23-1274-1 |
| Level | State Trial Court |
| Conclusion | Bench Verdict |