September 19, 2022 • 27 mins
2022. After Ronnie Carrasquillo exhausts his appeals, he faces the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. But it seems each time Ronnie comes up for parole, he can’t escape the notoriety of his past.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hey, it's Jake Today. We're continuing with the Ronnie
Kiskio story. This is part two, so if you haven't
listened to part one yet, you should definitely go back
and do that now. So last episode we ended with
Ronnie getting some good news or what seemed like it. Anyhow,
(00:38):
the court basically told him, we think your sentence of
two hundred to six hundred years may have violated a
clause in the Illinois Constitution. That clause, by the way,
says quote, all penalties shall be determined both according to
the seriousness of the offense and with the objective of
restoring the offender to useful citizenship. Bottom line, Ronnie could
(01:02):
now be resentenced. Well maybe. Last June there was yet
another hearing to figure this all out. He took days.
Ronnie's lawyer, Michael Deutsch, brought in over a dozen witnesses
to testify about who Ronnie was and is now, about
the type of man that Ronnie has become in prison.
One of those witnesses was Ali Pruitt, a lawyer and
(01:24):
Chicago activist. She talked about Ronnie and the people he'd
mentored or inspired. What really has stuck out to me
over the years is the positive impact he's left I
not only folks who have been incarcerated, but folks who haven't.
He has this sort of positive influence and inspiring story,
(01:44):
and it's just such a motivator for so many people,
for his family, for his friends. The State of Illinois
had lawyers there arguing the other side, it's always difficult
in a post conviction proceeding to take what we know
today and apply it to a trial proceeding that happened
years and in this case, decades ago. The circumstances of
(02:07):
the crime, the facts of the under lying crime, those
have all been litigated, and its council said, we're not
here to relitigate the facts of the case. Basically, the
state was saying, look, we're not here for a new trial.
We're only here to determine if Ronnie Kariskio should be resentenced. Now,
Ronnie claimed that his sentence was unfair and disproportionate to
(02:28):
his crime. But the state then argues, what really matters
here is that Ronnie has a shot at release, and
as long as he does well, then the sentence is fair.
And that is key to the decision and the key
to the analysis here because mister Karasko is eligible for parole.
In other words, perhaps six hundred years sounds like a
(02:51):
long time, but he's eligible for parole. So what's the problem.
And the judge basically agrees. What does this mean for Ronnie? Well,
it means that he now has to place all of
his hopes on getting parole. There's just one problem when
it comes to the parole boards. Seems that he can't
escape the notoriety of his own story. Ronnie's been in
(03:14):
prison for nearly half a century and he's stuck in
a convoluted legal system, a system that perhaps could be
gamed by an operator like Bob Cooley, but which was
terrifying to a guy like Ronnie who was trapped inside
with no fixer to call. And I gotta tell you,
at times, Ronnie's story felt a bit like a Franz
(03:35):
Kafka novel. There's a guy and he's stuck trying to
find his way out of one darkened labyrinth after another,
and every time it looks like there might be an exit,
the lights flicker out. I'm Jake Halpern and this is
(04:13):
deep cover mob Land. Thank you for using Securist. You
(04:49):
may start the conversation. Now this morning, Hey Ronnie, how
are you well? It will go again. Ronnie's been incarcerated
since October of nineteen seventy six. Back then, Ronnie was
a teenager and a gang member. One night, he got
involved in a fight. He says he shot off the
gun to break things up and accidentally killed an off
(05:11):
duty policeman, a man named Terence Loftis. Ronnie was sentenced
to two hundred to six hundred years in prison, and
afterwards he was sort of stunned. He says. It took
him years to realize what the sentence would really mean
for him and realize. He filed some early appeals that
(05:32):
went well, nowhere, that's my father. Don't buy no more appeals.
I'll buy no more lawyers. I go to the provok
I'm gonna see it and I shot this type from
far away. There's no attention in it, and I'll make parole. Parole.
That was Ronnie's big hope. Yeah. Sure, maybe he'd gotten
slammed on his sentencing, but with good behavior, he hoped
(05:53):
he'd get out on parole. So he gradually turned his
life around in prison. He renounced his gang membership. He
learned a number of trades got his geed, found religion,
became a mentor, he says, in so many ways, he
became a different person. And he figured the parole board
would see this, that they'd review the facts of his
(06:13):
case and release him. How many times have you been
before a parole board? I think thirty five times. At
least thirty five times. Over thirty times Ronnie's gone before
the parole board. That's almost once a year. It's kind
of like going to the Super Bowl annually and losing
every single time. Ronnie just keeps getting told Nope, you're
(06:37):
not getting out. Even so each year or so, when
Ronnie comes up for parole, he keeps trying, keeps providing
evidence of his rehabilitation, and talks about how far he's come.
My life is transform so much from what I came
as a youth. I was a poor student. I was
not help right educational wise, book wise, not that I
(06:58):
got my gez started going to college a half sixty
seven different trades while behind bars, He's worked as an electrician,
a welder, a locksmith, a pipe bend and a washer
dryer repairman. He's also trained to become a typist and
a paralegal. He's mentored fellow inmates, given them legal advice.
He's coached the prisons baseball team and organized soccer tournaments
(07:21):
for his jailmates. He's a pastor, and he's even written
a Bible study workbook called Covenant with Abraham. Ronnie is
not allowed to attend parole hearings in person, but his
supporters are and they do. They show up and vouch
for him. All different kinds, black, white, Latin, whatever, races,
different ex gang members, different and all of them write
(07:43):
letters that I impacted their life. And I've been coaching
them in Christianity for long to say, oh you'll live
your life, will help your modi, health, your family, and
there's all I do for my whole forty six years.
Over the years, Ronnie has won over a number of supporters,
including religious leaders, an Alderman, a US congressman, even one
of the prosecutors who originally brought the case against him.
(08:04):
That prosecutor, Thomas Breen, noted that Ronnie's years of men
showed him to be a model for other inmates. Breen
went so far as to compare Ronnie to the police
officer he killed. He said that Ronnie had quote many
of the generous characteristics of a caring person, not unlike
Terry Loftus. Members of the media have also written about
(08:28):
Ronnie's story, tracking his bid for freedom. All of this
seems like it might tip the scales in Ronnie's favor, right,
the only problem being the parole board itself. It's known
in Illinois as the Prisoner Review Board. Now in theory,
it's a neutral body that can reach its own independent verdict.
(08:48):
Its members are appointed by the governor. Its ranks include
former parole officers, prosecutors, social workers, cops, and politicians. The
board operates with virtually no oversight, and its decisions are
not reviewable in court. Jorge Montez sat on that parole
board for sixteen years. I was law and order and
(09:11):
conservative Republican, and I was going to do what all
conservative people should do, is keep them all in and
not let anybody out. That's what I set out to do.
Jorge was a former prosecutor, and he was tough. He
wasn't inclined to let many guys out. And then one
day this one inmate comes up for parole. Jorge says,
(09:33):
this inmate had a very strong case for being released,
but Korge still voted no. He said, he did it
almost automatically, like that's just what he was supposed to do.
And then something kind of odd happened. The very conservative
Republican chairman told me, mister Montez, is there something we're
missing here? I said, well, why would that be. You're
(09:58):
voting to deny parole for what appears to be a
pretty perfect candidate for a parole. I said, in that case,
I withdraw my emotion and I would move that we
parole them, and we did. It was almost like on
some level, Jorge was looking for permission to show leniency,
to say, you know what, Yeah, this guy does deserve
(10:19):
a second chance. Let him out. And that started my
journey on these issues. So increasingly I began to scrutinize cases,
to really consider whether there's somebody had changed their lives
and that warranted a second look, a second chance. And
increasingly I began to find that a lot of these
(10:40):
people were really redeemable, and my votes started to reflect that.
All of that being said, when Jorge first heard Ronnie's
case for parole, he says he wasn't persuaded, not at
first anyhow, especially given the fact that Ronnie had killed
a police officer. Jorge says that he voted against Ronnie
a few times. At these hearings, the inmates are not
(11:04):
allowed to show up and speak for themselves. Instead, one
member of the parole board speaks with the inmate and
then presents their case, almost like a lawyer, but not really,
because the presenters they may have their own agenda and
they might not advocate for that inmate at all. So
maybe you're starting to get what I'm talking about when
I say this whole process at times feels like something
(11:27):
that Franz Kafka cooked up. Anyway, one day, Ronnie is
up for parole yet again, Jorge, I'm still not convinced
that Ronnie should be set free. And on this occasion,
Ronnie's presenter is well, I'll just let Jorge explain. There
was a gentleman on the board named Dick Doria, and
Dick Doria was a sheriff of Tuopage County formerly the sheriff,
(11:51):
a hard conserve, ultra conservative. So bad news for Ronnie. Right,
But wait, because Dick Doria, the conservative former sheriff, when
he made his presentation, he said something that really surprised
Jorge and Dick said than it was impossible, in his
professional opinion, that Ronnie would have killed this officer purposefully intentionally.
(12:18):
Impossible the kind of weapon he used. And mister Doria
knew all about ballistics and weapons and calibers, and he
made a wonderful presentation. He said, I'm not well, I'm
voting to release this man because I think he did
not intentionally kill the police officer. According to Jorge, Dictoria
said that he looked at the evidence, the distances, the
(12:40):
ballistics and the like, and determined it did not up.
It didn't make sense that Ronnie had killed this cop intentionally,
and this really got Jorge thinking critically about Ronnie's whole case,
about Ronnie's intentions, his efforts to redeem himself, and even
about the original sentence back in the nineteen seventies from
(13:01):
Judge Wilson, and whether it had been fair. In fact,
Jorge says he came to feel that Ronnie's sentence of
up to six hundred years did seem a bit fishy
coming on the heels of the Harry alam On trial,
and that this might be an instance of camouflage bias. Well,
it makes sense to me that that a judge would
behave this way and take it out on poor Carraskio
(13:24):
because he had just given this sniper who was well
known in the community for being a Fielso he gives
them an out, he gives them, he gives them a pass,
and then of course he's got to cover his tracks
by then overreacting on the Carraskio man. I thought that
was an excellent argument, and I believe that we'll be
(13:47):
right back throughout this process. Ronnie has also faced another
big challenge. The Chicago Police Department and the union representing
(14:08):
its officers do not want him to get parole, so
much so that they have physically showed up at his
parole hearings. Jorge remembers this. He says, they made quite
an impression. The conference room was very tight, and Chicago
would send bus loads of police officers and they would
all crowd in to the conference room that just fit
(14:30):
the conference table, and there were all there thirty cops
standing around us, and they were looking over our shoulder
and literally and so as we're casting boats. It was
very intimidating and very difficult. I've seen a picture of
this scene and I got to describe it to you.
You can see the Parole board members sitting at a table,
(14:51):
and then like a foot behind them is a whole
crowd of uniformed officers literally hovering over them. With time,
Jorge came to realize that Ronnie might not ever receive
enough votes for parole. In fact, at one point he
even wrote an affid David, Ronnie's behalf. In that Affidavid,
(15:11):
he said that despite Ronnie's quote excellent prison record and
his strong family and community support, that he was repeatedly
denied parole because quote, the victim was a Chicago police officer.
Montez concluded that quote, there are several members of the
board then and now who will never vote for parole
(15:32):
when the victim is a police officer. For Ronnie, none
of this is encouraging. You know, the constitution says we
have voice that we don't care. How must you got
that we don't care? None of that? You kill the
police officer, and they blatantly say, I'm not gonna have
vote for a police killer. So you know, how can
I ask them for mercy when they're telling me before
(15:53):
this the hearing's even done. So, I mean, if I
bring anybody in there to testifying, I'll hope for anything
like that. We don't want to hear that. And this
creates a real logistical challenge for Ronnie. Can he get
the votes he needs to be released. Each time Ronnie
is up for parole, the board is different. Old members
cycle out, new members cycle in, and he's come close
(16:16):
a few times. Each one of these moments is seared
into his memory, moments when it seemed like maybe the
door was about to swing open for him. In Justice Watch,
a Chicago based nonprofit newsroom, has done some excellent reporting
on Ronnie's bid for parole. They found that in the
years between two thousand and five and two thousand and eight,
(16:38):
Ronnie had a series of parole hearings and each year
he came within one vote of winning his freedom. Jorge
can still remember these votes, how excitement would build as
the board members cast their votes one at a time
for those of us that were favorable to his release.
It builds up a lot of momentum in an expectation.
(17:00):
And there's one, there's two, there's three. Oh, we're getting closed.
I think this is it. He's gonna go home. And
then we get to know. So that's it's very tense
in two thousand and eight, Ronnie actually won a majority
of votes from the board, six yeses and five nos.
(17:21):
That's a win, right, Nope, The Illinois Prisoner Review Board
requires that he get a majority of all members, not
just those in attendance, and that day there were two
no shows and only thirteen members on the board at
the time, so his six vote majority it didn't count.
Jorge was the chairman of the parole Board at this point,
(17:42):
and he says, to come this close and to fall short,
it was really hard for him personally. You feel deflated
and you feel demoralized because if you really believe in
this and you work his work and you try to
keep work away from home, but if you believe that
(18:03):
it's the right thing to do and that we're keeping
somebody locked up, a human being locked up that in
the year, you're sympathizing with the family and you see
all the tears and you see people leaving devastated. Yeah,
it impact, It impacts you. Ronnie wasn't there, but he
soon got the news. According to my law, I was
(18:26):
supposed to be granted parole. I made the majority of
the of the vote. To me, like, what's it my
going before the parole Board thirty five times and getting
rejected every time. I never go in front of the
whole committee. I see one person. One person comes and
they call him my hearing officer. After that, talk to nobody,
but this one person up against an invisible body that
(18:48):
I never see. In two and twenty, Ronnie was up
for parole once again, and the event attracted attention from
the local press. WGN investigates cop killers going free. Now
another officer's murderer is appealing to the Illinois Prisoner Review
Board for freedom. This is a news report from WGN
in Chicago that aired in September of twenty twenty, a
(19:11):
few weeks before Ronnie was set to appear before the
parole board. You might think that killing a cop would
lead to an automatic life sentence, but under old sentencing rules,
inmates are fighting themselves eligible for release, and as we found,
it often lands in the lapse of deceased officers families
to fight to keep them locked up. The family members
of the victim often come to these hearings. It's a
(19:34):
tortured process. They talk about how hard it's been for
them and how they hope that the killer will not
be allowed to just walk away. In the wug N
news story about Ronnie, a cousin spoke for the Loftis family.
We are aging and we need to speak for him.
We need to speak for his parents and for his brother,
and they are all gone. I did read an interview
(19:57):
with Loftus's brother before he passed away. He told the
Chicago Sun Times that the shooting devastated the family, saying, quote,
our mother was never the same. After that, the Fraternal
Order of Police declined my request for an interview, and
the Chicago Police Department didn't respond my requests for comment.
But I did manage to find a web page commemorating
(20:20):
Terence Loftis. A number of his friends and fellow police
officers had posted messages here. One read, I remember the
night he was killed. He was showing me his new
green leather jacket in the tactical office. A few hours
later he was shot. I remember seeing him later at
the hospital with a breathing tube in his mouth and
(20:42):
the sounds of the air machine pumping in a steady rhythm.
That vision to this day has haunted me and will
until the day I die. Unlike the reprobate that killed him,
Terry was an honorable and exceptional person. Some of the
posts were written directly to Terry, like letters sent to
him in the beyond. One of those read quote, once again,
(21:05):
parole has been denied for the individual that took your
life and cause so much pain to those that love you.
This time, the parole board said, he has to wait
three years to be heard again. When that time comes,
your brother, officers will be there again like they have
been in the past, to stop this individual from getting
out of prison. You have not been forgotten. Reading these posts,
(21:32):
it was heartbreaking, and I could see how, even all
these years later, his friends and family would still be
simmering with anguish and rage at the tragedy of it all.
It also seemed almost cruel that year after year Loftus's
friends and family members would be expected to attend these
parole hearings and share these kinds of sentiments, that they'd
(21:54):
have to relive their trauma again and again. I also
have to wonder what Terence Loftus himself would say about
all of this. I wonder how he would want to
be remembered, what he would want his legacy to be, Because,
after all, this was a man whose defining act was
one of courage and decency. His biggest mistake, the thing
(22:18):
that got him killed, was his inclination to help to
step into the fray when he absolutely didn't have to.
For Ronnie, the whole situation is confounding. He accepts his
responsibility for the death of Officer Loftus, he knows he's
(22:38):
the one who pulled the trigger, and he says that
he's done everything in his power to redeem himself. But
as far as the justice system is concerned, there appears
to be no real path forward. I'm not supposed to
mature and be able to have the constitutional right of
being restored a useful citizenship. The judge didn't leave me
(22:59):
no room for it. He just waste to me. I'm
wondering how, in the face of being rejected for parole
for thirty five times and being in is in from
almost half a century, like, how do you keep that
safe in that hopeful lives? Well. I study two hours
a day, I stay in the scripture, I pray every day,
(23:20):
I pray with other people. Uh. It's it's heartbreaking, especially
when you lose family members down the line, and to
keep your faith. So there's a scripture in there where
it says, what is a Genesius fifty twenty? Where Mann's
men means for evil, God means for good. And in
(23:41):
the Bible, God is a just God is just all justice.
This whole exchange oddly reminded me of something that Bob
Cooley once said to me. He said that in his mind,
the world of justice was divided into man's law and
God's law, and then he put little faith in Man's law,
I think because he saw it as arbitrary and fundamentally corrupt.
(24:03):
But God's law, on the other hand, was pure and transcendent,
and according to Bob, it's had meaning for him. And
I kind of understood this. In a city like Chicago,
where corruption and politics and gang violence and lingering class
resentments all skewed the law of man, he almost had
(24:24):
to grasp for something higher, hope that true justice might
exist elsewhere, in some better realm. And it was here
that Ronnie's faith resided. Though I wondered if he thought
that this faith alone would actually get him past that
parole board. What do you think your chances of being
released are. I'm gonna get release. I have faith in God.
(24:47):
I pray every day that he uh put on the
hearts of the just people, you know, to see the scenario,
and they don't address the politics of it and give
the judgment by law. I'm not gonna surrender myself all
gonna die here. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go
for it. I'm not I'm not living that way. If
(25:07):
you were released tomorrow, what's the first thing you would do.
I will sit in the backyard basically look up to
see the sky, see the stars at night. And the
threat is over. So I came from a gang life.
That threat never goes away. So the first thing I
want to do is just go and just life, oh
man and all it's over, and then go go live
(25:30):
the life from there. I got so much time left
to live. Basically, Gopia helped in humanity is supposed to
do in the first place, be a giver. I was
a taker as a kid. I can't take back my
criminal activity as again, I can't take back I can't
put the bulls back and I go I can't do
any of them. I'm going to go forward. This summer,
(25:51):
Ronnie was moved to a new facility, a reentry center.
Ronnie's attorney petition to have him moved there. He's there
to learn some basic life skills like how to write
a resume and how to manage finances, skills that he
would need if he ever makes parole. Ronnie is now
sick four years old. He'll be up for parole again
(26:12):
in November of twenty twenty two. This episode of deep
Cover was produced by Amy Gaines and edited by Karen Shakerge.
(26:35):
Our managing producers Jacob Smith. Original music and our theme
was composed by Luise Gara, mastering by Jake Korski. Mia
LaBelle is our executive producer. Additional thanks to Jesse de
Bartelomeo and Emily Horner, formerly of Injustice Watch and now
at the Chicago Tribune for her reporting on Ronnie's case.
(26:59):
I'm Jake Halpern. Deep Cover is a production of Pushkin Industries.
For ad free listening and early access to upcoming seasons
of deep Cover, consider becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. You
can find Pushkin Plus on the deep Cover show page
(27:21):
on Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm.
Pushkin. Hey, it's Jake Today. We're continuing with the Ronnie
Kiskio story. This is part two, so if you haven't
listened to part one yet, you should definitely go back
and do that now. So last episode we ended with
Ronnie getting some good news or what seemed like it. Anyhow,
(00:38):
the court basically told him, we think your sentence of
two hundred to six hundred years may have violated a
clause in the Illinois Constitution. That clause, by the way,
says quote, all penalties shall be determined both according to
the seriousness of the offense and with the objective of
restoring the offender to useful citizenship. Bottom line, Ronnie could
(01:02):
now be resentenced. Well maybe. Last June there was yet
another hearing to figure this all out. He took days.
Ronnie's lawyer, Michael Deutsch, brought in over a dozen witnesses
to testify about who Ronnie was and is now, about
the type of man that Ronnie has become in prison.
One of those witnesses was Ali Pruitt, a lawyer and
(01:24):
Chicago activist. She talked about Ronnie and the people he'd
mentored or inspired. What really has stuck out to me
over the years is the positive impact he's left I
not only folks who have been incarcerated, but folks who haven't.
He has this sort of positive influence and inspiring story,
(01:44):
and it's just such a motivator for so many people,
for his family, for his friends. The State of Illinois
had lawyers there arguing the other side, it's always difficult
in a post conviction proceeding to take what we know
today and apply it to a trial proceeding that happened
years and in this case, decades ago. The circumstances of
(02:07):
the crime, the facts of the under lying crime, those
have all been litigated, and its council said, we're not
here to relitigate the facts of the case. Basically, the
state was saying, look, we're not here for a new trial.
We're only here to determine if Ronnie Kariskio should be resentenced. Now,
Ronnie claimed that his sentence was unfair and disproportionate to
(02:28):
his crime. But the state then argues, what really matters
here is that Ronnie has a shot at release, and
as long as he does well, then the sentence is fair.
And that is key to the decision and the key
to the analysis here because mister Karasko is eligible for parole.
In other words, perhaps six hundred years sounds like a
(02:51):
long time, but he's eligible for parole. So what's the problem.
And the judge basically agrees. What does this mean for Ronnie? Well,
it means that he now has to place all of
his hopes on getting parole. There's just one problem when
it comes to the parole boards. Seems that he can't
escape the notoriety of his own story. Ronnie's been in
(03:14):
prison for nearly half a century and he's stuck in
a convoluted legal system, a system that perhaps could be
gamed by an operator like Bob Cooley, but which was
terrifying to a guy like Ronnie who was trapped inside
with no fixer to call. And I gotta tell you,
at times, Ronnie's story felt a bit like a Franz
(03:35):
Kafka novel. There's a guy and he's stuck trying to
find his way out of one darkened labyrinth after another,
and every time it looks like there might be an exit,
the lights flicker out. I'm Jake Halpern and this is
(04:13):
deep cover mob Land. Thank you for using Securist. You
(04:49):
may start the conversation. Now this morning, Hey Ronnie, how
are you well? It will go again. Ronnie's been incarcerated
since October of nineteen seventy six. Back then, Ronnie was
a teenager and a gang member. One night, he got
involved in a fight. He says he shot off the
gun to break things up and accidentally killed an off
(05:11):
duty policeman, a man named Terence Loftis. Ronnie was sentenced
to two hundred to six hundred years in prison, and
afterwards he was sort of stunned. He says. It took
him years to realize what the sentence would really mean
for him and realize. He filed some early appeals that
(05:32):
went well, nowhere, that's my father. Don't buy no more appeals.
I'll buy no more lawyers. I go to the provok
I'm gonna see it and I shot this type from
far away. There's no attention in it, and I'll make parole. Parole.
That was Ronnie's big hope. Yeah. Sure, maybe he'd gotten
slammed on his sentencing, but with good behavior, he hoped
(05:53):
he'd get out on parole. So he gradually turned his
life around in prison. He renounced his gang membership. He
learned a number of trades got his geed, found religion,
became a mentor, he says, in so many ways, he
became a different person. And he figured the parole board
would see this, that they'd review the facts of his
(06:13):
case and release him. How many times have you been
before a parole board? I think thirty five times. At
least thirty five times. Over thirty times Ronnie's gone before
the parole board. That's almost once a year. It's kind
of like going to the Super Bowl annually and losing
every single time. Ronnie just keeps getting told Nope, you're
(06:37):
not getting out. Even so each year or so, when
Ronnie comes up for parole, he keeps trying, keeps providing
evidence of his rehabilitation, and talks about how far he's come.
My life is transform so much from what I came
as a youth. I was a poor student. I was
not help right educational wise, book wise, not that I
(06:58):
got my gez started going to college a half sixty
seven different trades while behind bars, He's worked as an electrician,
a welder, a locksmith, a pipe bend and a washer
dryer repairman. He's also trained to become a typist and
a paralegal. He's mentored fellow inmates, given them legal advice.
He's coached the prisons baseball team and organized soccer tournaments
(07:21):
for his jailmates. He's a pastor, and he's even written
a Bible study workbook called Covenant with Abraham. Ronnie is
not allowed to attend parole hearings in person, but his
supporters are and they do. They show up and vouch
for him. All different kinds, black, white, Latin, whatever, races,
different ex gang members, different and all of them write
(07:43):
letters that I impacted their life. And I've been coaching
them in Christianity for long to say, oh you'll live
your life, will help your modi, health, your family, and
there's all I do for my whole forty six years.
Over the years, Ronnie has won over a number of supporters,
including religious leaders, an Alderman, a US congressman, even one
of the prosecutors who originally brought the case against him.
(08:04):
That prosecutor, Thomas Breen, noted that Ronnie's years of men
showed him to be a model for other inmates. Breen
went so far as to compare Ronnie to the police
officer he killed. He said that Ronnie had quote many
of the generous characteristics of a caring person, not unlike
Terry Loftus. Members of the media have also written about
(08:28):
Ronnie's story, tracking his bid for freedom. All of this
seems like it might tip the scales in Ronnie's favor, right,
the only problem being the parole board itself. It's known
in Illinois as the Prisoner Review Board. Now in theory,
it's a neutral body that can reach its own independent verdict.
(08:48):
Its members are appointed by the governor. Its ranks include
former parole officers, prosecutors, social workers, cops, and politicians. The
board operates with virtually no oversight, and its decisions are
not reviewable in court. Jorge Montez sat on that parole
board for sixteen years. I was law and order and
(09:11):
conservative Republican, and I was going to do what all
conservative people should do, is keep them all in and
not let anybody out. That's what I set out to do.
Jorge was a former prosecutor, and he was tough. He
wasn't inclined to let many guys out. And then one
day this one inmate comes up for parole. Jorge says,
(09:33):
this inmate had a very strong case for being released,
but Korge still voted no. He said, he did it
almost automatically, like that's just what he was supposed to do.
And then something kind of odd happened. The very conservative
Republican chairman told me, mister Montez, is there something we're
missing here? I said, well, why would that be. You're
(09:58):
voting to deny parole for what appears to be a
pretty perfect candidate for a parole. I said, in that case,
I withdraw my emotion and I would move that we
parole them, and we did. It was almost like on
some level, Jorge was looking for permission to show leniency,
to say, you know what, Yeah, this guy does deserve
(10:19):
a second chance. Let him out. And that started my
journey on these issues. So increasingly I began to scrutinize cases,
to really consider whether there's somebody had changed their lives
and that warranted a second look, a second chance. And
increasingly I began to find that a lot of these
(10:40):
people were really redeemable, and my votes started to reflect that.
All of that being said, when Jorge first heard Ronnie's
case for parole, he says he wasn't persuaded, not at
first anyhow, especially given the fact that Ronnie had killed
a police officer. Jorge says that he voted against Ronnie
a few times. At these hearings, the inmates are not
(11:04):
allowed to show up and speak for themselves. Instead, one
member of the parole board speaks with the inmate and
then presents their case, almost like a lawyer, but not really,
because the presenters they may have their own agenda and
they might not advocate for that inmate at all. So
maybe you're starting to get what I'm talking about when
I say this whole process at times feels like something
(11:27):
that Franz Kafka cooked up. Anyway, one day, Ronnie is
up for parole yet again, Jorge, I'm still not convinced
that Ronnie should be set free. And on this occasion,
Ronnie's presenter is well, I'll just let Jorge explain. There
was a gentleman on the board named Dick Doria, and
Dick Doria was a sheriff of Tuopage County formerly the sheriff,
(11:51):
a hard conserve, ultra conservative. So bad news for Ronnie. Right,
But wait, because Dick Doria, the conservative former sheriff, when
he made his presentation, he said something that really surprised
Jorge and Dick said than it was impossible, in his
professional opinion, that Ronnie would have killed this officer purposefully intentionally.
(12:18):
Impossible the kind of weapon he used. And mister Doria
knew all about ballistics and weapons and calibers, and he
made a wonderful presentation. He said, I'm not well, I'm
voting to release this man because I think he did
not intentionally kill the police officer. According to Jorge, Dictoria
said that he looked at the evidence, the distances, the
(12:40):
ballistics and the like, and determined it did not up.
It didn't make sense that Ronnie had killed this cop intentionally,
and this really got Jorge thinking critically about Ronnie's whole case,
about Ronnie's intentions, his efforts to redeem himself, and even
about the original sentence back in the nineteen seventies from
(13:01):
Judge Wilson, and whether it had been fair. In fact,
Jorge says he came to feel that Ronnie's sentence of
up to six hundred years did seem a bit fishy
coming on the heels of the Harry alam On trial,
and that this might be an instance of camouflage bias. Well,
it makes sense to me that that a judge would
behave this way and take it out on poor Carraskio
(13:24):
because he had just given this sniper who was well
known in the community for being a Fielso he gives
them an out, he gives them, he gives them a pass,
and then of course he's got to cover his tracks
by then overreacting on the Carraskio man. I thought that
was an excellent argument, and I believe that we'll be
(13:47):
right back throughout this process. Ronnie has also faced another
big challenge. The Chicago Police Department and the union representing
(14:08):
its officers do not want him to get parole, so
much so that they have physically showed up at his
parole hearings. Jorge remembers this. He says, they made quite
an impression. The conference room was very tight, and Chicago
would send bus loads of police officers and they would
all crowd in to the conference room that just fit
(14:30):
the conference table, and there were all there thirty cops
standing around us, and they were looking over our shoulder
and literally and so as we're casting boats. It was
very intimidating and very difficult. I've seen a picture of
this scene and I got to describe it to you.
You can see the Parole board members sitting at a table,
(14:51):
and then like a foot behind them is a whole
crowd of uniformed officers literally hovering over them. With time,
Jorge came to realize that Ronnie might not ever receive
enough votes for parole. In fact, at one point he
even wrote an affid David, Ronnie's behalf. In that Affidavid,
(15:11):
he said that despite Ronnie's quote excellent prison record and
his strong family and community support, that he was repeatedly
denied parole because quote, the victim was a Chicago police officer.
Montez concluded that quote, there are several members of the
board then and now who will never vote for parole
(15:32):
when the victim is a police officer. For Ronnie, none
of this is encouraging. You know, the constitution says we
have voice that we don't care. How must you got
that we don't care? None of that? You kill the
police officer, and they blatantly say, I'm not gonna have
vote for a police killer. So you know, how can
I ask them for mercy when they're telling me before
(15:53):
this the hearing's even done. So, I mean, if I
bring anybody in there to testifying, I'll hope for anything
like that. We don't want to hear that. And this
creates a real logistical challenge for Ronnie. Can he get
the votes he needs to be released. Each time Ronnie
is up for parole, the board is different. Old members
cycle out, new members cycle in, and he's come close
(16:16):
a few times. Each one of these moments is seared
into his memory, moments when it seemed like maybe the
door was about to swing open for him. In Justice Watch,
a Chicago based nonprofit newsroom, has done some excellent reporting
on Ronnie's bid for parole. They found that in the
years between two thousand and five and two thousand and eight,
(16:38):
Ronnie had a series of parole hearings and each year
he came within one vote of winning his freedom. Jorge
can still remember these votes, how excitement would build as
the board members cast their votes one at a time
for those of us that were favorable to his release.
It builds up a lot of momentum in an expectation.
(17:00):
And there's one, there's two, there's three. Oh, we're getting closed.
I think this is it. He's gonna go home. And
then we get to know. So that's it's very tense
in two thousand and eight, Ronnie actually won a majority
of votes from the board, six yeses and five nos.
(17:21):
That's a win, right, Nope, The Illinois Prisoner Review Board
requires that he get a majority of all members, not
just those in attendance, and that day there were two
no shows and only thirteen members on the board at
the time, so his six vote majority it didn't count.
Jorge was the chairman of the parole Board at this point,
(17:42):
and he says, to come this close and to fall short,
it was really hard for him personally. You feel deflated
and you feel demoralized because if you really believe in
this and you work his work and you try to
keep work away from home, but if you believe that
(18:03):
it's the right thing to do and that we're keeping
somebody locked up, a human being locked up that in
the year, you're sympathizing with the family and you see
all the tears and you see people leaving devastated. Yeah,
it impact, It impacts you. Ronnie wasn't there, but he
soon got the news. According to my law, I was
(18:26):
supposed to be granted parole. I made the majority of
the of the vote. To me, like, what's it my
going before the parole Board thirty five times and getting
rejected every time. I never go in front of the
whole committee. I see one person. One person comes and
they call him my hearing officer. After that, talk to nobody,
but this one person up against an invisible body that
(18:48):
I never see. In two and twenty, Ronnie was up
for parole once again, and the event attracted attention from
the local press. WGN investigates cop killers going free. Now
another officer's murderer is appealing to the Illinois Prisoner Review
Board for freedom. This is a news report from WGN
in Chicago that aired in September of twenty twenty, a
(19:11):
few weeks before Ronnie was set to appear before the
parole board. You might think that killing a cop would
lead to an automatic life sentence, but under old sentencing rules,
inmates are fighting themselves eligible for release, and as we found,
it often lands in the lapse of deceased officers families
to fight to keep them locked up. The family members
of the victim often come to these hearings. It's a
(19:34):
tortured process. They talk about how hard it's been for
them and how they hope that the killer will not
be allowed to just walk away. In the wug N
news story about Ronnie, a cousin spoke for the Loftis family.
We are aging and we need to speak for him.
We need to speak for his parents and for his brother,
and they are all gone. I did read an interview
(19:57):
with Loftus's brother before he passed away. He told the
Chicago Sun Times that the shooting devastated the family, saying, quote,
our mother was never the same. After that, the Fraternal
Order of Police declined my request for an interview, and
the Chicago Police Department didn't respond my requests for comment.
But I did manage to find a web page commemorating
(20:20):
Terence Loftis. A number of his friends and fellow police
officers had posted messages here. One read, I remember the
night he was killed. He was showing me his new
green leather jacket in the tactical office. A few hours
later he was shot. I remember seeing him later at
the hospital with a breathing tube in his mouth and
(20:42):
the sounds of the air machine pumping in a steady rhythm.
That vision to this day has haunted me and will
until the day I die. Unlike the reprobate that killed him,
Terry was an honorable and exceptional person. Some of the
posts were written directly to Terry, like letters sent to
him in the beyond. One of those read quote, once again,
(21:05):
parole has been denied for the individual that took your
life and cause so much pain to those that love you.
This time, the parole board said, he has to wait
three years to be heard again. When that time comes,
your brother, officers will be there again like they have
been in the past, to stop this individual from getting
out of prison. You have not been forgotten. Reading these posts,
(21:32):
it was heartbreaking, and I could see how, even all
these years later, his friends and family would still be
simmering with anguish and rage at the tragedy of it all.
It also seemed almost cruel that year after year Loftus's
friends and family members would be expected to attend these
parole hearings and share these kinds of sentiments, that they'd
(21:54):
have to relive their trauma again and again. I also
have to wonder what Terence Loftus himself would say about
all of this. I wonder how he would want to
be remembered, what he would want his legacy to be, Because,
after all, this was a man whose defining act was
one of courage and decency. His biggest mistake, the thing
(22:18):
that got him killed, was his inclination to help to
step into the fray when he absolutely didn't have to.
For Ronnie, the whole situation is confounding. He accepts his
responsibility for the death of Officer Loftus, he knows he's
(22:38):
the one who pulled the trigger, and he says that
he's done everything in his power to redeem himself. But
as far as the justice system is concerned, there appears
to be no real path forward. I'm not supposed to
mature and be able to have the constitutional right of
being restored a useful citizenship. The judge didn't leave me
(22:59):
no room for it. He just waste to me. I'm
wondering how, in the face of being rejected for parole
for thirty five times and being in is in from
almost half a century, like, how do you keep that
safe in that hopeful lives? Well. I study two hours
a day, I stay in the scripture, I pray every day,
(23:20):
I pray with other people. Uh. It's it's heartbreaking, especially
when you lose family members down the line, and to
keep your faith. So there's a scripture in there where
it says, what is a Genesius fifty twenty? Where Mann's
men means for evil, God means for good. And in
(23:41):
the Bible, God is a just God is just all justice.
This whole exchange oddly reminded me of something that Bob
Cooley once said to me. He said that in his mind,
the world of justice was divided into man's law and
God's law, and then he put little faith in Man's law,
I think because he saw it as arbitrary and fundamentally corrupt.
(24:03):
But God's law, on the other hand, was pure and transcendent,
and according to Bob, it's had meaning for him. And
I kind of understood this. In a city like Chicago,
where corruption and politics and gang violence and lingering class
resentments all skewed the law of man, he almost had
(24:24):
to grasp for something higher, hope that true justice might
exist elsewhere, in some better realm. And it was here
that Ronnie's faith resided. Though I wondered if he thought
that this faith alone would actually get him past that
parole board. What do you think your chances of being
released are. I'm gonna get release. I have faith in God.
(24:47):
I pray every day that he uh put on the
hearts of the just people, you know, to see the scenario,
and they don't address the politics of it and give
the judgment by law. I'm not gonna surrender myself all
gonna die here. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go
for it. I'm not I'm not living that way. If
(25:07):
you were released tomorrow, what's the first thing you would do.
I will sit in the backyard basically look up to
see the sky, see the stars at night. And the
threat is over. So I came from a gang life.
That threat never goes away. So the first thing I
want to do is just go and just life, oh
man and all it's over, and then go go live
(25:30):
the life from there. I got so much time left
to live. Basically, Gopia helped in humanity is supposed to
do in the first place, be a giver. I was
a taker as a kid. I can't take back my
criminal activity as again, I can't take back I can't
put the bulls back and I go I can't do
any of them. I'm going to go forward. This summer,
(25:51):
Ronnie was moved to a new facility, a reentry center.
Ronnie's attorney petition to have him moved there. He's there
to learn some basic life skills like how to write
a resume and how to manage finances, skills that he
would need if he ever makes parole. Ronnie is now
sick four years old. He'll be up for parole again
(26:12):
in November of twenty twenty two. This episode of deep
Cover was produced by Amy Gaines and edited by Karen Shakerge.
(26:35):
Our managing producers Jacob Smith. Original music and our theme
was composed by Luise Gara, mastering by Jake Korski. Mia
LaBelle is our executive producer. Additional thanks to Jesse de
Bartelomeo and Emily Horner, formerly of Injustice Watch and now
at the Chicago Tribune for her reporting on Ronnie's case.
(26:59):
I'm Jake Halpern. Deep Cover is a production of Pushkin Industries.
For ad free listening and early access to upcoming seasons
of deep Cover, consider becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. You
can find Pushkin Plus on the deep Cover show page
(27:21):
on Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm.
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