PBA: Parole Panel’s decision to release three-time cop-killer Herman Bell violates the law

Former parole board member says: Bell’s sentencing judge
wanted him to serve “as long as legally permissible”

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of the City of New York (NYC PBA,) has located the critical sentencing minutes that the Parole Board illegally failed to consider before granting cold-blooded, three-time cop-killer Herman Bell parole.  In a letter to the board, the PBA cites both Criminal Procedure Law and Executive Law that requires the board to “obtain and consider” the recommendation of the sentencing court and district attorney prior to making its determination.  The Parole Board's failure to consider the sentencing minutes effectively invalidates their decision and requires, by law, a new hearing and the rescission of Bell’s release date.

 PBA President Patrick J. Lynch said:

“This parole panel has clearly violated the law by granting the release of three-time cop-killer Herman Bell without having reviewed all of the information required by statute.  This board did not consider the most damning and serious information regarding the commission of this heinous crime.  It bears saying again, if the planned, rehearsed, executed and celebrated cold-blooded murder of two hero police officers who were answering a fake call for help does not require life in prison without parole, what crime does?  With this new information, the law requires the rescission of Bell’s release and a new parole hearing to be conducted with all information seriously considered.”

Former Parole Board member and current State Senator Patrick M. Gallivan said:

“A review of the sentencing minutes indicates that the commissioners who voted to release Herman Bell did not properly take into consideration the recommendation of the judge in the case. Judge Greenfield made clear his intent that Bell serve a sentence as long as legally permissible.  He also ordered Bell’s New York sentence be served consecutive to an earlier sentence of 25 years he received in the state of California.  In light of this information, I urge the Board of Parole to suspend Herman Bell’s release and conduct a rescission hearing.”   

Also in a letter to the Parole Board, Senator Gallivan notes that there are case developments subsequent to the panel’s rendition of its decision to grant release which includes the “public outrage, which clearly demonstrates that a release decision so depreciates the seriousness of the crime as to undermine respect for the law. This includes the voices of the Mayor of New York City, William de Blasio, and Governor Andrew Cuomo, who stated, ‘it sends the wrong message,’ which is the very essence of the ‘deprecate’ standard of release as provided for in the Executive Law.”

Listed below are some of the highlights of information that were not considered by the parole panel from the sentencing minutes of the judge and district attorney:

• that if the death penalty was in effect, the District Attorney’s recommendation would be that the death penalty be imposed.
• Bell and his co-defendants are “beyond redemption and can never be rehabilitated.”
• William Mogulescu, one of the defense attorney, said on the record: “They [referring to Bell and his co-defendants] are beyond rehabilitation. There is no question of that because they feel unless our society is restructured and overthrown, that there is no justice, that there is no hope, that there is no way.”
• Bell be sentenced to the maximum that the law permitted.
• Further recommended, “so that every parole board who reads these sentencing minutes will know — that these sentences be consecutive with every sentence” faced by Bell and his co-defendants.
• “The law, as it stood at the time of the commission of these acts, does not permit of [sic] capital punishment. The Supreme Court of the United States has declared that given the way that capital punishment was applied at the time it violated due process because it was random and arbitrary. But these defendants, although they are spared the risks of capital punishment, had no aversion to inflicting capital punishment upon others in a fashion which was random and arbitrary.”
• “And they inflicted that capital punishment not for the crime of murder but because Patrolman Waverly Jones and Patrolman Joseph Piagentini, a black man and a white man, were guilty of representing the People as members of the police department of their municipality.”
• “They [referring to Officers Piagentini and Jones] were guilty of the crime of coming to the aid of an injured woman who had called for help.”
• “They [referring to Officers Piagentini and Jones] had committed no wrong, real or fanciful, against these defendants. These defendants, who came from California for the purpose of shooting police officers, Patrolman Jones and Patrolman Piagentini weren’t trying to destroy their political activities in California, They were doing their job in New York.”
• “And they met their death on a call to help someone.”
• By the Court, “How was it done [referring to the execution of Officers Piagentini and Jones]?”
• “There were no charges preferred against them. No trial. They had no defense and they will never be afforded the opportunity of an appeal.”
• “What they faced was the instantaneous snuffing out of their lives, coldly, impersonally and savagely.”
• “Acts which were then followed by a celebration that the enemy, unaware, had been slain.”

Presently, Herman Bell’s earliest release date from prison is April 17, 2018.