Top Experts Advise Pollard Against Parole
Justice4JP Release - January 23, 2000
Certain Jewish media outlets, for reasons of their own, continue to assist David Luchins in disseminating misinformation about the Pollard case - most recently about Jonathan Pollard's chances for parole.
For years Luchins has been beating the same drum, insisting that if Jonathan Pollard would only agree to stand for parole, he would immediately be released. In 1996 a essay published in MA'ARIV New "Solutions" Certain To Subvert Justice For Pollard, Esther Pollard wrote:
"... speaking in Jerusalem recently, [David Luchins] the Jewish Special Assistant to a prominent American senator tried to promote the spurious argument that, "In turning down Jonathan Pollard's request for commutation, President Clinton left the door open for parole."
"No parole board in America has the legal authority to mitigate the sheaf of negative recommendations from senior American officials that make up Jonathan Pollard's parole file. No parole board is in the position to override the combined weight of the Justice, Intelligence and Defense Departments.
Only the President of the United States has both the constitutional right and the constitutional responsibility to arrive at an independent decision without relying on the recommendations of those persons or agencies who may have vested interests in keeping Jonathan Pollard in prison."Nothing could be further from the truth!
As time goes on, Luchins not only continues to spread the same lie about parole for Pollard but now, emboldened by getting away with it for so long, he embellishes the lie.
According to recent statements he has made in the Jewish media, Luchins describes his wild fantasy of what a parole hearing for Jonathan Pollard would be like. He describes it as if it were some television extravaganza in which the top Jewish legal eagles will get up and convince the parole board of the rightness of their client's cause. Breathtaking speeches, he insists, will be made by a host of Jewish notables ranging from Alan Dershowitz to Eli Wiesel. Millions of signatures and truckloads of petitions will be produced, and compelling letters from all the Jewish leaders will be submitted. There will be such an avalanche of support - suggests Luchins - that the parole board just would not dare to refuse Pollard! As one addle-brained media maven gushed "This would be the trial Pollard never had!"
So what is the problem? According to Luchins, Pollard himself is the problem. Depending upon which radio program or newspaper report, Luchins maintains that Pollard is either too stubborn or too proud or too mentally unbalanced and that is why he refuses to stand for parole.
This is a profound insult to the intelligence of the audience. As the Pollards wrote in an article entitled What Motivates David Luchins?
"...
"After 15 years of doing hard time in harsh circumstances, including 7 years in
solitary confinement, Jonathan Pollard just wants to go home. He and his attorneys have always been absolutely no one chooses to remain in prison
- and especially not for reasons as spurious and as foolish as the ones Luchins suggests!
open to every possible solution
to resolve his case. To suggest otherwise is not only sick but also completely misinformed."
It is critical to understand that at a parole hearing there are no outside presentations. There are no star witnesses or outside legal eagles. Nor do letters or petitions have any standing if they are not part of the official file. As a rule, the parole officials examine the file well in advance of the hearing and their decision,
based on the contents of the prisoner's file
, has already been made.
Jonathan Pollard's parole file contains nothing but negative recommendations from those government agencies with vested interests in keeping him in prison.
Pollard and his attorneys consulted with America's top post-conviction experts. After studying the case, and the file, and after contacting their own high-level sources in Washington, these parole experts filed a lengthy and detailed report
strongly advising Jonathan Pollard against applying for parole
.The experts reported that they had learned at the highest levels of the Justice Department that should Jonathan Pollard apply for parole, the case would be adjudicated in Washington. There, they were told, the Parole Board would invariably turn down Pollard's parole request, and what is worse, they would certainly impose a 15 year set-aside rule. In other words, Jonathan Pollard would not be allowed to request another parole hearing for at least 15 more years!
The parole experts further explained that once the parole board rules that the case is untouchable for another 15 years, every President for the next 15 years will use this as the excuse for not granting executive clemency either.
To summarize:
- given the material in Pollard's parole file there is virtually no chance whatsoever that parole will be granted and
- being turned down at parole and set aside for 15 years would do irreversible damage to any chance of executive clemency in the future.
Suffice to say that Jewish media outlets which continue to provide a platform for David Luchins to deliberately misinform the public about the parole issue and about the Pollard case in general, do no honor to themselves or to the Jewish Community.
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