Former Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell on track to join state parole board

The state’s beleaguered state Board of Parole is on track to get four new members – including a former Assembly member who once headed the Corrections Committee – after state senators voted to advance their nominations to the floor for a full confirmation vote tomorrow.

Former Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell was among Gov. Kathy Hochul’s nominees this year. A lawyer and longtime criminal justice reform advocate who retired from the state Legislature last year, O’Donnell served as the chair of the Assembly Corrections Committee for some time. He faced about 40 minutes of questioning from members of the state Senate Finance Committee and Crime, Crime Victims and Corrections Committee before getting the approval for a full vote. “I have to follow the rules that the legislators write, but I would hope that my experience as both a public defender and a committee chair in Corrections will inform my decisions,” O’Donnell told City & State after his testimony to lawmakers. He called the position an important one in society and acknowledged that governors have not always appointed people who had “a breadth of experience” necessary for the job.

Although criticism over state Parole Board nominees certainly predates Hochul, she has had some notable public kerfuffles involving at least three of the people she has tried to tap. Two were flatly rejected by legislators – one in a formal vote and another before Hochul even had the chance to nominate him, according to reporting by New York Focus. Senators rejected the latter nominee because they felt the governor only nominated him as a means of currying political favor, which is not necessarily a new allegation for board nominations historically.

Brandon Stradford, another person Hochul nominated, was reportedly so bad at the job – consistently missing meetings, showing up late or even falling asleep – that Hochul needed to remove him, just two months after his confirmation.

During her first full year as governor, Hochul pledged to fill every commissioner seat on board, which hasn’t had its full 19 members for years. It has resulted in overworked commissioners with hundreds or more cases to consider every year that determine the futures of even more people. She still has not been able to make good on that promise. Currently, 16 commissioners serve on the board, of which Hochul appointed five. All but four of the commissioners are now serving expired terms, and another commissioner’s term is set to expire at the end of the year. Three of the commissioners’ terms expired in 2019. Of the four new nominees from Hochul, two will replace current members. That would bring the board up to 18 members, nearly full but still with many old holdovers.

The governor’s latest series of nominations was not without hiccups either, according to criminal justice reform advocates. The Release Aging People from Prison campaign claimed that Hochul had initially intended to nominate a fifth board member, former parole officer Victor Antonio Perez, but withdrew him from consideration following intense opposition from formerly incarcerated people and families of inmates. A spokesperson for the governor did not immediately return a request for comment. 

Jose Saldana, director of the Release Aging People from Prison campaign, criticized the governor for disproportionately nominating commissioners with law enforcement backgrounds. “Governor Hochul failed to nominate a single formerly incarcerated person, despite countless among us being highly qualified,” Salanda said in a statement. In addition to O’Donnell, Hochul also nominated Jose Gomere, a former police commissioner; Elizabeth Kase, a cannabis attorney, defense lawyer and former prosecutor; and Darlene Grant Bruce, an attorney who has served as a federal special master over prisons and been involved with community services in Harlem.

The Parole Board nominee advancements come after legislators introduced an omnibus prison reform bill that did not include parole reform measures pushed by criminal justice advocates. O’Donnell has historically supported such reforms, like the Elder Parole Act, but he’s now leaving it up to sitting legislators to pick up the effort to pass laws he can follow on the board. “How do you get something that's workable within the institutional setting is something I spent many hours thinking about, which I don’t do any more,” he said.