After 4 ½ years of parole violations and at least 10 felony charges, a murder charge triggered a hearing that will send Darrell Dennis back to prison.
Dennis, a repeat felon and parole absconder, is accused of kidnapping, robbing and killing a Fayetteville teen and dumping his body on a Little Rock street corner within 32 hours after Dennis’ May 8 release from jail, where he had been held on a parole absconding warrant.
Dennis, 47, will be returned to prison after his parole was revoked during a June 5 hearing. He remains in the Pulaski County jail awaiting transfer back to Department of Correction custody.
By state law, any parolee arrested in connection with a violent offense, including a sex crime, must have a revocation hearing. And, officials say, the slew of criminal and parole violations that have resulted in eight absconder warrants being issued for Dennis since he left prison on parole in 2008 should have triggered a hearing before the May 10 killing of Forrest Abrams.
Dennis was arrested in Abrams’ slaying 12 days after the 18-year-old’s body was found in the roadway at West 11th and South Woodrow streets. Two other suspects remain at large, police said.
Since Dennis’ release from prison, he has exhibited a pattern of noncompliance, evasion and criminal behavior that resulted in 14 arrests and 21 new charges, excluding parole violations, according to state records obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The charges included at least 10 felonies.
“Looking at [Dennis’ records], this guy has an armload of prior criminal convictions before 2008,” said Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola. “A guy with this many violations, eight absconder warrants, you would think people in the parole system would be asking for a revocation of parole.”
Under the state Department of Community Correction’s “accountability interventions matrix,” Dennis’ absconder violations would trigger a revocation hearing and likely lead to his recommended commitment to an Arkansas Department of Correction technical violators center, a middle ground between jail and prison.
But that didn’t happen.
State Sen. David Sanders, who, like Stodola, has been critical of the Department of Community Correction in the past, said the state agency dropped the ball with Dennis. Sanders said he doesn’t understand why parole officials did not revoke Dennis’ parole after the series of arrests and violations.
“Law enforcement and parole officers, prosecutors, all of them should have concern that the Department of Community Correction doesn’t always follow its own policies,” said Sanders, R-Little Rock. “From what I know about this case, it seems to be what happened here. … I think it’s the expectation of, certainly, lawmakers, the executive branch and the taxpayers … that a state agency would follow its own policies.”
In March 2010, Dennis’ name was added to the Parole Board’s list for a parole-revocation hearing to be held in August 2010. But he didn’t show up. An absconder warrant was issued for his arrest, and in November 2010, his name was put back on the revocation hearing list, but he never had a hearing.
When asked why Dennis was never returned to prison for his parole violations or why Dennis was released from the Pulaski County jail on May 8 after his May 1 arrest for absconding, Department of Community Correction spokesman Rhonda Sharp said she couldn’t comment on a specific case. She did say there are a range of legal sanctions and disciplines for a variety of violations.
Stodola and Sanders said they weren’t sure why parole officials authorized Dennis’ release from jail on May 8.
According to e-mails obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette through the state Freedom of Information Act, some Department of Community Correction administrators, including Director David Eberhard, wondered the same thing.
In the department’s e-mails received under the information request, Dennis’ name didn’t come up until May 24, two days after his arrest in Abrams’ killing and the same day that the Democrat-Gazette identified Dennis as a parolee with an extensive history of breaking the terms of his release.
In an 8:09 a.m. message sent by the state’s deputy director of probation and parole to several other Department of Community Correction officials, including Eberhard, Dan Roberts wrote: “Why was [Dennis] not revoked to [Arkansas Department of Correction ]? I see where he was set for [revocation] hearings but never had any?”
Hours later, Eberhard e-mailed Roberts asking why parole officials allowed Dennis to be released from jail on May 8. He had been in the lockup for seven days on holds requested by parole officials.
“Did we release our hold on this guy on May 8 or did the jail decide to release him?” Eberhard wrote. “If we did release our hold, why did we do so? It appears as if he was going to [a technical violators center].”
Roberts told Eberhard that Dennis was set to go to a technical violators center but that the jail doesn’t hold people waiting to go to such centers.
According to jail records, Department of Community Correction Assistant Area Manager Shawanna Willis faxed the Pulaski County jail a letter authorizing his release.
Parole records show that Dennis was released from jail May 8 and that parole officials wanted him to receive electronic monitoring until he was taken to a technical violators center. He was told that he faced a commitment to the violators center and that he needed to report to a parole officer within 24 hours of his release.
But there is no record that he reported. Two weeks later, the day he was arrested in Abrams’ killing, Department of Community Correction officials issued yet another absconding warrant, his eighth.
Dennis’ public defender declined to comment.
In his State of the Cityspeech near the end of March, Stodola criticized the Department of Community Correction, noting that half of the 96 people arrested for burglary in the latter half of 2012 were supposed to be monitored by parole or probation officers but weren’t.
That criticism prompted Eberhard to state in an April presentation that between October 2011 and September 2012, parolees convicted of felonies dropped statewide from 2,498 to 1,709. The number of parole revocations also dropped from 4,851 to 3,356.
Eberhard did not respond to several requests for an interview for this article over the past few weeks.
Stodola said Dennis’ history of parole violations, in light of his criminal record, were obvious red flags that went unnoticed by the state.
“This is a prime example of a guy that clearly should have been back in the penitentiary. Why he was out, why there was no revocation, and there were two [recent parole] holds dropped on this thing, that’s just ridiculous,” Stodola said. “Right now [Dennis’ case] appears to be the norm. It’s a state issue, and it affects the citizens of this city and they deserve better, quite frankly.”
Dennis appeared in Little Rock district court several times in 1984 and 1985 facing charges of theft, and breaking or entering, as well as drug and kidnapping charges, leading to a conviction that put him in prison for a little more than three years. He was released in June 1989.
Within months, he was returned to prison for violating his parole conditions and was later convicted of aggravated robbery and theft of property, receiving concurrent 60-year and 20-year sentences, according to court records. He was paroled in November 2008.
The first sign of trouble after his 2008 parole came that December when he failed to report for a mandated meeting with a parole officer. When he did report on Dec. 29, he claimed to be drug-free but tested positive for “heroin/opiates” that same day, according to records. He then missed his next parole-officer meeting a week later.
In total, Dennis failed to report to his parole officer at least 14 times, according to documents reviewed by the Democrat-Gazette, earning him several stays at the county jail, some as short as a few hours.
Dennis was arrested April 3 of this year on charges of obstructing governmental operations and possessing instruments of crime. After that arrest, parole and probation officer Arzo Johnson wrote:
“This is Dennis’ 6th Abscond since being released from prison,” the documents said. “This offender will not report and need[s] to attend a Parole Hearing. In the past he has filed for [mental evaluations] just to get out of jail. This offender will not report.”
Johnson’s report went unheeded.
“It was clear that there were some in DCC who had major concerns about Mr.Dennis,” Sanders said. “Had their concerns been acted on, I’m not sure that we would be facing a situation today, the death of a young man.”
Beyond failing to report to a parole officer, Dennis failed at least five drug tests, testing positive for marijuana or cocaine or both since the beginning of 2009, according to his parole records.
He was arrested after a Little Rock drug raid at his 5615 W. 13th St. residence on April 14, 2009, according to court records. Police reported finding crack cocaine, opiates, drug paraphernalia and two handguns, one of which was defaced, as well as $5,620 in cash. He was charged with seven crimes, six of them felonies.
Almost a year to the day later, Little Rock police raided another Dennis apartment, this one on West Roosevelt Road, and reported finding cocaine, marijuana, opiates and paraphernalia as well as $1,149 in cash. Dennis was charged with four felony drug charges, was booked at the county jail and released the same day.
After meeting with Dennis a few months after the second drug raid, a parole officer addressed his previous drug test, which reportedly showed positive for controlled substances.
“[Dennis] denies any [further] contact with [law enforcement], but admits to smoking THC,” the officer wrote. “Dennis has no desire to quit using or selling drugs. He has 14 pending felonies and he is awaiting trial. Dennis’ revocation hearing was postponed on two separate occasions.”
Revocation hearings, which are presided over by the state’s Parole Board, must be requested by an area manager, said the Department of Community Correction’s Sharp. Arrests for sex crimes and other violent offenses are supposed to automatically prompt revocation hearings, as opposed to nonviolent misdemeanors for which parole officials wait until the cases are adjudicated in court before initiating any revocation proceedings.
But Dennis, arrested twice within a year on accusations of dealing drugs out of his home, fell into a gray area.
Parole supervisors can request a revocation hearing in the event of new felony charges, Sharp said, but if those charges are nonviolent, the supervisors may wait for them to be adjudicated in court before a hearing.
In response to Roberts’ questions about why Dennis hadn’t had his parole revoked, another Department of Community Correction official, Kristie Baker, wrote: “He was under an ACT 3 mental health evaluation for over a year. The board will not do a hearing on someone under an ACT 3.”
A request made in court under Act 3, the Arkansas statute that governs criminal defendants’ mental evaluations, suspends all legal proceedings and allows a defendant to seek a mental evaluation to determine if he is capable of standing trial, according to State Hospital Medical Director Steven Doman.
Dennis’ Act 3 request may have delayed revocation actions, according to Sharp, who said revocation hearings often wait on court cases to conclude before they proceed.
Nearly nine months after his 2009 arrest by Little Rock narcotics detectives, Dennis requested an Act 3 hearing.
It wasn’t until November 2012 that an examiner submitted his findings to the court. According to the forensic specialist, Dennis showed up for their meeting “notably odorous of alcohol,” and “obfuscated” the line of inquiries, and in the opinion of the specialist, “feigned mental defect.”
In December, the Act 3 request was withdrawn, and the court proceedings were unfrozen. But Dennis’ felony drug cases from 2009 and 2010 have yet to go to trial.
An ongoing ACT 3 hearing is no excuse to avoid a revocation hearing, Sanders said.
“What you’re saying is you’ve got a mentally incapacitated, pathological criminal that you’re letting out on the streets?” Sanders said. “He has tried to milk the Act 3 [hearings]. … These people don’t have a clue as to who they’re dealing with.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/17/2013