CAMDEN — The Arkansas Parole Board has recommended clemency for a 74-year-old woman sentenced to life in prison on a first-degree murder conviction.
Annie Varnell Ross won a clemency endorsement from the board in November 2006, just before Mike Huckabee left the governor's office. The governor makes the final decision in clemency cases, whether to deny the request, sentence the person to a term of years, or make them eligible for parole, for instance.
But Ross remained incarcerated for her February 1983 murder conviction in Ouachita County. She was convicted of killing Sam Scott, 52, her purported boyfriend, during a fight at her Camden home Feb. 20, 1982.
In her latest clemency application, Ross wrote that she killed an "abusive man" while defending herself from him. News accounts of her trial show Ross made a similar self-defense claim then.
Ross also said she suffers from diabetes, while the Department of Correction notes she has a crippled left hand.
The board noted she earned a high school equivalency diploma while in prison and felt she "has paid her debt and she promises to be no threat to society."
Prosecutor Robin Carroll said Wednesday he opposed the request, though he acknowledged he wasn't familiar with Ross' case.
"I make it a practice to oppose all such requests when a jury's decided it should be a life sentence," Carroll said.
The Ouachita County Sheriff's Department offered no comment to the parole board on Ross' possible clemency.
Ross is being held at the Wrightsville Women's Facility.