One Judge, One Prisoner

Like most of the other 25 judges who spent a day as mock convicts in Nevada State Prison last summer, Plummer Shearin of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Md., came away shaken by the experience. But he saw a way to help at least one of the real prisoners. During seminars with "con-sultants," he had met and been impressed by Thomas Eisentrager, 48, a lifer. Checking further, Shearin found that Eisentrager was also highly regarded by both prison officials and fellow convicts for his thoughtful views on penology and probation, his reliability in prison jobs and his efforts at self-rehabilitation. Trouble was, he had been sent to prison for the murder of his girl friend in 1958. It was his fourth major conviction; his life sentence normally would have meant no hope of parole.

Key Element. The apparent finality did not daunt Shearin. He offered to take custody of Eisentrager and lined up a job for him as a probation counselor in Gaithersburg, Md. Last month he returned to Nevada to plead Eisentrager's case before the parole board. Though it had unanimously turned down the convict's parole bid once before, the board this time voted 4 to 2 for his release. One of the dissenters, Justice John Mowbray, who had sentenced Eisentrager originally, asked, "Why is this man being treated any differently than any lifer? Others in his same position think that release is a matter of chance meeting." But the majority was apparently persuaded that the convicted murderer's rehabilitative effort--not chance alone--was the key element.

Eisentrager, who began work last week, wants to be assigned to a special program providing intensive supervision for probationers, including some who have not done time in jail. He hopes to keep "kids from getting in their first prison situation. All I want now is to feel I am doing something positive. I can look back at the whole mess of garbage in the past and have to strain to find anything positive. To become a real person, you must have a moral standard, which I never had until now.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.