California man was free on parole when alleged DUI led to 2 deaths. Could state have done more?

Parolee Troy McAllister was arrested and released from jail five times in seven months before he allegedly struck and killed two people on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which oversees parolees, said McAllister was free that day because San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin had declined to press charges against him despite the prior arrests on suspicion of burglary, car theft and methamphetamine sales.

“Our parole office followed all procedures after these incidents,” the department said in a written statement, “including conducting investigations and making appropriate referrals for the individual.”

But state parole agents in the Bay Area could have done more. And if not for coronavirus restrictions on their work, they might have, according to law enforcement records and emails.

State parole agents have been under orders since April to avoid sending parolees to jail or prison except when there is an imminent threat to public safety or when state statutes require detaining them, according to a memo from the corrections department’s parole division. The memo also said agents should not conduct routine inspections of parolees’ living quarters or test them for drugs.

In the Bay Area, supervisors told parole agents in May that they “must not search for violations” of parole conditions, according to emails sent to agents.

The orders came as the state prison system was releasing tens of thousands of inmates early to get them out of institutions engulfed by the coronavirus. Since March 11, the prisons have released more than 17,000 inmates on parole, according to department data. Combined with 7,000 other early releases, the changes have reduced the prison population to about 90,000 inmates.

McAllister, 45, of San Francisco, was released on parole in April and arrested five times between June and December, according to law enforcement records. After four of the five arrests, police notified his parole agent, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

Each time, the agent declined to initiate proceedings to hold McAllister in jail or send him to prison, parole records show.

While there’s no guarantee McAllister would have been in custody on New Year’s Eve under normal circumstances, the repeated arrests and releases raise questions about whether the state’s looser rules add to public safety risks.

“It is leading to a sense of ‘no consequences’ for our parolees,” said a Bay Area parole agent who spoke to The Sacramento Bee on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional retaliation. “Guys that would be a violation or would be a parole hold that would usually put them on ice, we catch another violation the next week, the next day.”

Like all states, California has had to balance public safety against the risks inside prisons, where infection rates are on average four times higher than in the general population and death rates from the virus twice as high, according to a recent analysis published by Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Council on Criminal Justice.

Corrections department spokeswoman Dana Simas didn’t directly respond to questions about whether the department has struck the right balance between public safety and coronavirus risks with its emergency directives, or whether it might be considering changes. Simas declined a request to interview an official from the division.

“The Division of Adult Parole Operations’ top priority is public safety for communities, and to that end, we work very collaboratively with law enforcement partners and district attorneys across the state,” Simas said in an email.

Criminal justice reform advocates cautioned against drawing broad conclusions from one incident.

W. David Ball, an associate professor at Santa Clara University Law School, called the New Year’s Even crash tragic but said limited conclusions may be drawn from it.

Ball pointed out that the parole system relied on agents’ discretion even before the coronavirus directives.

“This could be an outlier, and if we are organizing ourselves around an outlier, we might end up with policies that are way too carceral and result in negative effects,” he said.

Repeated arrests

A judge released McAllister on April 10 to state parole after he served five years in San Francisco County for second-degree robbery.

After each of the five arrests leading up to the New Year’s Eve crash, District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s office declined to file criminal charges.

Boudin has said his office deferred to parole officials because parole agents have “more leverage” than his office to detain parolees for non-violent offenses.

Parolees may be returned to prison or held in jail with less evidence than is needed for a conviction in a criminal court. While the criminal standard is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” parolees may be held based on a preponderance of evidence. After McAllister’s arrests, his parole agent could have asked a court to hold him in jail for up to 180 days or to send him to prison.

The agent, who was notified after four of the five arrests, instead ordered McAllister to stay away from areas where he had been arrested and to enroll in drug treatment programs that didn’t stick, parole records show.

McAllister’s name is spelled differently in San Francisco County and state records. The Bee is using the spelling listed in state records.

Police first arrested McAllister on June 29 on suspicion of burglarizing a San Francisco apartment, according to parole records.

His parole agent placed him in a drug treatment program and ordered him to stay away from the apartment complex, according to the records.

On Aug. 20, police arrested McAllister after they found him reclining in the seat of a stolen Dodge Dart parked in the city’s Outer Sunset neighborhood, according to the records.

Police found sunglasses, watches and a lab coat with a woman’s name on it in the car, along with a backpack containing about 10 small pouches of methamphetamine and a glass pipe, according to the records.

His parole agent’s recommendation: continue on parole.

On Oct. 15, police arrested McAllister in relation to another stolen vehicle and again for meth. His parole agent took him to a residential treatment program on Oct. 21.

On Nov. 4, the program kicked him out, according to the records.

Two days later, police arrested him on suspicion of burglarizing a vehicle at San Francisco State University. His parole agent ordered him to enroll in another treatment program and to stay away from the university, the records show.

McAllister was arrested again Dec. 20 on suspicion of stealing a vehicle and possessing drugs. Police didn’t notify McAllister’s parole agent after that arrest due to a miscommunication over the holidays, according to information provided by San Francisco Police Department spokesman Matt Dorsey.

On Dec. 31, McAllister was allegedly driving a stolen Honda when he crashed and killed 60-year-old Elizabeth Platt and 27-year-old Hanako Abe. Boudin’s office charged him with vehicular manslaughter, possession of a firearm and driving a stolen vehicle, according to a news release. He is in San Francisco County Jail.

“Must not search for violations”

A May 11 email from Tom Porter, a supervisor in the San Francisco parole unit office, put the new orders plainly: “Agents must not search for violations.”

Porter ordered agents to place holds on parolees “only if serious threat to the community” and said they shouldn’t perform their typical surprise inspections of parolees’ living quarters. The email included instructions on social distancing, remote work rotations and hand-washing.

Porter did not respond to a voicemail last week.

At least one other supervisor in the West Bay district, which includes offices in San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Ukiah, Eureka and Vallejo, sent a similar email the same day.

Three parole agents, who all spoke with The Bee anonymously for fear of retaliation, said their supervisors have strongly discouraged them from asking courts to send parolees to prison or jail except in extreme circumstances.

“Unless it’s like a murder charge or some super-violent offense, they’re not willing to allow a parole agent to place a hold,” one agent said.

Gregory Sims, the district’s administrator, referred questions to a public affairs office.

The agents said they were already struggling with larger-than-prescribed caseloads before the pandemic arrived, and now they can spend even less time on each parolee.

The agents shared concerns that repeatedly letting parolees loose after minor violations could lead to more serious crimes.

“Your chronic absconder will abscond, abscond, abscond until he catches a serious charge,” one agent said.

Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of The Prosecutors Alliance of California, a nonprofit representing progressive district attorneys in the state, said the incident shows the corrections system isn’t doing enough to prepare inmates to re-enter society, a finding that the California State Auditor has also made.

“When we have situations like this they’re so tragic and we feel so much for the individuals and their families and that’s appropriate,” Soto DeBerry said. “What is hard to do in those moments, but really important, is to ask ourselves whether our approach up to that point was working.”

This story was originally published January 13, 2021 at 5:00 AM.