Parole

The Parole Board was required to parole Diane between January 9, 1998 and January 9, 2002. If she could provide reasonable cause to show she was not a danger. According to Oregon law this would have to be supported by a psychiatrists report 'or' a Wardens letter. Diane provided two reports, one of which was a psychiatrists report supporting her release. Still, the Parole Board refused to hear her. She followed all the correct Parole Board procedures for two years with no hearing. She then went through the State (Circuit ) Court habeas corpus relief for 'four years'. No relief!. Her Attorney has been pushing this through the Federal court system for the past two years. That is a total of 'eight years'!!

Diane's legal claim in the Federal Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus is that the Parole Board refused to hear her and of course refused to parole her. Even though professionals within the system had supported her being paroled. The State's Attorney General's office failed to answer her claim. They wrongly claimed that she had 'failed to petition for Federal relief in a timely manner'. The law requires prisoners to seek relief within one year of injustice. The truth is Diane had filed within 'two months'. The State drew this out for four years, but the courts decision was filed in 2004, and she appealed within two months. Therefore she will win that argument.

More to the legal point, the State failed to defend against her claims. So by law she should win by default. In fact her Attorney asked for her immediate release. Diane's maximum release date was January 9, 2002 which means she should 'discharge' instead of parole. This would mean that she does not have to report to a parole officer. And avoids the possibility of being returned to prison for 'imagined' parole offences (as many are). All this rests with the Federal Judge who still has to write that order. But the court will take another 'two years' to do that! Once again we are witness to a system that is abused by some of those charged with maintaining it's credibility and sense of fair play.

Recently Diane unexpectedly received a briefing in the Federal Appeal her attorney had filed on behalf of the Parole Board issue. The Deputy Attorney General writing the brief, in part, stated....'Petitioner is attempting an end-run around time constraints...' As stated above Diane filed within weeks of the Court ruling being contested, and therefore met the one-year, time limitation. But what is interesting here (Diane notes) is the use of the term 'end-run'. This claim or term was used by Doug Welch (ex-Lane County Investigator in Diane's case) in a letter to Diane's attorney back in 1998. Welch also used this term against the Federal Affidavit that procured the police reports that had been withheld (illegally) by the State of Oregon from 1983-1998. Looks like someone has been reading his letters.

Doug Welch is retired from the Lane County office although it appears that he gets himself involved in Diane's applications for parole. There seems no doubt that Welch along with his master, Fred Hugi, have always been in the background since Diane's conviction. It was Welch who stood guard at the Hugi home during Diane's escape with the hysterical notion that she may go there to harm the children. It was probably more to do with him wanting to further demonize Diane in the eye of the public . Which in turn would be beneficial to him and help take the heat off the conspiracy, he was part of, against her. Likewise his threats to Diane that he would....... " personally hunt her down and kill her if she were freed". A volatile and despicable individual if ever there was one. How 'upholder of the law' was ever accorded to this man escapes me.