New Jersey Supreme Court rebukes parole board over delayed hearing for inmate

Justices say board acted arbitrarily in imposing 17-year wait for next review

A prisoner who has spent nearly four decades behind bars will get a new parole hearing after the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled the state parole board arbitrarily delayed his next chance at release by almost 17 years.

In the March 10 ruling, the seven justices unanimously agreed that the parole board never justified the lengthy waiting period it imposed after turning down convicted killer Horace Cowan’s parole application in 2020.

The high court also found the board “arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable” when it set the 200-month deferral, which is more than seven times longer than the 27 months state law recommends.

The parole board had claimed Cowan needed more rehabilitation, citing his “insufficient problem resolution” and “lack of insight into his criminal behavior,” among other things.

But the Supreme Court rejected that, saying the board didn’t explain why the long deferral was necessary, appropriate, or how it would help cut the likelihood of recidivism.

“It seemed, quite frankly, that the board panel simply picked a number out of thin air, which is the very definition of an arbitrary and capricious determination,” wrote Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis, author of the court’s opinion. “The board panel neglected to forge any connection between the facts in the parole record and the risk that Cowan would reoffend if released.”

The court ordered the parole board to grant a new hearing for the 58-year-old Cowan, who is incarcerated at East Jersey State Prison. Criminal justice advocates praised the ruling as the right move.

“We were very satisfied with the decision,” Ezra Rosenberg, the director of appellate advocacy for the ACLU’s New Jersey chapter, told The Jersey Vindicator on Thursday.

“There was no real basis for the board’s decision,” he continued. “We want to be a fair society. And after someone has been convicted, sentenced, served their time, and proven they can return to society … as a matter of fundamental fairness and morality, that’s something we should favor.”

A parole board spokesperson said in an email Thursday that although Cowan doesn’t have a new hearing date yet, it must come within 120 days of the court’s decision.

“Please be advised that the state parole board declines to provide specific comment regarding the litigation or court decision,” the spokesperson said.

Cowan has been in custody since February 1990, when the then-22-year-old fatally shot a man with a sawed-off shotgun during an attempted robbery, court documents show.

Authorities hit him with murder and gun charges, then sent him to the Monmouth County Correctional Institution ahead of his trial.

A year later, in 1991, Cowan struck a corrections officer in the head with a metal pipe, threatened a maintenance worker with a screwdriver, and locked them both in the jail’s shower room during a successful escape attempt.

But authorities caught up with him the next day, jailing him again and adding attempted murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery, kidnapping, escape, and other charges to his docket.

In May 1992, a jury convicted Cowan of aggravated manslaughter and weapons offenses for the robbery victim’s death. He was later sentenced to life in prison, and had to serve 25 years before even being considered for parole.

For the jailbreak, Cowan pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, criminal restraint, and second-degree escape, which earned him another 10-year sentence.

Cowan wasn’t much better inside the prison, where he racked up 18 institutional disciplinary infractions during his first 21 years, court documents said.

But he’s only incurred three infractions since 2011, with two of those stemming from a July 2018 prison fight in which three gang-affiliated inmates jumped him in his cell after he urged them to be more positive.

Cowan has also used his time in jail to better himself by working in the prison kitchen, earning his high school diploma, and completing several therapeutic and substance abuse programs, according to documents.

But that didn’t matter to the parole board, which denied Cowan early release on Jan. 2, 2020, despite Cowan’s apology.

His actions, he said, were the misguided results of youth and a desire to fit into street culture. But the plea fell on deaf ears.

“A substantial likelihood exists that [he] would commit a new crime if released,” the board concluded, even though a doctor assessed his risk of rearrest at less than one in three.

“The infractions indicate [Cowan] has still not addressed his criminal behavior or thinking,” the panel wrote. “He needs to participate in his own rehabilitation by addressing his behavior during incarceration.”

The panel also said Cowan could apply again in 200 months, which is 16.7 years.

Both the ACLU and the Seton Hall University School of Law Center for Social Justice argued on Cowan’s behalf, saying he was unlikely to reoffend and condemning the lengthy wait as arbitrary, disproportionate, and unjust.

Cowan appealed to the full parole board, but its members upheld the panel’s ruling.

Rosenberg, of the ACLU, said the court’s decision is important because people shouldn’t be kept in jail once they’ve served their debt to society.

“It’s fair,” he said. “It’s something we should applaud. And they should be given an opportunity to [live] outside prison.”