Missouri Parole Board member Don Ruzicka resigned June 12, after a report from a local civil-rights law firm revealed his penchant for playing “word games” with inmates while determining whether they would stay in prison or walk free.
Ruzicka, along with an unnamed parole analyst, had been spending time during parole hearings trying to get inmates to guess a given “word of the day,” instead of asking questions relevant to the case. The “words of the day” included terms such as “armadillo,” “platypus,” and “hootenanny,” and even song titles like “Hound Dog” by Elvis, and “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash, according to the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center report. Ruzicka could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
According to an internal investigation by Missouri Department of Corrections Inspector General Amy Roderick, the two would insert the “words of the day” into their questions in hearings, confusing inmates. For example, on one day when the “word of the day” was “platypus,” Ruzicka and the analyst were questioning an inmate about items stolen from a garage. Ruzicka told the offender, “That’s a pretty rare item, like a platypus. How did you know those items were there?”
When Roderick asked Ruzicka how the use of these words aided in the interview process, he responded that a word like ‘hootenanny’ was something that “assisted with the full body of the complete interview.”
On June 8, the MacArthur Justice Center sent a letter to Governor Eric Greitens requesting Ruzicka’s removal from the parole board. The letter was based on Roderick’s November investigation, which had confirmed that Ruzicka and the parole analyst’s behavior had violated both Department of Corrections policies and gubernatorial executive orders by “failing to conduct the business of state government in a manner that inspires confidence and trust.” Roderick, however, had only issued those findings to the parole board chairman and chief state supervisor for the board, meaning they were not available to the public until the MacArthur Justice Center investigated the issue seven months later.
Aside from the word games and joking around during hearings, Ruzicka and several members of the hearing staff coordinated their outfits, to heighten the comedic nature of the proceedings. “On some days, they wore all black; on others, they might coordinate ridiculous ties with characters from South Park, a dark and irreverent adult-cartoon show, or animal figures,” the center’s letter to Greitens read.
“The reports of Mr. Ruzicka’s actions were disturbing. Playing games at parole board hearings is unacceptable behavior,” said Governor Greitens in a prepared statement.
It is unknown whether Greitens was involved in Ruzicka’s resignation, and according to the center’s director Mae Quinn, the unnamed parole analyst implicated in the report may still be working for the parole board.
“Contempt for fair processes was not only demonstrated by Ruzicka’s outrageous conduct,” Quinn said. “Disturbingly, other parole board members and staff, who were long-aware of these antics, did nothing. Such actions are part of a larger culture of cover-up and disregard for meaningful process within our prison system.”
Quinn said Ruzicka’s actions further support the widespread critiques that Missouri’s prison system and parole board are “one of the least transparent and most problematic in the nation.”
Ruzicka’s resignation was not all that the MacArthur Justice Center letter called for. They also requested that the Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway “audit and report on all of the Parole Board’s activities over the last several years, including to discern how many Board Members and staff knew about the ‘Parole Bingo’ games.” About 45,000 parole hearings were conducted during Ruzicka’s time on the board and could have been impacted by his behavior. At press time, the auditor’s office was “not engaged in an active investigation” of this matter, according to spokesperson Gena Terlizzi.
Quinn has contacted the auditor’s office and is hopeful that they will heed their request for an audit of the parole board and that others might join in making that request, she said.
The law firm has sued the parole board four times in the last six months and has filed a federal class action suit on behalf of about 80 young offenders who, they argue, have not been given the meaningful chance at parole they are legally required to have.
The board, Quinn said is, “a body that operates in utter secrecy to not just the outside world, but even the individuals who are coming before the board.”
Even after Ruzicka’s resignation, the center’s letter to the governor concluded, an audit of the parole board to investigate other incidents of dysfunction within the board will be a, “first step in a much-needed comprehensive reform plan, if Missouri’s criminal justice system wants to stop being seen as a national joke.”
