John Gardner's Parole

John Gardner

John Gardner Parole

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John Gardner Parole

John Albert Gardner III is a convicted murderer and rapist that were found guilty of murdering and raping two teenage girls. Gardner two murder victims were not is only victims because in 2000 Gardner was convicted of molesting his 13 year old daughter. After serving only five years in prison Gardner was released on parole. During his parole he violated the conditions of his parole seven times but despite these violations was never put back into jail. Gardner is a monster that should never be released back into society. If the criminal justice system in California had not failed to revoke his parole his victims could be alive today.

Gardner clearly posed a grave threat to young females and one of his parole violations included living next to a school. Instead of revoking Gardner’s parole these instances were ignored by his parole officer. After several violations Gardner was placed on a GPS ankle bracelet for four months. When he was removed from the monitoring bracelet he began to stalk his first murder victim, Amber Dubois, who disappeared in February 2009, and exactly one year later to the month his second murder victim Chelsea King disappeared (Fremon, 2010). The skeletal remains of Dubois and King were located in March 2010.

DNA locates on clothing belonging to Chelsea King tie her murder to john Gardner. After molesting his first victim he learned to permanently silence them in order to avoid detection but he did not count on the tools of forensic science. Garner eventually pled guilty to the murder of both girls but these murders could have been avoided. When Gardner originally went to court, for the molestation of his 13 year old neighbor the court order a psychological evaluation in order to determine the level of threat he posed to society. The psychologist warned the court that Gardner was extremely dangerous and should not be released from prison for a long time.

Despite the warning by the court appoint psychologist, Gardner was not given the maximum sentence and was instead released early on parole. Instead of returning John Gardner to prison in 2007 when he violated his parole for the seventh time he would have been evaluated for commitment to a state mental hospital as a sexually violent predator (Thompson, 2010). What this means is Gardner would not have been on the streets to murder his tow victims. Instead he would have been locked away from society and they would be alive today. The failure of the parole board, parole officer, and courts resulted in two senseless murders.

When Gardner was released from parole he had just recently committed another parole violation that should have resulted in him completing his prison sentence but due to the extreme overcrowding of the California prison system, his parole violations were ignored and he was released back into society with no monitoring. In defense of the parole officer many of the violations by Gardner where minor and the system are too overwhelmed to put inmates back in jail for minor offenses. Critics of the parole officer and parole board find Gardner was deemed a dangerous threat before he was ever released on parole. Gardner should never have gotten parole.

The case of John Gardner did result in a failure for the victims of this monster. Because Gardner was a first time offender he did not receive the same punishment as other sexual offenders but knowing that these sick individuals are incapable of being truly cured of their sickness, the correctional department should have used greater caution in ever releasing him on parole. Sexual offenders pose a grave risks to members of society and should be locked way until there is a cure for this deviant behavior. If there was no parole or the parole officer had been more diligent Chelsea King and Amber Dubois would be alive today.

References

Fremon, C. (2010). The Sad Bad Lesson of John Gardner & Parole System Failure. Retrieved

June 4, 2013 from http://witnessla.com/crime-and-punishment/2010/admin/the-sad-bad-less

Thompson, D. (2010). John Gardner, Chelsea King Suspect, Broke Parole Multiple Times,

Remained Free. Retrieved June 4, 2013 from

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/11/john-gardner-chelsea-king_0_n_495956.html