BLIND JUSTICE NEW GOVERNOR TAKES POLITICS OUT OF PAROLE.

Byline: EARL O. HUTCHINSON Local View

FOUR days after he took office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did what it took former Gov. Gray Davis two years to do: He approved his first parole.

When it came to paroling murderers - no matter what the circumstances of the crime, how young they were at the time of the offense, how much praise they garnered from judges and prison officials, how many college degrees they earned, or that they had made Mother Teresa-like beatific conversions during their long stint in prison - Davis' well-scripted ritual was deny, deny, deny. Davis blocked all but eight paroles to nearly 300 inmates that the Parole Board had approved for release.

With his quick action, Schwarzenegger brought the badly needed rule of law and sanity back to paroles. His move will help cut prison costs and send a signal to prisoners that hard work and a clean record count. It could even promote more humane, cost-effective sentencing reforms.

It's also a cautionary tale for Democrats, and those Republicans who whiff political danger in Schwarzenegger's action: Fear politics often makes bad public policy.

Davis repeatedly and stubbornly said no to those deemed worthy of release because the ghost of Willie Horton haunted him.

After being released on a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison, Horton, a convicted killer, escaped, and slashed a Maryland man and raped his fiancee. Davis - and every other Democratic politician, or aspiring politician - watched and cringed in political horror during the 1988 presidential campaign when the elder George Bush pounded the governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis, to smithereens on the Horton release. The big lead that Dukakis had over Bush quickly evaporated.

Democrats everywhere quietly mumbled a solemn pledge to themselves that the Republicans would never, ever, out-shout them on the law-and-order issue again.

The Democratic soft-on-crime tag dates back to Richard Nixon's successful 1968 presidential campaign. Nixon branded Democrats as permissive on crime for appointing soft-sob judges, who, he claimed, let droves of dangerous criminals loose on the streets. Democrats screamed foul and claimed that Nixon played the crime card to stoke fear of black crime and violence in order to get white votes.

It worked. Nixon was elected in 1968, then re-elected in 1972.

Davis didn't forget the political lesson. Even if he was inclined to do the right thing and free certain convicted murderers, he felt politically trapped. The release of a convicted murderer, no matter how remote the possibility that he or she would commit another crime, posed too much political danger to Davis' 2002 re-election ambitions.

But even if playing hardball with the freedom of prisoners who have turned their lives around may seem like a sure strategy for Democrats to snatch votes, it's still bad public policy.

In addition to California, only two other states - Maryland and Oklahoma - give governors the power to veto decisions their parole boards make on prisoner releases. In both states, Democratic and Republican governors have also taken a granite stance against releasing convicted killers. But if they can use parole as a political football, and pander to public fears about crime and violence, then the logical question is why even bother to have parole boards in the first place?

Better yet, why even bother to have paroles? In usurping the authority of their parole boards to make decisions, meddling governors are in effect saying that they have no confidence in their own appointees.

Davis' hard line and reflexive rejection of paroles for rehabbed prisoners not only undercut the parole board's authority, it also created the false public impression that parole boards cavalierly allow killers to waltz out of prison to pillage and plunder their communities. But of the 4,000 parole requests the parole board reviews each year for inmates serving life sentences, only 1 percent are approved.

Parole board members know that the governor, the Legislature and California voters are aghast at the thought of putting killers back on the streets. They would not dare risk public fury by releasing a killer who might kill again.

That's not to say that the governor should have no say over parole decisions. Parole board members are not infallible. They can make a bad decision and release someone who could endanger the public. The governor must have the right to review their decisions.

But for the handful of convicted killers who have shown by their deeds that they have redeemed themselves, it makes no sense for a governor to hold them hostage to past political fears. The prisoners that the parole board greenlights for release are not Willie Hortons. As long as some politicians continue to pretend that they are, prisoners who have shown by their remorse and deeds that they can be model and productive citizens will be denied the second chance they've earned and deserve.

Thankfully, Schwarzenegger is not one of those politicians.