THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER2, 2019 53
asked Dennis, “Is there anything that
you want to tell us about the offense
and why you did this to the officer?”
Dennis said, “I was more or less out
of control then from my drinking. I
should have complied when the officers
there approached me.” He went on,
“When they started to ask me ques-
tions, I started to walk away from them,
and ... I guess that’s when I made my
mistake. They put their hands on me
and it led to an altercation.”
This response did not go over well.
“The description in the record is very
different than the description that you
give, that they approached you,” Cop-
pola said. According to the record in
his parole file, Dennis had encountered
only one officer, not two. “The record
says there were other witnesses, that
you came out unprovoked and stabbed
him in the neck.” He continued, “Is it
possible that you were intoxicated
enough that you believe that’s how it
happened, but maybe that’s not really
how it happened?”
“Yes. I guess it’s possible, yes.”
Throughout the parole hearing, Cop-
pola dominated the conversation, ask-
ing long-winded questions and speak-
ing nearly three times as much as
Dennis. He grilled Dennis repeatedly
about the details of the crime; there was
relatively little discussion about the forty-
eight years that had followed, and just
two questions about the plans Dennis
had made for his release. The vote against
his release was two to one. (Coppola
declined to be interviewed.)
Button said of Dennis, “He said noth-
ing new in that interview. Everything
we practiced went out the window, be-
cause he is defensive and can’t really
learn how to not be defensive, given his
life story.” She continued, “I think peo-
ple who do well in these interviews are
guys who spend a lot of time in the law
library in prison and have an inclina-
tion for speaking like their own lawyer.
Some guys are good at being their own
advocate and can tell when they need
to reroute the conversation. But that’s
a skill and not something everyone is
good at. Definitely not Lloyd.”
Michelle Lewin told me, “I was so
pissed. He had no way out with that
board.” She started making calls and
firing off e-mails, and soon found two
attorneys, Ron Kuby and Rhiya Trivedi,
to take on his case. They recently filed
an appeal, arguing that the board had
relied solely on the nature of his crime
and not taken into account other fac-
tors. But appealing the board’s decision
is a slow process, and Dennis’s next pa-
role hearing, set for November of 2020,
will likely take place before their efforts
to appeal have concluded.
If that happens, Dennis will have to
decide whether to take a chance with
the parole board for the fourteenth time
or wait for a judge to order an addi-
tional hearing. A judge does not have
the authority to release him, so Den-
nis’s best hope would be to go before a
board that was more likely to vote for
his release. This past summer, five new
commissioners—including a former
Legal Aid attorney, a minister, and the
former head of a prison watchdog
group—joined the parole board. The
Governor put forward a sixth candidate,who had once worked as a prison guard.
On the day of the State Senate com-
mittee vote, Lewin and a few activists
from RAPP camped out in the room and
held up signs reading “Vote No!” The
candidate was not confirmed.
Lee, White, and Button promised
Dennis that they would continue to work
with him. As fall approached, Button de-
cided to take on another case with Pa-
role Prep, too. She joined a team with
two volunteers she did not know, and
Lewin assigned them to work with a man
at Otisville who has been incarcerated
for thirty-six years. Button still sends let-
ters to Dennis and speaks to him on the
phone every week. In September, when
she moved from one apartment in Bed-
Stuy to another, she brought his new
work boots with her, and now they are
inside a suitcase in her closet. “I don’t
know what to do with them,” she said.
“We thought he was going to get out.” “Looks like we have mice.”