Parole Board Questions Dying Prisoner On 30-Year-Old Murder, Not His Health
For James Ware, an extremely ill Department of Correction prisoner, a final chance at release after medical parole denial
By Eliza Dewey
When the Massachusetts Department of Correction denied James Ware’s petition for medical parole in May, the commissioner who oversaw the proceeding acknowledged that the 52-year-old prisoner would likely die in the near future.
“Life expectancy is probably less than 18 months,” reads the denial paperwork, quoting from a physician’s prognosis of Ware.
Nevertheless, DOC Commissioner Shawn Jenkins determined that Ware was “independent with all activities of daily living,” and remained a public safety risk.
“By this standard, you are neither terminally ill nor permanently incapacitated at this time,” Jenkins wrote.
Not quite out of options despite the grave disappointment, Ware did have another avenue to seek legal relief as he faced certain death. His attorney had additionally previously filed for an expedited hearing before the Massachusetts Parole Board.
A new ruling and illness bring a decades-old murder case to the parole board
Ware was sentenced in 1998 to life without parole for first-degree murder, but a 2024 state court ruling said that such a punishment was unconstitutional for adults aged 18 to 20. Ware, who was 20 years old at the time of the crime, could now seek parole. His cancer diagnosis meant he could get that hearing sooner on an expedited schedule.
Earlier this month, Ware was wheeled before the parole board at its headquarters in an office park in Natick. Because it wasn’t a designated medical parole hearing, most of the questions focused not on his health but on other factors: the violence he witnessed and suffered during his childhood and teen years, expressions of remorse, risk of harm to the community, and his plans for stability if released.
The hearing was punctuated by moments of emotional testimony. Ware was incarcerated for a murder stemming from a violent night he and his brother carried out in the South End in 1993. The pair assaulted one man, and then attacked another: Allan Lawrence Hill, a student at the New England Conservatory of Music who was out that night taking some empty bottles to deposit for much-needed cash.
Ware’s brother, by all accounts, was the one who stabbed Hill during the assault. Hill, who was 23 years old, died 13 days later in the hospital from sepsis.
Both defendants were convicted of first-degree murder. As detailed in later court filings, Ware and his brother had been offered a plea deal: second degree murder in exchange for a sentence of 15 years to life. Ware’s attorney at the time, who is now deceased, talked him out of it, saying he could beat the case.
Anguish of the victim’s relatives
Three decades later, sitting before the parole board with his arms in handcuffs, Ware listened as Hill’s loved ones spoke about the pain they still feel.
“He was my whole world,” said Hill’s sister, Julie Hill, her voice breaking as she testified via Zoom. “What do you do when the one person who truly sees you is gone?”
Hill recounted how she had answered since 1993 whenever someone asked if she had siblings: “I do have a brother, the best brother in the world, but he’s not on earth right now. He was murdered.”
Hill’s cousin, Elizabeth Gay, also testifying remotely, recalled watching Hill die in a hospital bed. “I fainted from the grief,” she said.
Members of the parole board took turns questioning Ware, asking him about remorse and any attempts he’d made at change. Board Member Rafael Ortiz asked Ware how he thought Hill’s family felt about the fact that they were even gathered there that day. “Torn apart,” Ware answered.
Ware told the board he still remembered the impact statements Hill’s family made at the trial, how Hill’s sister said her parents were never the same after the murder. “I even felt between the lines when she was reading, what she didn’t write,” he said.
Acting Chair Tonomey Coleman questioned Ware about some details of that violent night in 1993. In his description of things, Ware had said Hill was carrying “a box” with bottles in it that he aimed to take from him. Coleman went back to that description, honing in on the question of whether Hill had actually been carrying the bottles in a bag.
“How do you mistake a bag for a case?” Coleman asked. After some back-and-forth on this point, Coleman explained the reason for the question: “I’m trying to see if you’re misremembering or changing the facts to fit your narrative.” The Suffolk County prosecutor Montez Haywood later clarified for Coleman it was two plastic bags and an empty carton of beer.
Board Member James Kelcourse questioned Ware about a 2007 infraction on his record, when he was written up for assault on prison staff after a disagreement about a hot pot in his cell. In response, Ware took issue with the DOC version of those events.
“My question is, [If] you go back out, how will you handle these situations?” Kelcourse pressed.
“I’m dying now, they’re trying to kill me now, so I come back [to prison], I’m dead,” Ware answered in his defense.
Dying in the DOC’s troubled health care system
Upon further questioning, Ware explained that “they” referred to the prison health care system.
A BINJ investigation into privatized prison health care in Massachusetts published in July described the years of delayed care Ware experienced while incarcerated. That story focused on the companies that are contracted to oversee prisoner health care, but Ware’s case also implicated Shattuck Hospital, where the DOC has long sent incarcerated people.
Ware had been sent to appointments at the Shattuck from the Massachusetts Correctional Institution (MCI) in Shirley to monitor a nodule on his lung for three years before he finally received a conclusive diagnosis from doctors at Boston Medical Center. By that time, he had inoperable lung cancer.
At the September parole hearing, Kelcourse asked Ware why he wouldn’t go back to the Shattuck. Had he thought about giving them just one more shot?
Yes, Ware answered. “But I also thought about three years of going to the Shattuck [without results].”
Later, Oritz picked up the same line of questioning. Even taking into account poor previous care at the Shattuck, there could only be benefit in trying them one more time, he argued.
“Unless [the current DOC health care contractor] VitalCore is trying to get me to the Shattuck so I don’t get care,” Ware countered.
“Why would an institution do that?” Ortiz asked.
“It happens all the time,” Ware answered.
Ware’s attorney, Amy Belger, also testified before the board, stressing that Ware’s refusal to return to the Shattuck was “not unreasonable.” Acting Chair Coleman asked her if she had pursued the fight to get Ware seen at Boston Medical Center.
“Yes,” she answered. “Practically daily.” Belger obtained a letter from Ware’s doctor in August confirming that he “requires continued care at BMC.”
Ware’s denial of medical parole this spring came with a promise of re-evaluation in 90 days—a date that had already come and gone by the day of the hearing. (In response to a request for comment, the DOC said it is monitoring Ware’s condition but can’t comment further due to privacy laws.) Ware told the parole board at the hearing he had not received that re-evaluation after the 90 days passed and didn’t follow-up on the matter because he didn’t trust the commissioner.
As things played out, the board hearing that day was not a medical parole hearing. The proceedings ended with a pivot back to Ware’s final words to the body about the murder of Allan Hill.
“I’ve come to grips with my involvement in this crime,” Ware said. “I understand what I owe [Hill’s family.]”
After the hearing, several of his friends who testified on his behalf were glassy-eyed. One man, Frank Robinson, shared how Ware had helped him cope with the death of his son when they were both incarcerated at MCI-Shirley.
“I did not know he was terminally ill until today,” Robinson had told the board.
The board will issue its decision in the coming months.
This article is syndicated by the MassWire news service of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. If you want to see more reporting like this, make a contribution at givetobinj.org.