Court asked to free 2 women who had killed husbands

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Shortly before leaving office, former Gov. Bob Holden commuted the life prison sentences of two women convicted in the murders of their abusive husbands.

Now more than two years later, those women remain in prison. And their attorneys want the state Supreme Court to set them free.

At the crux of their arguments Thursday before Missouri's highest court was a battle over what Holden intended to happen vs. what actually happened.

Although he could have done so, Holden did not shorten the sentences of Shirley Lute and Lynda Branch to their time already served behind bars -- a move that would have immediately released them.

Instead, Holden's December 2004 commutations gave Lute and Branch the chance to request release from the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole.

Lynda Branch, 54, is shown in a Missouri Department of Corrections photo. Branch was sentenced to life in prison for the 1986 fatal shooting of her husband, Raymond. Two years ago her sentence was commuted by then-Gov. Bob Holden, but Branch is still being held at the Chillicothe Correctional Center in Chillicothe, Mo. In June 2005, a parole board voted to deny her parole. Attorneys for Branch and other inmate in a similar situation, Shirley Lute, 76, asked the Missouri Supreme Court to order their release Thursday, March 8, 2007, in Jefferson City, Mo.(AP Photo/Missouri Dept. of Corrections)

But the board in June 2005 -- after a change in its leadership that occurred under new Gov. Matt Blunt -- voted to deny parole to both women. The board said releasing them "would depreciate the seriousness" of their offenses.

Lute, 76, has been imprisoned since 1981 after being convicted of aiding her son in the Monroe County murder of her husband, Melvin Lute, whom she claims physically tortured and mentally tormented her.

Branch, 54, was convicted of fatally shooting her husband, Raymond, in 1986 at their Cole County home. Branch contends she got control of the gun only after her husband first threatened to shoot her and her daughter.

Both women's cases were handled by the Missouri Battered Women's Clemency Coalition, a group that includes professors and students at the state's four law schools.

Law professors argued in court Thursday that the parole board's cited reasons for refusing to release the women were invalid. Both women had served more than enough time to satisfy the "deterrent and retributive portion" of their sentences under the parole board's regulations, said Washington University law professor Jane Aiken and University of Missouri-Columbia law professor Mary Beck.

Additionally, the law professors cited affidavits signed by Holden in May 2006 stating he had already considered the circumstances of their crimes and did not intend for the parole board to also do that as part of its decision.

Holden's affidavits said he meant for the parole board to consider only whether Lute had an acceptable exit plan from prison and only whether Branch had a good prison conduct record and was ready to re-enter society. Attorneys for the woman noted that the parole board expressed no problems on any of those factors.

"It seems to me this woman is still incarcerated because of an inartfully drafted commutation order," Judge Ronnie White said while attorneys were arguing Lute's case.

But Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane, defending the parole board, said there was nothing ambiguous about Holden's commutations. The language allowed the board to consider parole, which is exactly what it did, Spillane said.

Judge Stephen Limbaugh Jr. questioned why the court should abide by Holden's intentions outlined in the affidavits.

"How are his reasons relevant? The only things that are relevant are the words of the commutation order," Limbaugh said. "What controls is what he said, not what he was thinking."