Model inmate granted freedom after 39 years

DES MOINES — After nearly 40 years in prison for a 1974 shooting outside a Waterloo pool hall, Rasberry Williams will soon be a free man.

The Iowa Board of Parole decided Wednesday to parole Williams, 68, after Gov. Terry Branstad commuted Williams's life sentence last spring based on reports Williams was a model inmate who prevented two inmate attacks on correctional officers.

'I'm very grateful today,' Williams said, appearing on closed-circuit television from the North Central Correctional Facility in Rockwell City.

Williams's daughter, Charletta Sudduth of Waterloo, said she's been praying for her father's release for years and those pleas were granted Wednesday.

'He has a beautiful, wonderful sense of humor after all those years,' she said. 'I'm so close to tears.'

Williams was convicted of shooting Lester Givhan, 40, on July 20, 1974, after the men argued over a $30 gambling debt.

Givhan allegedly offered Williams the money, then pulled it back when Williams reached for it. Williams drew a revolver and fatally shot him, authorities said. Williams claimed self-defense, saying Givhan, who had a criminal history, appeared to be going for a gun.

Williams told the parole board he wanted to live with his sister on the south side of Chicago, but the board decided the aging man who walks with a cane should go to an assisted living center in Waterloo or Dubuque. His parole will last the rest of his life.

Williams said he accepted that decision. He knows a lot has changed since he was locked up in 1975.

'I learned that technology has changed. These small computers …' he said. 'Last time I bought a car was '74.'

Sudduth went further.

'When he came in it was Afros and stacks, now we have technology at our fingertips,' she said. But she hopes her father will catch up to the essentials. In the meantime, he'll get to see his seven grandchildren, eat soul food and take a walk unbounded by fences.

Branstad commuted Williams's prison sentence from life without parole to life with the possibility of parole. The Parole Board reduced Williams's supervision last year, moving him to the minimum-security prison in Rockwell City in September.

Commutation is rare in Iowa, with governors reducing the legal penalty for only 30 people in the last 44 years. Most of the commutations cut mandatory life sentences to fixed-length terms with a possibility of parole.

Branstad has commuted the life prison terms of just two other inmates in his 18 years in office. One of those, Rubben Jones, 64, of Des Moines, told The Gazette in April 2013 he thought Williams deserved another chance.

'Thirty to 40 years of your life, I know it can't replace a life that has been taken, but I think he's suffered enough,' Jones said.

Branstad has denied commutations for more than 30 people in 2013 and 2014 so far.

Sudduth, who was eight years old when her father went to prison, said she didn't believe he would be freed until she read about the commutation in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.

'Iowa has one of the highest incarceration rates for African-American men,' she said. Her father's release brings hope for other black men in the prison system. 'There's a light at the end of the tunnel.'

Because commutations are rare, corrections officials want to make sure offenders succeed on the outside.

Rockwell City officials told the parole board they have talked with two assisted-living centers that said they could take Williams after his release. Williams will be eligible for Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, a government stipend for low-income elderly people, and other government programs that will support him financially.

The transition out of prison will likely take several weeks.

'I don't consider him a danger at this point in his life,' said Dean Lindeman, a counselor at the Rockwell City prison. 'He has a completely different approach to life than he did 40 years ago.'

Williams told the board he's participated in victim impact classes and recently spoke, via closed-circuit TV, to a group of high school exchange students. The strongest emotion he showed during the 30-minute hearing was when board member John Hodges asked if Williams would like to be taken outside prison walls for some outings before his release.

'It would be lovely. It would be lovely,' he said. 'I would like to do that.'