Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s newly-appointed parole board has rapidly released murderers and violent sex offenders, including a child rapist, who were either sentenced to life behind bars or had decades left on their prison sentences.
According to a Washington Examiner analysis of Virginia parole decision data, the state’s release rate under Spanberger, a Democrat, is significantly higher than that under her Republican predecessor, former Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Just six months into its term, Spanberger’s handpicked parole board has far outpaced Youngkin’s previous parole panel. In only half the calendar year, Spanberger’s 13.89% release rate is more than 10 times Youngkin’s annual parole-approval numbers, a mere 1.23% in all of 2025.
Installed by Spanberger in mid-March, the Virginia Parole Board has granted 38 prisoners parole so far, already surpassing Youngkin’s total year-end log of 32 inmates released on parole.
Derrick Max, president of the Virginia-based Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, said the Spanberger administration’s rapid release of prisoners is in line with the agenda of far-left socialists opposed to the U.S. prison system.
“This release rate shows that Gov. Spanberger has fully removed the moderate mask she wore to get elected and is now governing on policies taken directly from the Democratic-Socialist playbook, including a commitment to reducing incarceration and increasing parole,” Max told the Washington Examiner.
Max stressed that generously granting parole to violent offenders puts Virginians at risk, as well as revictimizes the parolees’ victims, who will now live in constant fear of their paroled attackers targeting them again.
Repeat offenders are freed
The parole board has also declined to revoke the conditional release of convicted killers and rapists who have violated the terms of their parole. More than 49% of the time, the parole board voted to allow parole violators to continue on parole, including two released felons convicted of first-degree homicide and eight sex offenders. Their crimes ranged from sexual assault of an incapacitated victim to hurling a missile into an occupied dwelling.
Six murderers and 11 sex offenders, including seven rapists and two child predators, are among the parolees let out of prison by Spanberger’s parole board over the past six months.
Repeat rapist Clarence Eugene Billups was granted geriatric release after only serving three years for the rape of a child under the age of 13. Parole records show that Billups, 71, was convicted in 2023 of raping the child while out on parole for two prior rape convictions.
At a Sept. 10 hearing, the parole board determined that “three years is enough time to serve on a technical violation.” All but three months of his 10-year prison sentence was suspended by the court; however, the parole violation itself still carried a prison term of more than 23 years.
None of the board members present voted against the child rapist’s release, agreeing that he has a long-term disability that limits daily activity. But in December 2024, the parole board under Youngkin told Billups: “Your prior failure(s) and/or convictions while under community supervision indicate that you are unlikely to comply with conditions of release.”
A third of the prisoners released were serving life sentences while others, like Billups, still had decades of prison time remaining.
Reginald James Holland, 63, faced five life sentences for a brutal 1990 kidnapping involving rape, forcible sodomy, and a sawed-off shotgun. The parole board, however, chose to release Holland after weighing “insight into factors that drove the criminal behavior.”
Board member Bishop Kevin White pointed in part to Holland’s “participation in faith-based or community programs,” as did Rev. Tyrone Nelson, the pastor of a historic black Baptist church in Richmond, at the board’s Aug. 27 meeting.
Vice chairwoman Kecia Brothers Hayes and chairwoman Shannon Dion both voted against, “due to lack of demonstrated remorse” and victim impact work, but were overruled by the majority.
The early release of three dozen prisoners this year appear to be driven ideologically by the parole board’s rehabilitation-minded approach to criminal justice.
Many of the common reasons given for granting parole include “vocational achievements strengthening employability,” like that of 58-year-old Troy Lynn Weeks, who was convicted of first-degree murder.
At its monthly meeting on June 25, the five-member parole board unanimously authorized the release of Weeks, allowing him to escape spending the rest of his life in prison.
Most parole decisions require at least three concurring votes, but release authorizations for first-degree murder convictions require a minimum of four votes in favor. Some of the board members applauded Weeks for taking on “positive leadership roles” while in prison. A majority of them believed he “demonstrated rehabilitation.”
Victim input was notably absent at the convicted murderer’s parole hearing, as the board’s victim services team, “after exhaustive efforts, were unable to locate any living family members of the victim.”
Some of the released felons were considered for parole because of recently revised juvenile offender procedures. Passed with complete Democratic control of the state legislature, a criminal leniency law in April expanded juvenile parole considerations, taking into account the “emotional immaturity” of teenagers and other mitigating circumstances that “diminish culpability.”
Members of Spanberger’s parole board seemed to apply a similar theory in their release decisions, ruling, for instance, that 41-year-old Ralph Taylor Jr. has “demonstrated conflict resolution [skills]” that qualify him for early release.
Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison for attempted murder, a capital offense, in the armed robbery and shooting of several victims outside an arts-and-craft store in 2002.
All five board members voted in favor of releasing Taylor, citing his age at the time of the attempted murder and improved decision-making capabilities.
During deliberations, board member Valerie Boykin, formerly director of the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, who focused agency efforts on “reducing the use of youth incarceration,” said Taylor has served “enough time.”
But one year ago, the previously seated parole board told Taylor that “release at this time would diminish seriousness of [the] crime,” particularly the “serious nature and circumstances of your offense(s).”
“The Board concludes that you should serve more of your sentence prior to release on parole,” the panel under Youngkin ruled back in March 2025.
Similar situations played out in many other parole cases before Spanberger’s board, with the panel often cutting perpetrators’ prison time in half or tossing out lengthy stretches altogether. Although the parole board has an 86.13% denial rate, more than a tenth of them, or 32 inmates, expressed “No Interest in Parole.”
Max, of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, said Spanberger has endangered everyday Virginians “to pander to a far-left political base that she clearly hopes will propel her to even higher office.”
SPANBERGER REINSTATES 66,000 FELONS’ VOTING RIGHTS
Spanberger, since taking office in January, has expanded the reentry program to Red Onion State Prison, a maximum-security facility, and restored the ability of tens of thousands of convicted felons to vote in Virginia.
“Just in time for the midterm elections, Governor Spanberger has restored voting rights to over 100,000 Virginians who were formerly incarcerated without vetting them for the seriousness of their crime,” Max said, “or even confirming that they are still alive, increasing chances of voter fraud.”
The Washington Examiner contacted the Virginia parole board and Spanberger’s office for comment.