Bar photos, says woman who killed her girl

A woman who stabbed her 3-year-old daughter to death in 1987 wants a judge to order that future parole boards be shielded from gruesome autopsy and crime scene photos added to her file by the deputy who investigated the case.

A lawyer for Debra Jenner, 58, argues that the issue raises constitutional questions about the right of an inmate to a fair and impartial hearing before a board that almost always includes prosecutors and members of law enforcement.

Jenner was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of her daughter Abby, a crime that shocked the town of Huron and stands out as one of South Dakota's most high-profile cases in recent decades.

Jenner's sentence was commuted in 2003 by Gov. Bill Janklow from life to 100 years in exchange for an admission of guilt to a crime she maintained for years that she didn't commit.

Since then, Jenner has been denied parole 15 times, most recently this month. She is eligible for a hearing every eight months.

Until last spring, the parole board members deciding her fate have had access to grisly crime scene and autopsy photos added by Jim Sheridan, a former Beadle County sheriff's deputy who was on the parole board at the time of the commutation.

He recused himself from hearing Jenner's pleas for release but said the photos would be important for the board and future boards to consider.

The girl, who had been ill and almost sleepless for days, was stabbed 72 times with a toy metal airplane and a kitchen knife.

"I always thought it was necessary for people to know what happened to that little girl," Sheridan said Monday. "No one had ever objected to the photos being in there. They were introduced at trial."

Appealing to U.S. District Court

Jenner's lawyer, another former parole board member named Mark Marshall, began objecting last year. He asked the Board of Pardons and Parole to remove them. The board denied the request, and a request that any members who had seen the photos recuse themselves. He sought an order from the state Supreme Court but was denied.

Jenner's lawyer now has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court that seeks an order barring the viewing of those photos.

In an affidavit filed with the lawsuit, Jenner's lawyer said yearslong availability of the photos have impaired her right to an impartial hearing on her eligibility for parole.

Jenner, along with her mother and father, have repeatedly argued that the public would be safe if she were released. She may have been suffering from postpartem depression, she has said, and hadn't been sleeping as her child struggled to do the same.

She's been a model inmate, teaching piano lessons to other inmates and helping them study for high school-equivalency tests. More important than the photos, her lawsuit contends, is the notion that an inmate deserves a fair and impartial panel when they're reviewed for possible release.

On a board whose appointees often are prosecutors and former law enforcement officials, their recusal should be complete. The governor, attorney general and South Dakota Supreme Court select three members each.

No policy on conflicts of interest

"The dispute over the unauthorized crime scene and autopsy photographs is symptomatic of larger issue of constitutional dimension: The South Dakota Board of Pardons and Paroles has no effective conflicts of interest policy to vindicate the constitutional right to a fair and impartial hearing," Marshall wrote in the lawsuit.

Marshall's lawsuit seeks an order barring the photos from further admission, but it also seeks an order that would force the parole board to adopt "an effective conflict of interest policy."

The photos have been removed already from Jenner's file, but that doesn't mean future board members won't see them.

Parole Board Director Ed Lightenberg wrote in an affidavit in March that the initial photos were removed, but that he had enlisted the attorney general's office to place six to 12 similar photos in the file.

Attorney General Marty Jackley said he is limited in what he can say about the lawsuit, but said the photos were part of the court record in the case and ought to be available to future board members.

Jackley is the third South Dakota attorney general who has argued against Jenner's release, and he said someone from his office will appear at each parole hearing.

"It's our position that the photos are evidence of the nature and circumstances of this horrific murder and that the parole board ought to be entitled to see them in order to make an informed decision," he said.

Jenner's next parole hearing is set for May.