Rendell wants review of Giddings' parole

Gov. Rendell yesterday said he had ordered a review of the circumstances leading to the parole of Daniel Giddings, the convicted violent criminal who gunned down Officer Patrick McDonald only weeks after being released from prison.

"We are looking at it to see if it was a bad judgment call," Rendell said.

Giddings' release outraged Mayor Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, who have demanded an inquiry of the state Board of Probation and Parole.

Giddings, 27, was released Aug. 18 from Frackville maximum-security prison after serving 10 years of a 6- to 12-year sentence for robbery and aggravated assault.

On Tuesday, Giddings killed the 30-year-old patrolman after a traffic stop, firing the fatal shots with an illegal .45-caliber semiautomatic as he stood over the prone officer. Police shot and killed Giddings as he attempted to flee.

District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham yesterday blamed retired Common Pleas Court Judge Lynn B. Hamlin, who sentenced Giddings to the minimum mandatory sentence in 2000, despite a prosecutor's plea that Giddings had amassed an appalling juvenile record and seemed likely to reoffend.

"The anger and pointing finger should go back to Judge Hamlin," Abraham said at a news conference.

Hamlin, 62, a former prosecutor who stepped down from the bench in 2002, could not be reached yesterday. A woman who answered the phone at her Haverford home said Hamlin was out of town.

More details about Giddings emerged yesterday as officials scrambled to explain how someone who was first charged with a violent crime at age 10 was able to move in and out of institutions most of his life, and was ultimately granted parole.

Catherine C. McVey, chairwoman of the state parole board, said in a statement yesterday that the board's decision was "based on all of the facts before us at that time."

She noted that the board had denied parole to Giddings twice previously "based on both the nature of the crimes that he committed and due to his poor behavior in the early years in his incarceration."

Giddings "had undergone extensive counseling and academic instruction" in prison after 2006, she added.

McVey declined to answer questions, saying she would have more to say after the review ordered by Rendell. But she extended the board's sympathies to the families of McDonald and Officer Richard Bowes, 36, who was shot and wounded before he killed Giddings.

"Our thoughts and our prayers are with the families of these heroic officers," she said.

Bowes is recovering at Temple University Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition with a leg wound. McDonald's funeral was scheduled for Tuesday.

Last night, federal authorities charged a South Carolina man with illegally buying the .45-caliber Taurus pistol that Giddings used to kill McDonald. Jason Mack, 29, was arrested without incident by agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Columbia, S.C., said John Hageman, bureau spokesman in Philadelphia.

Mack, who was accused of lying on a federal form when he bought the gun from a dealer, was being held in Columbia pending an arraignment. Federal agents said their investigation into how the pistol got from South Carolina into Giddings' hands was continuing.

Giddings' criminal history and his record as an inmate are undergoing intensive reexamination.

Susan McNaughton, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, said Giddings was bounced from Rockview to Albion - two medium-security facilities - before landing at maximum-security Frackville.

She said Giddings was found guilty of 13 misconduct charges between 2001 and 2006, including stealing from cellmates, assault, passing sharpened metal objects to another inmate, and other offenses.

As punishment, Giddings served 498 days in restricted housing - a jail within a jail sometimes called "the hole" or solitary, she said.

"A lot of this happened in the beginning," she said. Giddings served four years more than the minimum sentence largely because of his misbehavior.

In his final two years in prison, Giddings enrolled in a drug and alcohol group, participated in group counseling, and took courses in anger management, citizenship, violence prevention, victim awareness and parenting (Giddings fathered three children before he was jailed at age 17).

"You have to look at his overall situation," said McNaughton. "The fact that he was misconduct-free for the last couple of years was good, and he had completed a lot of programs."

Giddings absconded from a Philadelphia halfway house a week after his release on Aug. 18, and a bench warrant for his arrest was issued. On Aug. 27, he got into a fierce tussle with police officers who stopped him in a car that they later discovered was stolen. Giddings escaped.

Rendell noted yesterday that offenders such as Giddings eventually get released.

"This person and people like him do get released back on the street, whether it is 10 years or 12 years," Rendell said. "Obviously, if it was 12 years, Officer McDonald would be alive today. But violent criminals that are sentenced to non-life sentences will get out. And that's a reality that we have to confront."

But if Judge Hamlin had followed the prosecution's recommendation in 2000, Giddings would have been in prison until at least 2020.

Assistant District Attorney Joseph Coolican portrayed Giddings, then 19, as already beyond repair and asked for the maximum: 221/2 to 45 years.

"From what I have seen in the four years of prosecuting violent crime, I have never seen an individual who presents a higher risk of reoffending," Coolican told the court.

Hamlin, nevertheless, sentenced him to the mandatory minimum: 6 to 12 years.

Abraham yesterday said the judge gave Giddings "a low-ball sentence when she could have given him enough prison sentence that he would have been prevented from hurting anyone."

Funeral services have been set for Philadelphia Police Officer Patrick McDonald.

A Funeral Mass will be said at noon Tuesday at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, 18th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, with Cardinal Justin Rigali presiding.

Viewings will be held at 6 p.m. Monday at John F. Givnish Funeral Home, 10975 Academy Rd., Philadelphia, and at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday at the cathedral.

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