Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 28, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, August 5, 2011 Page: 9 of 52

                                
texasnews
Buice to remain in prison after
parole board reverses decision
Man convicted of 1991 gay-bashing
murder of Paul Broussard won't be
up for parole again until next year
TAMMYENASH I Senior Editor
nash@dallasvoice.com
The Texas Pardons and Parole Board this week
reversed its earlier decision to release convicted
gay basher Jon Buice from prison.
Buice, convicted of the 1991 murder of Paul
Broussard in Houston's Montrose neighborhood,
was originally sentenced in May 1992 to 45 years
in prison, and has served 19 years of that sentence.
He was one of 10 young men from The Wood-
lands, a northern suburb of Houston, convicted in
the killing and is the only one of the 10 still in prison.
The parole board on July 1 this year had ap-
proved Buice: for release on Oct. 1. Andy Kahan,
victims' advocate for the city of Houston, said
Tuesday that the board reversed its decision based
on "new information that had not been intro-
duced in his [Buice's] previous four or five parole
hearings. Also the Harris County district attorney
weighed in on the case, and that had not been pre-
viously done.®
Kahan said he was "not at liberty to divulge"
the nature of that new information. But he did say
that the information "had nothing at all to do"
with allegations that Buice had engaged in an il-
licit affair with a female prison chaplain while in
prison in Huntsville in 2010.
While Texas Department of Corrections offi-
cials would not confirm that Buice: and the chap-
lain had engaged in a sexual relationship, the
chaplain was disciplined and later fired. Buice
also received disciplinary action and was moved
to a different prison.
Rissie Owens, presiding officer of the parole
board, confirmed in a press release that the rever-
sal was based on new information.
Buice will remain in prison for at least one more
year before his request for parole can be reconsid-
ered.
Broussard's mother, Nancy Rodriguez, speak-
ing by phone Tuesday from her home in Georgia,
said she was notified of the decision that morning
when Houston's victims' services office-called her.
She has traveled to Texas each time any of the
men convicted in connection with her son's mur-
der has gone to trial or had a parole hearing, and
she said she will be back next year when Buice's
parole request is reconsidered.
"'I will start getting ready for the next one [pa-
role hearing] as soon as I get the letter saying he's
up for parole again, maybe in March or April of
next year," Rodriguez said. "I just don't feel he has
changed. He's never shown any remorse.... My
son did not deserve to die that way;: nobody de-
serves that. I am concerned he [Buice] will go out
and do something else to someone else,"
According to testimony during the trials, Buice
and the nine other young men — all but one of
whom were teenagers — had been drinking and
doing drugs when they went to Montrose, the
city's gay neighborhood, on the night of July 3,
1991. When they saw Broussard and two other
men walking home from one of the area's gay
nightclubs, the youths began to shout insults at
them.
The 10 youths then got out of their vehicles and
attacked the three gay men. The other two men
managed to escape and run away, but Broussard
was cornered by the gang. He was punched,
kicked with steel-toed boots, hit with a nail-stud-
ded board and stabbed three times.
The Harris County Medical Examiner deter-
mined that it was the stab wounds—which Buice
admitted in court that he had inflicted — that
killed Broussard.
Ray Hill of Houston, an advocate on gay rights
and prisoners rights, was one of the activists who
organized rallies and protest in the days following
Broussard's murder, intending to focus public at-
tention on the anti-gay hate aspects of the killing
and prompt authorities to investigate thoroughly.
In the years since, however, Hill has become
friends with Buice and is one of his most vocal
supporters in his efforts to get parole. Hill said this
week he & "very disappointed" in the parole
board's decision.
He described Buice as a "model prisoner" who
has earned two bachelor's degrees and hours to-
ward a master's degree while behind bars, and he
said he believes it was "political interference" that
prompted the parole board to reverse its decision.
State Sen. John Whitmire and state Rep. Garnet
Coleman, Houston Democrats, both spoke out
against Buice's parole, sending letters to and call-
ing the parole board. Hill said this week that the
legislators' actions were unethical and that he in-
tends to file a complaint against them both.
But Kahan, who has worked with Rodriguez
on the case for the last 19 years, said that Hill is
wrong. "Frankly, he's made Nancy's [Ro-
driguez's] life a living hell," Kahan said of Hill.
"Nancy has always maintained that Jon Buice
should serve a minimum of 27 years behind bars,
because that's how long Paul [Broussard] lived/'
Kahan said. "If he [Buice] had not taken out his
knife and stabbed Paul, Paul would have been in-
jured but he would still be alive. That's what it all
boils down to. He took Paul Broussard's life, and
the only recourse we have to punish him for that
is to keep him in prison." ■
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