Billie Stiltner thought he was going to spend Christmas at home this year.

In August, the state Board of Parole Commissioners told the 65-year-old inmate he would be paroled Dec. 12 after serving one year in Southern Desert Correctional Center in Indian Springs for gun possession and reckless driving convictions.

On his December parole date, Stiltner said prison officials told him his "papers had been lost" and that he would be released Friday.

Friday passed and Stiltner remained in prison. Reasons for his continued stay varied and part of the confusion was over whether the inmate's parole in August meant he had served enough time for both convictions.

Stiltner said he was told Thursday night by his caseworker that there was a mix-up with his case in Carson City and that he should not expect to be released until a new parole hearing could be scheduled sometime next week.

"I'm not really sure when and if I'm getting out," he said during a telephone interview from prison Friday evening.

Stiltner's ex-wife said an officer from the Division of Parole and Probation visited her house earlier this week to approve the place where Stiltner would be living. She said the officer told her Stiltner was set to be released Friday.

But calls to high-ranking Carson City officials at the Prisons Department and the Parole Board Friday afternoon yielded different answers on Stiltner's parole status.

"He's never been before the board," said Glen Whorton, assistant director of the Department of Prisons. "He's never had a parole hearing. ...His projected discharge date is May 2003."

That was contradicted by Susan McCurdy, executive secretary for the Parole Board. She said Stiltner was granted parole by the board in August.

"But somewhere along the line, sometime this week, someone caught that there was a second sentence in limbo," McCurdy said.

Another employee in McCurdy's office said that records show Stiltner has not gone before the Parole Board and that he wasn't scheduled to until January 2002.

In December 1999, Stiltner was sentenced to two prison terms to be served concurrently, according to Clark County District Court records.

District Judge Jeff Sobel sentenced him to 12 to 30 months for attempted possession of a firearm. Stiltner was given another sentence of 12 to 72 months for driving recklessly causing death or substantial bodily harm.

When he appeared before the Parole Board Aug. 28, parole commissioners granted Stiltner parole on one sentence because that's all they thought he was serving, McCurdy said.

"I have no idea how this happened. It might have been a computer glitch," McCurdy said.

Critics of Nevada's prison and parole system think cases in which inmates are kept in state prisons weeks or months beyond their parole dates are becoming more common for a number of reasons.

Mainly, critics point to poor communication between the three state entities that coordinate each prisoner's parole: the Division of Parole and Probation, the Department of Prisons and the Board of Parole Commissioners.

"It is obvious that there is a real problem in the management and administration of the parole system," said Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which advocates alternatives to prison for non-violent criminals. "All of us who pay the salaries of the people who run that system -- and those who are eligible for parole -- have a right to expect more. They need to get their act together."

Inmates and their families argue postponing prisoners' releases puts the lives of those who have paid their debt to society on hold. The practice also costs taxpayers.

While Gov. Kenny Guinn has mandated state agencies to act fiscally conservative, the Department of Prisons is forced to spend the same $43 per day housing and feeding each of the delayed-release parolees as it pays for its 9,700 other inmates.

If Stiltner is released Tuesday as one Parole Board official projected, his overstay will have cost Nevada taxpayers about $900.

On Dec. 12, the day Stiltner was set to be paroled, 27-year-old robbery and larceny convict Martice Ransey was released from Southern Desert 41 days past his parole date. That overstay stint cost taxpayers about $1,800.

Mercedes Maharis, co-founder of the prisoners' rights group Spartacus Project, said she has tracked dozens of cases similar to Stiltner's and Ransey's.

"This is just one case among many," Maharis said. "I talk to guys almost every day who are having the same problem. This system needs an overhaul."

Further complicating the delay problem is a staffing crisis in the Division of Parole and Probation, where there are 40 to 50 parole officer vacancies at any given time.

Richard Kirkland, director of the state Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety, which houses Parole and Probation, told lawmakers two weeks ago the division has lost 534 workers over the past four years and that officers are supervising nearly twice as many people as suggested by the Legislature.

Kirkland said the shortage is a result of the job having a lower salary range and fewer benefits than similar law enforcement positions with Metropolitan Police Department and Clark County Department of Family and Youth Services.

http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2000/Dec-30-Sat-2000/news/15135864.html

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), December 30, 2000