Conran Deported?

Robert Conran (Photo By Jordan Smith)

After spending six years in prison for a crime he still vociferously asserts he did not commit, 44-year-old Robert Conran is being paroled -- and, most likely, deported. On Feb. 25, Conran lost his bid for a full pardon by just two votes at the Board of Pardons and Paroles. Because of "new" immigration laws passed in 1996, his failed attempt means Conran, who was born in London, is now facing deportation back to the UK -- a country he and his family left when he was 6 years old.

In 1996, a Travis County jury found Conran guilty of committing armed robbery at the Furr's Cafeteria on South Lamar (see "Now Serving ... Time," The Austin Chronicle, June 29, 2001). Police and prosecutors failed to find a single piece of physical evidence linking Conran to the crime, including the clothes he supposedly wore and the money he supposedly took. Nonetheless, Conran was convicted based on the testimony of a single eyewitness -- the cafeteria's cashier, who said that when Conran came in to eat at the Furr's the day after the robbery, she recognized him as the perpetrator who stole nearly $1,000 from the till on the previous night. Despite inconsistencies in the cashier's testimony -- not to mention mounting empirical evidence highlighting the vagaries of eyewitness identification, which Conran's lawyers have tried to emphasize -- Conran was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Under more normal circumstances, the conclusion of Conran's prison stint might culminate in a happy homecoming. But his parole only signals a move from the Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice's Edinburg Unit prison to an Immigration and Naturalization Service detention facility outside Houston, where he will remain until he is deported.

"I thought I needed to see justice served," said Board of Pardons and Paroles member Paddy Burwell. "Justice is not being served by [Conran's] conviction for that crime, nor by his being deported for that crime."

Back in 2000, Cynthia Riley from Texas Lawyers Care, the pro bono legal services section of the State Bar, alerted Bush appointee Burwell to the circumstances surrounding Conran's conviction. Conran had forwarded a letter from the original trial judge, Travis County's venerable District Judge Thomas Blackwell, in which Blackwell said he would recommend that the parole board reduce Conran's sentence to time already served, "considering the facts of the case and in the interest of justice." Inexplicably, however, by mid-2000 the letter had not yet been included in Conran's file. Both Riley and Burwell told the Chronicle they were shocked by the letter: Neither of them had ever seen such a strongly worded recommendation from a trial judge. Last summer, Blackwell told us that in over 30 years on the bench he had never written such a letter and that, had Conran asked for a bench trial instead of a jury trial, he would have acquitted him. "During the trial, had I been the one [deciding the case], I would've found him not guilty," Blackwell said.

Armed with letters from Blackwell and a former employer (who was never called to testify at his trial), as well as evidence that Conran was working the day the robbery took place, and the dogged support of board member Burwell, Conran and his attorney felt confident that the board would accept his pardon request. Unfortunately, Conran's bid failed. He got eight votes, including Burwell's, in favor of the pardon, and 10 votes against. A pardon approval requires a majority of votes -- at least 10 of the 18 board members.

In a letter to the Chronicle, Conran said he believes part of the reason his bid was unsuccessful was that Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle refused to place into his file a letter supporting his bid for clemency. Conran's attorney had told him that Earle's rationale was that he had to "back his people." (Earle's office did not return phone calls from the Chronicle requesting comment.)

So Conran sits, waiting to hear when he will be deported. And despite the injustice he feels he has faced, he seems decidedly complacent. A musician by trade, Conran has been the frontman for a variety of Latin-inspired rock bands that have played at Austin's Continental Club, and at several Houston-area venues. If he has to, he says, he will continue his musical career in London.

"Last time I talked to him, he told me that, of all the things that have happened in his life, he has been hurt most by the people who are [supposed to be] the good guys," Burwell said of a recent conversation with Conran. "I really believe he is getting the short end of the stick."