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Approved in 1990, his parole was rescinded after the Texas Rangers mounted a campaign against his release. The board is supposed to consider the input of victims and others, but that usually occurs before the decision, not after the fact. That the law enforcement agency continues to oppose his parole every time he comes up isn't the issue either, says Habern. The problem is that no one but the parole board knows what the Rangers are saying. In 1999 Ott won the support of two board members, including Cynthia Tauss. But when protests came in, Tauss changed her vote. She told Texas Monthly reporter Gary Cartwright that "additional information was received," though she's proscribed by statute from revealing the details.

But Texas Rangers spoke with the Denton paper, which published articles about Ott's case. Unfortunately, some of the worst accusations conflicted with the trial record or were flat-out dead wrong. "What they said in the press wasn't true," recalls Habern. "Of course, it was too late then. If that was what Cynthia voted on, it was incorrect. But how was I to know?"

When Ott came up for review again this year, the panel based in Angleton split three ways, meaning the case got passed to the Gatesville office for a second vote. Again, law enforcement made a presentation to the panel; again, "additional information" was apparently received. And again, Ott got the thumbs-down, receiving the maximum three-year set-off. "I have no earthly idea what the information was," says Habern. "It's parole by secrecy."

When the information does see the light of day, it tends to confirm the fears of Habern and others who offered anecdotes to the Press. After a client of Austin lawyer Page Massey's was denied parole in the early 1990s, Massey guessed that a district attorney in north Texas had written a letter of protest that had affected the outcome. He went to the D.A.'s office and, in a stroke of luck, obtained a copy of the letter. He then compared the statements to the trial record and discovered 16 errors; all were slanted against the inmate. The D.A. would not withdraw the protest, but Massey laid out the facts before the parole panel, which granted release. But as Habern points out, "The D.A.'s normally don't give you that shit."

The arguments for maintaining closed files center around victims' rights and privacy issues. Victims, for example, might be reluctant to write letters arguing against parole if inmates or their supporters have access to them. But other states with more open systems address that problem by simply crafting their laws to require that sensitive documents be withheld or personal information redacted, as is done in Texas with other types of public records. Tauss sees both sides but is open to a change in the law. "If the legislature came and said, 'Open up the files,' I wouldn't have a problem with that," she says.

State Senator John Whitmire, who sits on the Senate Criminal Justice Committee and has been active in past reform efforts, agrees that the status quo is flawed. "We probably need to do more in seeing if the process should be more open," Whitmire says. "Somebody's got to give these folks information when somebody gets set off."

George Dismukes is haunted by his own invisible specter. A source close to the parole board told the Press that Tauss and Linda Garcia, the two who voted against him, were adamant because of something in the file. Tauss would neither confirm nor deny it, but she did say that she considered the totality of the circumstances before making her decision. "George has probably received more time and more review than any other inmate," she said.

In late April Dismukes was called down to see the unit captain and asked to bring his typewriter. Type a few lines and sign it, he was told. After he produced the sample as ordered, he asked why. According to Dismukes, the captain told him that "The parole board has received a letter." The letter contained a threat, he said, something to the effect of "You sons of bitches need to parole me, or I'm going to blow up your house and shoot your dog," Dismukes says.

A TDCJ official confirmed that the captain had been asked to collect a sample, but not for the reason conveyed to Dismukes. "There was a letter," says the source, who wouldn't divulge the details. "It did not involve a threat. The board was curious as to whether it came from George." Asked why no one ever asked Dismukes himself, the official came up empty: "It's an interesting question, and I don't have an answer to it."

Dismukes has written some letters, critical letters that likely haven't won him friends among those whose support he needs. After his conviction, he allegedly wrote Judge James Keeshan an angry note that predicted his downfall from the bench, a missive that Dismukes denies writing. He wrote Tauss a pair of letters; though neither was especially inflammatory, the first suggested she may have had it in for him.

His file likely contains communications from other sources as well. Last July an old neighbor wrote Dismukes to tell him of an odd encounter he'd had while browsing at a yard sale in the Montgomery County neighborhood where the murder victim had lived. A woman Dismukes had never met let it be known that she'd written the board in opposition to his release. She and her friends, the letter stated, had made all sorts of wild allegations: He was making millions from publishing his story, was suing the state, had even been seen walking the streets. "They have perceptions that you are bigger than life," the neighbor wrote. "They are the problem in your parole."

Dismukes would prefer to defend himself, but no board members talked to him before his latest review. (His current attorney, Gary Polland, says that Tauss expressed an intent to visit Dismukes; she denies it.) And though he's not especially worried about a letter claiming he'd been spotted roaming around Montgomery County, Dismukes fears the implication that the various letters and rumors bear. "It raises the question of what else could be in that file," he says glumly. "It could be anything, and I'd never know."

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