Law enforcement runs in Louis Quinonez’s veins. And through his years with the Board of Executive Clemency, he has found that fairness flows, too. As he departs after nine years on the board, Quinonez reflects on his time and decision-making across each axis of the criminal system and on his passion for looking at the whole picture. 

What prompted you to seek a spot on the board in the first place? 

I feel like I got lucky. I retired as a federal agent in 2014. I hit that point after about two years, when I recognized that I’m pretty young and I needed to continue with full-time work. I reached out to an old friend of mine who was, at that time, the deputy director of the Department of Public Safety, and I told him I was ready to go back to work. And he said, “Have you thought about the parole board?” And it took about 10 minutes for me to realize I was completely on board with the idea. 

It felt like such a good fit for my personality. My undergraduate degree was not in criminal justice, it was in public health. There was another part of me that probably would have thrived in social work, but I came from a law enforcement family. I was really fascinated by that world, so I pursued a career in federal law enforcement. Still, I felt that this job was really merging both parts of me in terms of community outreach and a public safety/public service attitude.

What have you learned along the way? 

More than anything, it’s helped me look at the whole of the criminal justice system in the United States. It’s easy to have a sort of slanted worldview when you’re solely involved in law enforcement or on the prosecution side of cases. 

When I was a young agent, there was an extreme adversary position between the prosecution and the defense. And now I tend to look at the cases in terms of fairness in the system. And I did not think a lot about rehabilitation and recovery when I was 24 years old. But this job has allowed me to see the whole system, to serve on the tail end of justice, if you will, and to really see the potential for comebacks in people, even when they’ve committed real serious crimes — not just the sort of mistake that someone makes when they’re young, and perhaps receives a fine or period of probation, but people who have committed capital crimes. So it’s very inspiring to see people who have been dark, down to some very dark places, receive an opportunity to come back to the community and really commit themselves to reintegration, to being productive and healthy. We’ve seen people come back to entire careers, become homeowners, start new families. It’s a very inspiring thing to see. 

How would you describe your process in working through each case that comes before you?

My process is to merge the best of evidence-based decision-making with institutional knowledge. My wife, who is a medical professional, often says how important clinical judgment is — which means you get the best education, you go through a residency, you see thousands of patients, and sometimes you have to defer to clinical judgment. That’s when intuition matters. But intuition isn’t magic. It’s those thousands of experiences. Sometimes information is forming in our minds faster than we can articulate it. So I’ve learned to pay attention to instinct and intuition, but at the same time, I recognize it comes from some place that is much more science-based and educated. Sometimes it’s emotional in there. So I think it’s important to look at all the evidence-based factors and recognize that there are some time-honored issues that we really need to pay attention to. 

How do you collaborate with your fellow board members and work through various approaches to these decisions? 

We have an open meeting law, so everything that happens is in the open. We don’t come back to the office and decide how we’ll vote on the next case. But what I learned very early on was how much I respect it when somebody walks alone, meaning there may be a case where there’s all sorts of collective consciousness about whether it’s time to release someone or keep them in, and someone has really strong feelings about it. I think that discourse is healthy. I think it’s really important that we have a dialogue. And it’s a lesson in the dialogue that we need to have, in general, in the community, because it’s healthy. It’s not a question of getting into some sort of emotional argument over a disagreement, as much as it’s an opportunity to learn from somebody, even if you’re not quite shifting your opinion. 

Have you noticed any misconceptions about the board and the decisions it makes? 

It seems that the misconceptions swing both ways, because I have felt the sentiment that the board is here to let everybody out, and I’ve heard the sentiment that the board is here to keep everyone in, where, in reality, we’re here to look at the whole of the case and make safe release decisions. I don’t know what the exact stats are, but for every 10 parole cases, there’s a good chance that we’re going to deny seven of them because of public safety issues, behavioral issues. So, personally, I’m not spring-loaded to go one way or the other. 

This is one of those jobs that I find very, very hard to explain to friends and the community, because we hear stories filled with heartache and trauma, but we also hear cases that are very inspiring and uplifting. It’s everything all at once. 

Have you ever made decisions that you later regretted? Or thought about in a new way? 

There were very few, and the ones I did have feelings about were because I thought we might need a little more time for the victims to consider the decision that could be made. 

The board also handles capital clemency. How does a capital hearing differ from the day-to-day revocation or probation hearing? 

They’re very weighty decisions. There are a lot of parties very invested in capital cases, and some really strong feelings out there. So for me, it was important to just default to the idea that this is the law of the land. Arizona recognizes the death penalty. And, like all the other cases, just look at the whole case. Be satisfied that we’ve arrived at a place where, by the time we get to that case, it’s been through the entirety of the system. It’s one last look in fairness. 

It’s a heavy job in a lot of respects. How have you carried that weight? 

I’m not trying to just be colorful, but I’ve said this sincerely and with a little bit of levity for the last seven years or so. I would say, to be a good board member, you have to have a bleeding heart of stone. Meaning you need a little bit of both. Meaning you have to be law-and-order-minded and public safety-minded. But at the same time, recognize some of these tragic backstories and that people do mature and change. 

As you depart, what advice would you give the new members of the board? 

Respect your fellow board members, always look at the whole case, and remember that you really don’t know what’s going to happen or how you’re going to vote until you hear everything that day. Because honestly, I’ve read cases where I’ve said to myself at home, there’s no way I’m going to support this case, and then I hear the whole thing. And there’s just more to this story.

What are you most proud of in looking at your work, at the board?

I’m most proud of recognizing that at least there are a lot of human beings with the capacity for redemption. And it’s very moving when you see authentic redemption. Certainly, we’ve returned a few people who made some mistakes, but thank God there were mistakes like relapsing in drug use or absconding for a week or two, which is not OK, but I’m very grateful that we didn’t release anyone who committed major crimes against people.

Any other reflections to add? 

My father was a Phoenix police officer who was influential in professionalizing the department from the late ’50s to the ’80s… So I’m really in touch with criminal justice history in Arizona. I heard a lot of cases that I was familiar with just from growing up here, from living in Arizona. So it was interesting to revisit these cases, many of which dated back to the early days of my father’s career in the 1960s, and continued through to recent times. 

I can say that for being from a law-and-order family, that sense of compassion was always in play. And I think that my father, who passed away in 2023, was a very decent and by nature, compassionate person. He believed it was really important to treat people fairly. 

When I was probably still in college, I was picking up dry cleaning with him, and an individual approached him at the dry cleaners. I asked, “Who was that?” He said, “Someone I arrested a long time ago.” And he said the man wanted to thank him because he had treated him fairly, and he never forgot that. 

That lesson stayed with me for my whole career, and it absolutely stayed with me for nine years on this board. Even though my father passed away two years ago, he was very proud to see me serve on the board, and he was always behind my decisions. He wasn’t like, he couldn’t believe I was letting people out. He understood the big picture, and he believed in this capacity of redemption, because he’d seen it many times himself.