Profiles in Character #17: Marie Ragghianti Fights Government Corruption

On August 3, 1977, just fourteen months into her job as chair of the Tennessee Board of Pardons and Paroles, Marie Ragghianti was fired by her boss, Governor Ray Blanton.  An unlikely choice for her position since she had no background in corrections, one might assume her dismissal was due to incompetence.  Instead, she was just too competent for his comfort.

Ragghianti had risen quickly in state government. After her first position as an extradition officer in 1974, she was then assigned by her boss, Eddie Sisk, the governor’s general counsel, to type and expedite clemency petitions for felons.  Sisk then moved to have her join the state’s Parole Board and on June 30, 1976 Blanton appointer her its chair.  What she could not confirm at the time but had already begun to suspect is that Sisk, his assistant Charlie Benson, and Bill Thompson, a friend of Governor Blanton, were involved in selling pardons.   Her suspicions grew when Sisk and Benson began to pressure her to expedite a clemency petition she knew was undeserved.  Such petitions were only supposed to be granted when half of a felon’s sentence had been served and no danger to the public was likely.

Ragghianti turned down the petition and some other suspicious ones that followed.  She also found out that information on some clemencies had been taken from her personal office files.  As her concern deepened, she met with Blanton to discuss her fears that a “bribery for clemency scandal” was underway, but he would not get involved.  Remarking to an interviewer years later, she commented on her decision at the time to try to reform the pardon and parole process that: “I would rather try and fail than fail to try.”

So she contacted the FBI.  She testified in secret before a grand jury in November 1976, but no indictments emerged.  Instead, Sisk and Blanton demanded she be more loyal or step down.  Instead of doing either, she worked with a state legislator on a bill to revise and insolate the parole board process from the governor’s office.  The bill failed but she continued to testify in the legislature and that now-public testimony further incurred the wrath of Sisk and Blanton.  

Sensing her vulnerability, Ragghianti had hired Fred Thompson (a former Watergate prosecutor and later U.S. senator) to be her lawyer.  When she was fired, she decided, with his help, to contest her removal.  On June 28, 1978, the trial for her civil suit against Governor Blanton for wrongful termination began and, on July 10, the jury ruled in her favor.  She was reinstated and the judgment ordered compensation for her lost pay.

The jury’s decision, of course, passed no judgment on the bribery scandal itself.  That came soon after.  On December 15, Sisk, Thompson and Benson were arrested and indicted for bribery and extortion.  Blanton was not charged, despite the fact that in his last few weeks in office he signed 52 pardons, including 24 for convicted murderers.  He would not, however, escape some measure of justice, being later indicted and convicted for conspiring to take kickbacks for state liquor store licenses.  Legislation to reform the parole board, much along the lines Ragghianti had suggested, was eventually passed as well.

Anyone looking at Marie Ragghianti’s early life might have missed the traits of character that enabled her to tackle this challenge with courage and steadfastness.  As a child she was described by author April Hejka-Elkins as “bright, beautiful, willful and self-centered.”  But her parents had raised her to have high moral principles and a belief that optimism in the fight for social justice would be rewarded. As she said of her father in later years, “He found satisfaction in doing the right thing, no matter what others thought.  In that way, he was a terrific role model.” 

Ragghianti went on to earn two masters degrees, including a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 1992.  She would also work as Chief of Staff for the United States Parole Commission and was appointed by President Clinton as a member of the U.S. Parole Commission National Appeals Board in 1999.  A 1985 film, Marie, was based on her fight against corruption.

“You don’t set out to be a hero,” Ragghianti once said. “It is more a matter of not being able to live with yourself if you do not do the right thing.” 

Photo Credit: (Marie Ragghianti with Fred Thompson) - Dan Loftin, The Tennessean