Title: Murphy v. Indiana Parole Bd.

State: indiana

Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court

Document:

397 N.E.2d 259 (1979)
George D. MURPHY, Appellant (Petitioner below),
v.
INDIANA PAROLE BOARD ET AL., Appellees (Respondents below).
No. 476S101.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
November 27, 1979.
Harriette Bailey Conn, Public Defender, Kyle M. Payne, Deputy Public Defender, Indianapolis, for appellant.
Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., Wesley T. Wilson, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellees.
PRENTICE, Justice.
This is an appeal from the denial of relief sought by Appellant, Petitioner below, (Murphy) upon a writ of habeas corpus. The petition and subsequent proceedings are perplexing, to say the least, and fit no pattern known to us. Although the petition contains a conclusory allegation that Murphy is being unlawfully restrained of his *260 liberty, the factual allegations relate the events of his hearing for parole release, before the Indiana Parole Board (Board), the denial of parole by the Board and the conclusory allegation that the action of the Board denied him due process of law.
Considered as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the writ should not have issued, because it disclosed upon its face that Murphy was not entitled to immediate release. Hawkins v. Jenkins, (1978 Ind. 374 N.E.2d 496; Young v. Duckworth, (1979) Ind., 394 N.E.2d 123. The court and the parties, nevertheless, proceeded to an evidentiary hearing, apparently considering the petition as one for relief under Indiana Rules, Post Conviction 1, § 1(a)(5); at the conclusion of the hearing, the trial judge ruled that the "relief demanded" be denied and that the writ be dissolved. In essence, the determination was that the Board had complied with the statutory mandate for parole release hearings.
As an appeal from the denial of post conviction relief, this appeal should have been filed with the Court of Appeals, inasmuch as Murphy's minimum sentence is less than ten years. Ind.R.P.C. 1, § 7; A.P. 4(A)(7). As an appeal from the denial of release in a habeas corpus, it also should have been filed with the Court of Appeals, as the denial of relief arose out of parole release hearing, which is not a criminal proceeding. Ind.R.A.P. 4(A)(9) and 4(B)(4). To avoid further delay of the matter, however, we shall entertain the appeal under our discretionary authority. Young v. Duckworth, supra.
Murphy was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, Ind. Code § 35-13-4-2 (Burns 1975), from a guilty plea, and was sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two nor more than twenty years. For that crime, he was incarcerated at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City on August 6, 1974. On May 8, 1975, he was brought before the Board for parole consideration, pursuant to Ind. Code § 11-1-1-9 (Burns Supp. 1978) which requires that every new inmate be considered for parole within his first year of incarceration. During the 30 days prior to an inmate's appearance before the Board, the Board members are able to study the inmate's institutional file, which includes his precommitment investigation report, his admission summary, a psychologist's report, a report by the reception-diagnostic center, his progress report at the prison, and any letters of recommendation which the inmate may possess. At Murphy's hearing, he was identified, and was asked whether he was a friend of the man he had killed and whether they had been drinking at the time of the killing. Murphy was informed that he would not be paroled at that time because of the seriousness of the crime which he had committed. He was then asked if he had anything to say, but no response is evident in the record before us. The entire hearing lasted two to five minutes. A week later, Murphy received written confirmation that his parole had been denied because of the seriousness of his offense.
Murphy then filed a pro se petition for a writ, as hereinbefore mentioned, in the LaPorte County Circuit Court, challenging the Parole Board's actions. A public defender was appointed to represent him. A hearing was had upon the petition, at which Appellant testified as to the events of his parole release hearing and then called upon John Raschka, a parole officer and secretary to the Parole Board Commission, who described the entire process by which an inmate is considered for parole. The Board presented no evidence. The trial court made findings of fact and conclusions of law, denied the relief prayed for, and dissolved the writ.
By this appeal, Appellant has framed five specific issues for our consideration:
(1) Did the Board violate Murphy's right to due process of law, by failing to give adequate and sufficient reasons for the denial of parole?
(2) Does due process require that an inmate have access to the information contained in the institutional file, which information is considered by the Board in determining eligibility for parole?
*261 (3) Does the statute providing for the possibility of parole give adequate standards and guidelines for the determination of parole decisions?
(4) Is the "seriousness of the offense" for which the inmate was committed a valid criteria for denial of parole?
(5) Did the Parole Board consider "all pertinent information" as required by Ind. Code § 11-1-1-9?
The Board contends that this Court is without jurisdiction to review the actions of the Indiana Parole Board, citing Ind. Code § 11-1-1-8 (Burns 1973) which states in part:
Furthermore, the State relies on Terry v. Byers, (1903) 161 Ind. 360, 68 N.E. 596, wherein this Court, in discussing the discretionary powers of the Board of Managers  the predecessor of the Parole Board, stated:
We do not entirely agree with the State's position. It is true that there is no right to an appeal, in the usual sense, from the decision of the Parole Board, but Due Process requires that judicial review be available to insure that the requirements of Due Process have been met and that the Parole Board has acted within the scope of its powers. Cf. Warren v. Indiana Telephone Co., (1939) 217 Ind. 93, 105, 26 N.E.2d 399. We emphasize that the courts of this state can not act as a "Super-Parole Board."
The primary question involved in this case is whether the requirement of procedural due process applies to parole release determinations, and if so, the procedure that due process requires.
It has long been the law in Indiana that the Parole Board has almost absolute discretion in carrying out its duties and that it is not subject to the supervision or control of the Courts. Hawkins v. Jenkins, supra; Dowd v. Basham, (1954) 233 Ind. 207, 116 N.E.2d 632; Terry v. Byers, supra.
Parole release procedures were the subject of a recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, (1979) 442 U.S. 1, 99 S. Ct. 2100, 60 L. Ed. 2d 668. Greenholtz involved a class action by inmates claiming that they were unconstitutionally being denied parole by the Nebraska Parole Board, in that Nebraska's parole statute and the Board's procedures denied them procedural due process. In the majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice Burger and concurred in by four other Justices, the Court stated:
Thus, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that there is a constitutional right to parole release. The Court also rejected the argument that a constitutionally protected interest is created whenever a state provides a possibility of parole, expressly distinguishing the case of Morrissey v. Brewer, (1972) 408 U.S. 471, 92 S. Ct. 2593, 33 L. Ed. 2d 484, wherein it was held that a parole revocation determination must meet certain due process standards.
The Nebraska inmates argued, in the alternative, that the Nebraska statute itself creates a protectable expectation of parole. The Supreme Court responded:
Thus, the Court held that an expectancy of release must emanate, if at all, from state law; and that, if such an expectancy does emanate from state law, it is entitled to "some measure" of constitutional protection. The Court's decision appears to have been dictated, at least in part, by the language in Nebraska's parole release statute to the effect that the Parole Board "shall" order an inmate's release unless the Board determines that parole should be deferred on the basis of a finding of one of four specifically enumerated exceptions. In sharp contrast to the Nebraska parole statute, the Indiana statutory scheme attempts to vest complete discretion with the Parole Board:
Our parole release statute creates no expectancy of release as envisioned in the Nebraska statutory scheme; rather, our Legislature has invested the Parole Board with almost total discretion in such matters. Having no constitutional or inherent right to parole release, if an inmate in this State has any rights with regards to such release, they must emanate from the parole release statute itself. In this light, we will examine the particular issues raised by Murphy in the case at hand.
The first issue raised by Murphy is whether the Parole Board violated his due process rights by failing to give adequate and sufficient reasons for the denial of parole. Specifically, he contends that the Board, in merely stating that parole was denied because of the "seriousness of the offense," failed to give any factual reasons for the denial, failed to give Murphy any indication of what he should do to make himself a more likely candidate for parole, and overlooked the positive aspects of his record. In support of his argument, he cites several pre-Greenholtz cases which held that the reason given for denial must be sufficiently specific so as to allow meaningful judicial review. However, those cases were decided under the erroneous assumption that the due process clause is applicable to parole release in the same manner as it is applicable to parole revocation. The United States Supreme Court held in Greenholtz that an inmate's parole release rights, if any exist, must have their origins within the parole release law of that state. Our Legislature has delegated to the Parole Board the responsibility of determining the conditions of early release, without further specification. We conclude that, when the Parole Board advised Murphy that they were denying early release because of the "seriousness of his offense," they correctly stated their reason for the denial. Such advisement met the requirement of procedural due process said to be owing in Young v. Duckworth, supra.
Murphy's next contention is that the Parole Board violated his due process rights by failing to allow him access to information contained in his institutional file. However, he does not state, nor does the record reflect, that he ever requested access to this information. Nor does the record reveal what the Parole Board's policy is with respect to such inmate access, but we can perceive bona fide reasons for denying penal institution inmates such access. Due process permits a weighing of the state's interests of security and inmate management against the interest of the inmate hoping for parole release.
Murphy contends that Ind. Code § 11-1-1-9 (Burns Supp. 1978) is unconstitutional in that it fails to give the Parole Board reasonable and adequate guidelines for reaching its parole release determinations. This contention is without merit. Again, quoting from the Greenholtz case, the United States Supreme Court, stated that a state's parole release statute may be "specific or general in defining the conditions for release and the factors that should be considered by the parole authority." Id. at 8, 99 S. Ct.  at 2104. Furthermore, the Court stated:
Murphy contends that the Parole Board's denial of parole because of the "seriousness of the offense" violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, the double jeopardy provisions of the Fifth Amendment and Section 14 of Article I of the Indiana Constitution, the proscription against vindictive justice of Article I, Section 18 of the Indiana Constitution, as well as the general *265 concept of indeterminate sentencing. In Greenholtz, the United States Supreme Court stated that the parole determination must necessarily include, inter alia, consideration of the gravity of the offense. Id. at 8, 15, 99 S. Ct. 2100. We agree and note that Murphy has cited no authority to the contrary.
Murphy contends that the Board did not consider all of the pertinent information concerning him prior to reaching their decision. In essence, it is his argument that the Board did not consider all of the data in his institutional file because, if they had, they would have granted parole. This amounts to a plea for an appeal from a negative verdict, which clearly could not be required. To repeat a portion of our earlier quote from Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, supra, "The entire inquiry is, in a sense, an `equity' type judgment that cannot always be articulated in traditional findings." Elsewhere, therein, it was written, "The decision turns on a `discretionary assessment of a multiplicity of inponderables, entailing primarily what a man is and what he may become rather than simply what he has done.'" Accordingly, there being no standards established with respect to the factors that the Board may consider, it could never be said that they were without conflict and lead unerringly to a conclusion different than the one reached.
Additionally, it must be noted that the Nebraska statute created an expectancy of release, requiring release "unless it (the Board) is of the opinion that his release should be deferred because: * * *," listing four reasons justifying denial. Our statute, however, expressly provides that "A parole shall be ordered only for the best interest of society, not as an award of clemency; it shall not be considered to be a reduction of sentence or pardon."
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
GIVAN, C.J., and DeBRULER, HUNTER and PIVARNIK, JJ., concur.