Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-99-05009/USCOURTS-caDC-99-05009-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
District of Columbia
Amicus Curiae for Appellee
Matthew Noble
Appellant
United States Parole Commission
Appellee

Document Text:

<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 21, 1999 Decided November 5, 1999

No. 99-5009

Matthew Noble,

Appellant

v.

United States Parole Commission,

Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 95cv00188)

Beverly G. Dyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was A.

J. Kramer, Federal Public Defender.

Valinda Jones, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause

for appellee. With her on the brief were Wilma A. Lewis,

U.S. Attorney, John R. Fisher, Thomas J. Tourish, Jr., and

USCA Case #99-5009 Document #474971 Filed: 11/05/1999 Page 1 of 5
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

Robert D. Okun, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Mary-Patrice

Brown, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance.

Before: Silberman, Sentelle, and Rogers, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed Per Curiam.

Per Curiam: Matthew Noble, a District of Columbia prisoner who was held in federal custody, appeals the district

court's denial of a writ of habeas corpus. He argues that he

has been deprived of equal protection because other prisoners

were erroneously released earlier than they should have been.

We affirm.

I.

The District of Columbia is responsible for the custody of

most prisoners who have been convicted of offenses under

D.C. law, but some D.C. offenders are held in the custody of

the federal government. This case arises from a disparity

between the policies of the U.S. Parole Commission, which

administers parole for prisoners in federal custody, and those

of the D.C. Board of Parole, which administers parole for

convicts in D.C. prisons.1

Section 24-206(a) of the District of Columbia Code provides

that prisoners whose parole is revoked shall not receive credit

against their sentences for "street time," that is, the time

they spent on parole. In 1987, the District of Columbia

enacted D.C. Code s 24-431(a); without mentioning parole

revocation, it established a general rule that street time shall

be treated the same as time spent in physical custody. The

U.S. Parole Commission concluded that this new statute did

not affect s 24-206(a). By contrast, the D.C. Department of

Corrections determined that s 24-431(a) had impliedly repealed the section, and consequently the Board of Parole

began to give prisoners credit for street time even when their

__________

1 Congress has since transferred the authority of the D.C. Board

of Parole to the U.S. Parole Commission. See National Capital

Revitalization and Self-Government Act of 1997, Pub. L. No.

105-33, s 11231(a)(1), 111 Stat. 712, 745; Franklin v. District of

Columbia, 163 F.3d 625, 632 (D.C. Cir. 1998).

parole was revoked. The new D.C. policy was based on a

misreading of the law, as the D.C. Court of Appeals held in

1997. After that opinion the Department of Corrections

changed its policy, but it did not make the change retroactive

to people whose sentences had already expired--that is, it did

not attempt to rearrest former inmates whose releases had

been predicated on credit for street time prior to parole

revocation.

In 1985, having already compiled a long record of drug

offenses, Noble was convicted in D.C. Superior Court of

distribution of a controlled substance. At the time, he was a

federal parolee, and the Bureau of Prisons aggregated his

sentences to yield a term of just over nine years, to be served

in federal custody. He was paroled again in 1988, but in 1993

his parole was revoked. Pursuant to D.C. Code s 24-206(a),

USCA Case #99-5009 Document #474971 Filed: 11/05/1999 Page 2 of 5
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

the Parole Commission refused to credit Noble's street time

against his sentence. In 1995, Noble petitioned for a writ of

habeas corpus, claiming that the Commission had violated

D.C. law by failing to credit him for his street time. The writ

was granted, see Noble v. United States Parole Comm'n, 887

F. Supp. 11 (D.D.C. 1995), but on appeal, we certified to the

D.C. Court of Appeals the question of whether the Parole

Commission had properly interpreted the D.C. statute. Noble v. United States Parole Comm'n, 82 F.3d 1108 (D.C. Cir.

1996). After that court confirmed that the Commission's

interpretation was correct, see United States Parole Comm'n

v. Noble, 693 A.2d 1084 (D.C. 1997), aff'd, 711 A.2d 85 (D.C.

1998) (en banc), we remanded to the district court for further

proceedings. The district court denied the writ, see Noble v.

United States Parole Comm'n, 32 F. Supp. 2d 11 (D.D.C.

1998), and Noble appealed.

II.

Obviously no longer able to maintain that the Parole Commission has misread the law, Noble instead argues that the

disparity between his treatment and that of prisoners in the

custody of the D.C. Department of Corrections constitutes a

deprivation of the equal protection of the laws. The difficulty

USCA Case #99-5009 Document #474971 Filed: 11/05/1999 Page 3 of 5
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

with this argument is that Equal Protection Clause--to be

precise, the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, cf. Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S.

497 (1954)--does not require that all persons everywhere be

treated alike. Instead, it imposes the rather more modest

requirement that government not treat similarly situated

individuals differently without a rational basis. See Cleburne

v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 439 (1985).

Noble cannot show that he has been treated differently from

prisoners under the supervision of the U.S. Parole Commission because all have been treated in exactly the same way.

Noble would instead compare himself to prisoners who

were in the custody of the D.C. Department of Corrections

whose parole was revoked but who nevertheless received

credit for street time because their sentences expired before

the D.C. Court of Appeals issued its decision in 1997. Yet he

is not similarly situated to those prisoners, because he is in

the custody of a different agency of government. Seeking to

avoid this problem, he asserts "a constitutional right to equal

treatment under law by the government, even where that

treatment is imposed by two different agencies." We think

that assertion is groundless. If such a right existed, it would

mean that it is unconstitutional for some D.C. criminal cases

to be brought in D.C. courts, while others are brought in

federal court, where harsher sentences may be available.

But cf. Hutcherson v. United States, 345 F.2d 964 (D.C. Cir.

1965). For that matter, it would suggest that every circuit

split is a violation of equal protection. Both of these propositions are obviously erroneous, and so is Noble's premise.

In any event, even if Noble were to be compared to

prisoners in D.C. custody who received credit for street time,

he could not prevail, because the difficulty of rearresting

inmates who have already been released would provide a

rational basis for the disparate treatment. Neither authority

nor common sense support the proposition that if the government erroneously confers a benefit on some people, then

other people have a constitutional right to receive the same

windfall. See Tyler v. United States, 929 F.2d 451, 457 (9th

USCA Case #99-5009 Document #474971 Filed: 11/05/1999 Page 4 of 5
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

Cir. 1991) ("We cannot seriously entertain the argument that

an erroneous statutory interpretation should be perpetuated

simply because it would favor a prisoner who has not yet

benefitted from it.").

* * * *

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

So ordered.

USCA Case #99-5009 Document #474971 Filed: 11/05/1999 Page 5 of 5