NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING 

MOTION AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED 

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL 

OF FLORIDA 

SECOND DISTRICT 

MACK ROLLINS, DOC #075405, ) 

 ) 

 Petitioner, ) 

 ) 

v. ) Case No. 2D14-914 

 ) 

FLORIDA PAROLE COMMISSION, ) 

 ) 

 Respondent. ) 

 ) 

Opinion filed April 15, 2015. 

Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the Circuit 

Court for the Twentieth Judicial Circuit for 

Charlotte County; sitting in its appellate 

capacity. 

Mack Rollins, pro se. 

Sarah J. Rumph, General Counsel, Florida 

Parole Commission, Tallahassee, for 

Respondent. 

ALTENBERND, Judge. 

 Mack Rollins seeks certiorari review of the circuit court's order denying his 

petition for writ of habeas corpus in which he challenged the revocation of his 
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conditional release by the Florida Parole Commission ("Commission").1 We deny Mr. 

Rollins' petition for writ of certiorari, but we write to address one of his claims. We 

conclude that the circuit court did not deprive him of due process or depart from the 

essential requirements of the law when it denied the petition without obtaining a 

transcript of the relevant revocation hearing. 

 Mr. Rollins was sentenced to twenty-five years' incarceration as a habitual 

offender for an aggravated battery with a deadly weapon that took place in Dade County 

in 1995.2 The Commission granted him conditional release in July 2011. 

 In March 2013, the Department of Corrections ("DOC") received a 

violation report3 that alleged that Mr. Rollins had committed four violations of his 

conditional release. The Commission issued a warrant for the retaking of Mr. Rollins 

based on these alleged violations. A parole examiner conducted a final violation 

hearing on April 30, 2013. The examiner found Mr. Rollins guilty of willfully violating 

four substantial conditions, all of which related to the four violations alleged in the 

violation report. The examiner recommended that Mr. Rollins' supervision be revoked. 

The Commission, tracking the examiner's findings of fact with regard to Mr. Rollins' four 

violations, found that Mr. Rollins had willfully violated four substantial conditions of his 

conditional release and deemed it to be in the best interest of society and Mr. Rollins 

 

 1Florida's Parole and Probation Commission is now known as the Florida 

Commission on Offender Review. § 20.32, Fla. Stat. (2014). That statutory change 

occurred after the events that are relevant to this proceeding. 

 2See also Rollins v. State, 994 So. 2d 1113 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007); Rollins v. 

State, 707 So. 2d 823 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998). 

 3It appears that this violation report had been submitted to the

Commission in February 2013. 
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that he be returned to the custody of the DOC. The Commission accordingly revoked 

Mr. Rollins' conditional release. 

 After he was returned to the custody of the DOC and while a prisoner at 

the Charlotte Correctional Institution, Mr. Rollins challenged the Commission's decision 

by filing a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the circuit court for Charlotte County. The 

circuit court denied that petition, and Mr. Rollins now challenges the circuit court's 

decision by petitioning this court for the issuance of a writ of certiorari. He claims, in 

part, that he has been denied due process because the circuit court made its decision 

without requiring the record to be supplemented with a transcript of the final violation 

hearing. 

 In this second-tier certiorari proceeding, this court reviews the decision of 

the circuit court to determine whether it afforded due process and observed the 

essential requirements of the law. See Fla. Parole Comm'n v. Taylor, 132 So. 3d 780, 

783 (Fla. 2014); Mabrey v. Fla. Parole Comm'n, 858 So. 2d 1176, 1181 (Fla. 2d DCA 

2003). Under this court's decision in Wilson v. Florida Parole Commission, 944 So. 2d 

1111 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006), "[t]he circuit court, sitting in its appellate capacity, is required 

to review the record considered by the Commission prior to entering its final order." Id. 

at 1112. 

 Mr. Rollins has not established that the circuit court failed to review the 

record considered by the Commission. Significantly, Mr. Rollins did not establish below, 

and he has not established in this proceeding, that the Commission considered a 

transcript in reaching its decision or even that the final violation hearing was recorded 

and transcribed. The appendices provided to this court strongly suggest that the final 
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violation hearing was not recorded and transcribed and that the examiner instead 

prepared a summary of the testimony and evidence at the final violation hearing. 

 Mr. Rollins has not cited any precedent that, either as a matter of due 

process or as a statutory requirement, compels the examiner to record and transcribe a 

conditional releasee's final violation hearing for use by the Commission or in any 

subsequent legal proceeding. Indeed, we have found cases that, although not 

controlling, logically support the conclusion that due process does not compel the 

recording and transcription of such a hearing. See Glumb v. Honsted, 891 F.2d 872, 

874 (11th Cir. 1990) ("We know of no federal decision requiring a verbatim transcript of 

parole revocation proceedings. Although under some circumstances the absence of a 

tape may create sufficient prejudice to justify a new revocation hearing, petitioner has 

failed to carry his burden of making such a showing." (internal citation and footnote 

omitted)); see also Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 489 (1972) (addressing the 

minimum requirements of due process that must be met for a parole revocation and 

listing, among those requirements, "a written statement by the factfinders as to the 

evidence relied on and reasons for revoking parole"); Tuggle v. Fla. Parole Comm'n, 

No. 3:12-cv-21-J-34MCR, 2015 WL 82934, at *9 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 7, 2015) (citing Glumb 

for the proposition that the hearing summary of a state conditional releasee's revocation 

hearing provided a sufficient record for review and determining that the record fully 

supported the state circuit court's conclusions); Simpson v. Fla. Parole Comm'n, No. 

8:04-CV-1808-T-17EAJ, 2006 WL 923759, at *10 n.1, *10-13 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 10, 2006) 

(denying a petition for writ of habeas corpus where the summary report of the hearing 

satisfied the writing requirement enunciated by the Supreme Court in Morrissey). 
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 We recognize that a defendant serving a term of probation imposed by a 

court receives a judicial hearing in a court of record when he or she is charged with a 

violation of probation. Conditional release may seem to a releasee to be the same as 

probation. But the conditional release is authorized by the executive branch of 

government while the prison sentence imposed by the judiciary has yet to be fully 

served. The due process rights of the defendant are simply less in such a context. 

Although we cannot rule out that in a very rare circumstance a releasee whose 

conditional release has been revoked might present case-specific proof of prejudice 

arising from the lack of a transcript of a final violation hearing, see, e.g., Glumb, 891 

F.2d at 874 & n.3, this is not such a rare case. The circuit court did not deny Mr. Rollins 

due process or depart from the essential requirements of the law by reviewing the 

examiner's summary of the testimony and evidence rather than ordering that the record 

be supplemented with a transcript of the final violation hearing. 

 Petition for writ of certiorari denied. 

CRENSHAW and MORRIS, JJ., Concur.