IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Mark Richardson, :

Petitioner :

 :

v. : No. 1807 C.D. 2015

 : SUBMITTED: June 24, 2016

Pennsylvania Board of :

Probation and Parole, :

Respondent :

BEFORE: HONORABLE ROBERT SIMPSON, Judge

HONORABLE ANNE E. COVEY, Judge

HONORABLE BONNIE BRIGANCE LEADBETTER, Senior Judge

OPINION NOT REPORTED

MEMORANDUM OPINION BY

SENIOR JUDGE LEADBETTER FILED: October 4, 2016

Mark Richardson petitions pro se for review of an order of the 

Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (Board) denying his administrative 

appeal from an order recommitting him as a convicted parole violator. We affirm.

The pertinent facts are as follows. In March 2005, Richardson was 

found guilty of criminal conspiracy, robbery, and burglary in the Court of 

Common Pleas of Philadelphia County. Certified Record (C.R.), Item No. 1 at 1. 

Pursuant to a six to twelve year sentence, he was incarcerated with an original 

parole maximum date of January 15, 2017, and a minimum date of January 15, 

2011. In October 2010, the Board granted him conditional parole. Id., Item No. 3 

at 10-12. One of the conditions, which Richardson acknowledged via his 

signature, provided: “If you are convicted of a crime committed while on 
2

parole/reparole, the Board has the authority, after an appropriate hearing, to 

recommit you to serve the balance of the sentence or sentences which you were 

serving when paroled/reparoled, with no credit for time at liberty on parole.” Id. at 

15.

In March 2013, the Philadelphia Police Department arrested 

Richardson and charged him with murder, criminal conspiracy, robbery, and 

several violations of the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearm Act of 1995.

1

 Id., Item 

No. 4 at 20 and 30. Richardson pled guilty to third-degree murder, conspiracymurder of the third degree, and robbery-infliction of serious bodily injury in 

February 2014, and the remaining charges were nolle prossed. Id., Item No. 6 at 

42, 43, and 48. In March 2014, Richardson admitted to the aforementioned 

convictions and waived his right to a parole revocation hearing and counsel. Id., 

Item No. 8 at 54. In a decision mailed May 16, 2014, the Board recommitted him 

to a State Correctional Institution (SCI) as a convicted parole violator to serve his 

unexpired term, when available, pending sentencing on his new Philadelphia 

County case and his return to an SCI. Id. at 63. In January 2015, the trial court 

sentenced Richardson to (1) a fifteen to thirty-year term of confinement in an SCI; 

and (2) two underlapping and concurrent five to ten-year terms of confinement in 

an SCI. Id., Item No. 9 at 64. Thereafter, Richardson was transferred to SCIGraterford in January 2015. Accordingly, in a decision mailed May 6, 2015, the 

Board recommitted him as a convicted parole violator to serve his unexpired term 

of five years, ten months, and twenty-nine days and recalculated his parole 

maximum date as December 14, 2020. Id. at 65.

 

1

18 Pa. C.S. §§ 6101 - 6127.
3

Subsequently, Richardson filed a petition for administrative review 

nunc pro tunc, which the Board received on July 16, 2015. Therein, he maintained 

that he had sought the assistance of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, but 

that it did not respond to his letter. In addition, Richardson provided a copy of a 

May 10, 2015, letter that he wrote to the association and its June 29, 2015, 

response to him indicating that it had lost his appeal paperwork. Id., Item No. 10

at 72-73. Initially, the Board denied his petition as untimely in a decision mailed 

August 19, 2015. Id. at 75. Upon its subsequent review of the certified record and 

Richardson’s claims regarding his attempts to seek an administrative remedy, 

however, the Board waived the untimeliness due to a breakdown in the office of 

the Defender Association of Philadelphia. Board’s Brief at 7 n.1. Richardson’s 

petition for review to this Court followed.

On appeal, Richardson argues that the Board lacked jurisdiction to 

recalculate and extend his original parole maximum date of January 15, 2017, and 

unlawfully modified his existing sentence and/or imposed a new one. Asserting, 

inter alia, deprivations of due process, he requests that this Court reverse the 

Board’s decision and reinstate his original parole maximum date. Richardson’s

position is without merit.

By way of background, parole is a penological device designed to 

help prisoners reintegrate into society. Young v. Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole, 409 

A.2d 843, 847 (Pa. 1979). Parole is a matter of administrative discretion and not a 

right of the prisoner. Cunningham v. Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole, 410 A.2d 963, 

965 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1980). In this regard, “[a] grant of parole does not eliminate a 

prisoner’s sentence, but instead, the prisoner continues to serve his sentence during 

which time he or she is the subject of society’s rehabilitation efforts under 
4

supervision.” Weaver v. Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole, 688 A.2d 766, 769 (Pa. 

Cmwlth. 1997). Consequently, “[u]pon recommitment as a convicted parole 

violator, the parolee must serve the remainder of the term which he would have 

been compelled to serve had he not been paroled . . . .” Armbruster v. Pa. Bd. of 

Prob. & Parole, 919 A.2d 348, 351 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2007). In addition, although the 

Board has the power in certain cases to award a parolee credit for the time at 

liberty on parole, it may choose not to do so. See Section 6138(a)(2) of the Prisons 

and Parole Code, as amended, 61 Pa. C.S. § 6138(a)(2). Notwithstanding the 

Board’s discretion in this regard, the statutory norm is that such credit shall not be 

provided to a convicted parole violator. Pittman v. Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole, 131 

A.3d 604, 615 (Pa. Cmwlth.), appeal granted, 137 A.3d 572 (Pa. 2016). In any 

event, it remains true that requiring convicted parole violators to forego credit for

street time “does not offend the constitutional guarantees to the citizens of the state 

and this nation[,]” but instead, “represents a reasonable exercise of the [state’s] 

penological responsibility . . . .” Young, 409 A.2d at 847.

Furthermore, the Board has both the authority and responsibility to 

administer the state parole system. In this capacity, the Board, inter alia, is 

charged with directing the recommitment of convicted parole violators and 

recalculating maximum sentence and reparole review dates. Martin v. Pa. Bd. of 

Prob. & Parole, 840 A.2d 299, 302 (Pa. 2003). Additionally, it has long been 

established that the Board’s authority to extend a maximum term expiration date 

does not usurp a court’s sentencing function or constitute a violation of a parolee’s 

due process rights. See Gaito v. Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole, 392 A.2d 343, 570 (Pa. 
5

1978).2 In this regard, courts have rejected inmates’ arguments that the denial of 

credit for time at liberty on parole amounts to an extension of the maximum date 

imposed by the sentencing judge. Young, 409 A.2d at 847-48. Accordingly, upon 

Richardson’s new convictions in the present case, the Board had the authority to 

recalculate and extend his original parole maximum date.

Specifically regarding the Board’s computation of Richardson’s new 

maximum expiry, we note that the recalculation reflects the time yet to be served 

on his original sentence, 2,159 days of backtime, with no credit for his street time. 

Armbruster, 919 A.2d at 351. Accordingly, adding 2,159 days to the original 

parole maximum date of January 16, 2015, results in a new parole maximum date 

of December 14, 2020.3

For the above reasons, therefore, we affirm.

_____________________________________

BONNIE BRIGANCE LEADBETTER,

Senior Judge

 

2 As this Court noted in Smith v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 133 A.3d 

820 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2016), Gaito was limited by Martin v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and 

Parole, 840 A.2d 299, 308 (Pa. 2003). That limitation does not apply here.

3

In any event, we note that by electing not to pursue the parole revocation hearing and, 

consequently, that portion dealing with the amount of backtime owed in the event that he was 

recommitted as a convicted parole violator, Richardson waived the right to advance a claim of 

error that he could have raised at the hearing. Fisher v. Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole, 62 A.3d 

1073, 1075-76 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2013). In addition, where the recommitment period is within the 

presumptive range, courts will not review the Board’s imposition of backtime. Id. at 1077.
IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Mark Richardson, :

Petitioner :

 :

v. : No. 1807 C.D. 2015

 :

Pennsylvania Board of :

Probation and Parole, :

Respondent :

O R D E R

AND NOW, this 4

th day of October, 2016, the order of the 

Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole is hereby AFFIRMED.

_____________________________________

BONNIE BRIGANCE LEADBETTER,

Senior Judge