SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-2445-17T1

JOSE CAMILO,

Appellant,

v.

NEW JERSEY STATE

PAROLE BOARD,

Respondent.

______________________

Submitted October 2, 2019 – Decided

Before Judges Sabatino and Sumners.

On appeal from the New Jersey State Parole Board.

Jose Camilo, appellant pro se.

Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General, attorney for 

respondent (Melissa H. Raksa, Assistant Attorney 

General, of counsel; Christopher Josephson, Deputy 

Attorney General, on the brief).

PER CURIAM

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the 

internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.

October 30, 2019
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Appellant Jose Camilo, who is currently incarcerated in East Jersey State 

Prison, appeals the New Jersey State Parole Board's (the Board's) December 14, 

2016 final agency decision denying him parole and imposing a 200-month 

Future Eligibility Term (FET). We affirm. 

On February 9, 1980, Camilo shot and killed his estranged girlfriend's 

mother, and shot her pregnant sister, leaving her quadriplegic and confined to a 

wheelchair. The sister's pregnancy was terminated because of the shooting. The 

sister's five-year-old daughter witnessed the shootings.

On July 12, 1982, a jury convicted Camilo of: (1) murder; (2) attempted 

murder; (3) aggravated assault; (4) possession of a weapon for an unlawful 

purpose; (5) unlawful possession of a weapon; and (6) terroristic threats.1 He 

was sentenced to life in prison for murder, with a twenty-five-year period of 

parole ineligibility, and a consecutive term of twenty years for aggravated 

assault, with a ten-year period of parole ineligibility. The attempted murder 

conviction was merged with the aggravated assault conviction for sentencing. 

Ten years later, as a result of Camilo's petition for post-conviction relief, the 

 

1

 Following the crime, Camilo fled the United States to the Dominican Republic, 

his country of citizenship. On or about March 1982, he was arrested in Canada 

on the outstanding arrest warrant and extradited to the U.S. 
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aggravated assault sentence was amended to a ten-year sentence, with a fiveyear period of parole ineligibility, concurrent to the life sentence. 

After Camilo became eligible for parole on June 11, 2012, a parole hearing 

officer referred consideration of Camilo's parole to a two-member panel of the 

Board. In an initial hearing held a month later, the panel denied parole and set 

a FET of thirty-six months. Camilo's administrative appeal of that particular 

ruling was successful and the panel vacated its decision because it had reflected 

the incorrect standard of review.2 The Board explained that since he was

"incarcerated for crimes committed prior to August 19, 1997; the standard of 

review in [his] case is whether there is a preponderance of evidence to indicate 

that there is a substantial likelihood that [he] will commit a new crime if released 

at this time." The matter was therefore remanded for reconsideration.

The second initial hearing also resulted in a successful appeal by Camilo. 

After a parole hearing officer referred the parole request to a Board panel in 

August 2013, it was not until October 2013, when a hearing before a twomember Board panel was convened due to an issue with the documents 

considered in the first appeal documents. The second initial hearing commenced 

 

2

 Camilo was advised in a letter dated February 7, 2013, by the Board's Director, 

Legal Support Unit, that the two-member panel's decision was being vacated. 

However, the panel's decision was rendered on March 6, 2013. 
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in January 2014, when a two-member panel denied parole and referred the matter 

to a three-person panel to determine the FET. The three-person panel 

established a 240-month FET in April 2014. In response to Camilo's 

administrative appeal, in January 2015, the three-member panel vacated its 

decision because it determined that the transcript did not reflect a verbatim 

translation of Camilo's April 2014 hearing. Consequently, decisions from the 

proceedings in August 2013, January 2014, and April 2014, were all vacated in

January 2015, requiring the consideration of Camilo's parole to start anew.

Camilo's third initial hearing was held in August 2015, which again 

resulted in the parole hearing officer referring the matter to a two-member Board

panel for a hearing. Later that month, the panel, based upon "interview, 

documentation in case file, and confidential material/professional report,"

denied parole, considering the following factors: 

 Serious nature of offense(s). Specifically: 

[five-year] old female witnessed shooting of 

mother [and] [g]randmother resulting in death of 

[g]randmother [and] permanent disab[l]ing

injuries [sic] to mother;

 Committed to incarceration for multiple 

offenses;

 Institutional infraction(s): 

[a.] numerous;

[b.] serious in nature;
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[c.] loss of commutation time;

[d.] confinement in detention;

[e.] Administrative Segregation. Last 

infraction: 9-1-01 (3 Asterisk);

 Insufficient problem(s) resolution. Specifically:

[a.] lack of insight into criminal behavior;

[b.] minimize conduct;

[c.] substance abuse problem has not been 

sufficiently addressed;

[d.] other: [Camilo] continues to show a low 

regard for the rules/laws of society and his main 

concern is to get out not to understand how his 

actions and trigger[s] cause[d] this tragedy and 

show[s] a clear possibility of such an act 

occurring again on community supervision. As 

demonstrated by: interview, documentation in 

case file, and confidential material [or] 

professional report;

 Lack of adequate parole plan to assist in 

successful reintegration into the community. 

The panel acknowledged the following mitigating factors:

 No prior offense record;

 Participation in program(s) specific to behavior;

 Participation in institutional program(s);

 Attempt made to enroll and participate in 

program(s) but was not admitted;

 Risk assessment evaluation 18.
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The panel referred the matter to a three-member Board panel to determine 

the FET. About a month later, and prior to the FET determination, the twomember panel amended its decision to reflect two additional mitigating factors:

 Institutional reports reflect favorable 

institutional adjustment;

 Commutation time restored.

In November 2015, the three-member panel established a 200-month FET. 

The panel based its decision on the same factors, including the mitigating factors

that the two-person panel applied to deny parole, and a letter of mitigation by 

Camillo detailing a parole plan that was substantiated by letters from his family

in the Dominican Republic where he would be deported to upon his release. 

Camilo administratively appealed the decision denying parole and two 

hundred-month FET to the full Board. In a five-page final agency decision, the 

Board affirmed the panels' decisions for essentially the same reasons. 

Before us, Camilo argues the following point:

POINT I

THE DECISION OF THE PAROLE BOARD TO 

DENY PAROLE MUST BE VACATED AND 

PETITIONER SHOULD BE SUBJECT TO PRERELEASE CONDITION OF SATISFACTORY 

COMPETITION OF TWELVE MONTH HALFWAY 

HOUSE PLACEMENT; DENIAL OF PAROLE AND 

IMPOSITION OF TWO HUNDRED (200) MONTH 
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FUTURE ELIGIBILITY TERM BY THREE PANEL 

BOARD FAILED TO SHOW HOW APPELLANT[']S 

CONDUCT 39-YEARS AGO IN 1980 COULD 

REVEAL APPELLANTS CURRENT PAROLE 

SUITABILITY

A. The Decision of the Parole Board Conflicts 

With This Court[']s Decision In Trantino v. New 

Jersey State Parole Board[3]

We have considered the contentions raised by Camilo and we affirm 

substantially for the reasons expressed by the Board in its thorough decision. 

We add the following remarks. 

Under our standard of review, we consider: (1) whether the Board's action 

is consistent with the applicable law; (2) whether there is substantial credible 

evidence in the record as a whole to support its findings; and (3) whether in 

applying the law to the facts, the Board erroneously reached a conclusion that 

could not have been reasonably made based on the relevant facts. Trantino, 154 

N.J. at 24. The Board's decision to grant or deny parole turns on whether "there 

is a substantial likelihood the inmate will commit" another crime if released. 

Williams v. N.J. State Parole Bd., 336 N.J. Super. 1, 7-8 (App. Div. 2000). The 

Board must consider the enumerated factors in N.J.A.C. 10A:71-3.11(b)(1)-(23) 

in making its decision. The Board, however, is not required to consider each 

 

3

 [154 N.J. 19 (1998).]
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and every factor; rather, it should consider those applicable to each case. 

McGowan v. N.J. State Parole Bd., 347 N.J. Super. 544, 561 (App. Div. 2002).

An inmate serving a minimum term in excess of fourteen years is

ordinarily assigned a twenty-seven month FET after a denial of parole. See

N.J.A.C. 10A:71-3.21(a)(1). However, N.J.A.C. 10:71-3.21(d) allows a threemember panel to establish a FET outside of the administrative guidelines if the 

presumptive twenty-seven month FET is "clearly inappropriate due to the 

inmate's lack of satisfactory progress in reducing the likelihood of future 

criminal behavior." 

Here, the Board's action is consistent with the applicable law, there is 

substantial credible evidence in the record as a whole to support its findings, and 

the Board reached conclusions that were based on the relevant facts. The Board 

made extensive findings, which we need not repeat here, demonstrating the basis 

for its decision to deny Camilo parole. In its final decision, the Board provided 

multiple sound reasons for imposing the 200-month FET, which, although 

lengthy, is neither arbitrary nor capricious. In fact, according to the Board, the 

FET backdates to the first initial hearing and will be reduced by substantial 

commutation credits, so that Camilo's parole eligibility date is currently January 

17, 2024, and with anticipated work credits and minimum custody credits his 
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projected parole eligibility date is actually in February 2022. Hence, the 200-

month FET is not nearly as severe as it may first appear. On this record, we 

have no reason to second-guess the Board's findings or conclusions and defer to 

its expertise in these matters.

To the extent we have not specifically addressed any of defendant's

arguments, it is because we find they have insufficient merit to warrant 

discussion in a written opinion. R. 2:11-3(e)(1)(D) and (E).

Affirmed.