Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 338.0

529US1

Unit: $U40

[10-04-01 09:23:11] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 244 (2000)

263

Souter, J., dissenting

the reviews that the old Rule would have guaranteed will in
fact serve longer sentences.3

Thus, I believe the Eleventh Circuit properly granted
summary judgment for respondent. Although Georgia ar-
gues that the board freely makes exceptions to the 8-year
Rule in appropriate cases, the State provided no evidence
that the board’s occasional willingness to reexamine cases
sufﬁciently mitigates the substantial probability of increased
punishment. While the majority accepts the argument that,
even without evidence of practice, the board’s discretion to
revisit its assignment of a reconsideration date may be sufﬁ-

3 The majority suggests, ante, at 252, that the Court required no particu-
lar procedural safeguards in California Dept. of Corrections v. Morales,
even though the Court mentioned those safeguards as an important factor
in its conclusion that there was no increase in the quantum of punishment
in that case, see 514 U. S., at 511–512. This is true, but it does not address
the problem with Georgia’s virtually unbounded scheme. Once the risk
of increased punishment exists, the board’s nearly nonexistent safeguards
provide no way of reducing that risk.

Georgia insists that its lack of procedural safeguards is irrelevant to this
case, because due process does not require much in the way of procedural
safeguards for parole. But that is beside the point. The challenge here
is to the retroactive increase in the quantum of punishment. Unlike the
California procedure for delaying parole reconsideration in Morales, the
Georgia procedure here includes no actual hearing for the prisoner whose
reconsideration is delayed ﬁve extra years, and the board is not required
to explain itself. Georgia’s procedural minimalism increases the likeli-
hood that prisoners will get rubberstamp treatment, and decreases the
likelihood that the exceptions to the policy on which the majority relies
will actually be applied in a way that diminishes the signiﬁcant probability
of increased punishment. Cf. Penson v. Ohio, 488 U. S. 75, 81–82, n. 4
(1988) (stating that a requirement to give written reasons provides an
inducement to make careful decisions in cases that might otherwise be
summarily ignored); Smith v. Robbins, 528 U. S. 259, 290–291 (2000) (Ste-
vens, J., dissenting) (noting that the process of writing out reasons for
decision improves the quality of the decision and can reveal error). Pa-
role need not operate under rigidly deﬁned procedures, but if the board
decides to make changes retroactive, it must do something to prevent
those changes from increasing punishment in violation of the Ex Post
Facto Clause.