Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 339

529US1

Unit: $U40

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

264

GARNER v. JONES

Souter, J., dissenting

cient standing alone to preclude an ex post facto challenge,
this is surely wrong. The policy statement on which the ma-
jority is willing to rely, see App. 56, gives a prisoner no as-
surance that new information or changed circumstances will
matter, even assuming that prisoners are aware (and able to
take advantage) of their limited ability to ask the board to
change its mind. Because in the end the board’s ability to
reconsider based on a “change in [a prisoner’s] circumstance
or where the Board receives new information,” ibid., is en-
tirely discretionary, free of all standards, an 8-year period
before further consideration of parole made solely upon re-
view of an inmate’s ﬁle has to create a real risk of longer
conﬁnement.

A further word about the absence of record evidence of
practice under the new Rule is in order. One reason that
there is none is that Georgia resisted discovery.
In this
Court, it sought to compensate for the absence of favorable
evidence by lodging documents recounting parole reconsider-
ations before the mandatory reconsideration date. But
every instance occurred after the Eleventh Circuit had ruled
against the State.4 These examples of reconsiderations are
the parole equivalent of ﬁxing the broken front steps after
the invited guest has slipped, fallen, and seen a lawyer; they
do nothing to show that the board’s own interpretation of its
policy mitigated the risk of increased punishment.5

4 Georgia’s statistics show only that, in ﬁscal year 1999, about 20% of
inmates received reconsideration dates of three years or less; about 10%
got reconsideration dates more than three years but less than eight, and
70% got 8-year dates. See App. to Reply Brief for Petitioners 9. Eighty
percent were therefore at least potentially negatively affected by the
change from a 3-year to an 8-year delay in reconsideration. Even on their
own terms, then, the statistics do not show that board policies mitigate
the substantial risk of increased punishment.

5 Indeed, as the board explains its decisionmaking procedures, “[t]he
overriding factor in determining whether or not to parole a person under
life sentence is the severity of the offense.” Georgia Board of Pardons