Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 319.0

529US1

Unit: $U40

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244

OCTOBER TERM, 1999

Syllabus

GARNER, FORMER CHAIRMAN OF THE STATE
BOARD OF PARDONS AND PAROLES OF
GEORGIA, et al. v. JONES

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the eleventh circuit

No. 99–137. Argued January 11, 2000—Decided March 28, 2000

Respondent escaped while serving a life sentence for murder, committed
another murder, and was sentenced to a second life term. Georgia law
requires the State’s Board of Pardons and Paroles (Board) to consider
inmates serving life sentences for parole after seven years. At the time
respondent committed his second offense, the Board’s Rule 475–3–.05(2)
required that reconsiderations for parole take place every three years.
Acting pursuant to statutory authority, the Board subsequently ex-
tended the reconsideration period to at least every eight years. The
Board has the discretion to shorten that interval, but declined to do so
when it applied the amended Rule in respondent’s case, citing his multi-
ple offenses and the circumstances and nature of his second offense.
Respondent sued petitioner Board members, claiming that retroactive
application of the amended Rule violated the Ex Post Facto Clause.
The District Court denied respondent’s motion for discovery and
awarded petitioners summary judgment. The Eleventh Circuit re-
versed.
It found that the amended Rule’s retroactive application was
necessarily an ex post facto violation and that the Rule differed in mate-
rial respects from the change in California parole law sustained in Cali-
fornia Dept. of Corrections v. Morales, 514 U. S. 499.
It did not con-
sider the Board’s internal policies regarding its implementation of the
Rule, ﬁnding, among other things, that such policies were unenforceable
and easily changed.

Held:

1. The Court of Appeals’ analysis failed to reveal whether retroactive
application of the amendment to Rule 475–3–.05(2) violated the Ex Post
Facto Clause. The controlling inquiry is whether such application cre-
ates a sufﬁcient risk of increasing the measure of punishment attached
to the covered crimes. Morales, supra, at 509. Here, the question
is whether amended Rule 475–3–.05(2) creates a signiﬁcant risk of pro-
longing respondent’s incarceration. That risk is not inherent in the
amended Rule’s framework, and it has not otherwise been demonstrated
on the record. While Morales identiﬁed several factors convincing this