Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 337

529US1

Unit: $U40

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

262

GARNER v. JONES

Souter, J., dissenting

violent criminals”); Georgia State Board of Pardons and
Paroles, Violent-Crime Lifers Who Died in Prison (June
4, 1998), http://www.pap.state.ga.us/pr
98.html (quoting
Chairman Walter Ray as stating that “ ‘obtaining parole on
a life-sentence is increasingly rare’ ” and reporting that
“[b]ecause of strict sentencing laws as well as the Board’s
conservative paroling policy, agency ofﬁcials predict succes-
sive ﬁscal years will reﬂect a rising number of inmates for
whom a life sentence does indeed mean just that”).2
If re-
spondent had ever been allowed to undertake discovery, fur-
ther statements of punitive intent may well have been forth-
coming. Although we have never decided that a purpose to
increase punishment, absent a punitive effect, itself invali-
dates a retroactive policy change, see Lynce v. Mathis, 519
U. S. 433, 443 (1997), evidence of purpose certainly conﬁrms
the inference of substantial risk of longer sentences drawn
It is, after all, reasonable to expect that members of
above.
a parole board acting with a purpose to get tough succeed in
doing just that.

On the other side, there is no indication that the board
adopted the new policy merely to obviate useless hearings
or save administrative resources, the justiﬁcation the Court
accepted in Morales. See 514 U. S., at 511.
Indeed, since
a parole board review in Georgia means that one board mem-
ber examines an inmate’s ﬁle without a hearing and makes a
decision, and no speciﬁc ﬁndings are required to deny parole,
any interpretation of the rule change as a measure to con-
serve resources is weak at best, and insufﬁcient to counter
the inference of a substantial risk that the prisoners who will
get subsequent mandatory parole considerations years after

2 As Georgia’s punitiveness increased, the number of persons on pa-
role decreased. See Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, Geor-
gia’s Criminal Justice Population Increased by 9% in 1998; Only Decrease
Was in Persons on Parole (Feb. 1, 1999), http://www.pap.state.ga.us/
pr

99.html. News releases available in Clerk of Court’s case ﬁle.