Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 323

529US1

Unit: $U40

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

248

GARNER v. JONES

Opinion of the Court

and the “circumstances and nature of ” the second offense.
App. 53–54.

In 1995 the Parole Board determined that our decision in
California Dept. of Corrections v. Morales, 514 U. S. 499
(1995), had rejected the rationale underlying the Eleventh
Circuit’s decision in Akins. The Board resumed scheduling
parole reconsiderations at least every eight years, and so at
respondent’s 1995 review it set the next consideration for
2003. Had the Board wished to do so, it could have short-
ened the interval, but the 8-year period was selected based
on respondent’s “multiple offenses” and the “circumstances
and nature of ” his second offense. App. 54. Respondent,
acting pro se, brought this action under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42
U. S. C. § 1983, claiming, inter alia, the amendment to Rule
475–3–.05(2) violated the Ex Post Facto Clause. The suit
was ﬁled against individual members of the Parole Board,
petitioners in this Court. Respondent requested leave to
conduct discovery to support his claim, but the District
Court denied the motion and entered summary judgment for
petitioners. The court determined the amendment to Rule
475–3–.05(2) “change[d] only the timing between reconsider-
ation hearings” for inmates sentenced to life in prison,
thereby “relieving the Board of the necessity of holding pa-
role hearings for prisoners who have no reasonable chance
of being released.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 27a. Because the
Parole Board’s policies permit inmates, upon a showing of “a
change in their circumstance or where the Board receives
new information,” App. 56, to receive expedited reconsidera-
tion for parole, the court further concluded the amendment
created “ ‘only the most speculative and attenuated possibil-
ity’ ” of increasing a prisoner’s measure of punishment, App.
to Pet. for Cert. 27a (quoting Morales, supra, at 509).

The Court of Appeals reversed, ﬁnding the amended Geor-
gia Rule distinguishable in material respects from the Cali-
fornia law sustained in Morales. 164 F. 3d 589 (CA11 1999).
In ﬁnding the Georgia law violative of the Ex Post Facto