Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 333

529US1

Unit: $U40

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

258

GARNER v. JONES

Scalia, J., concurring in part in judgment

California’s Board of Prison Terms discretion to decrease the
frequency. See California Dept. of Corrections v. Morales,
514 U. S. 499, 503 (1995); ante, at 250. Here, there has been
no such change. Today, as at the time of respondent’s of-
fense, the Georgia statute requires only that the Board pro-
vide for automatic “periodic reconsideration,” Ga. Code Ann.
§ 42–9–45 (1982). The length of the period, like the ultimate
question of parole, was and is entrusted to the Board’s
discretion.

Any sensible application of the Ex Post Facto Clause, and
any application faithful to its historical meaning, must draw
a distinction between the penalty that a person can antici-
pate for the commission of a particular crime, and opportuni-
ties for mercy or clemency that may go to the reduction of
the penalty.
I know of no precedent for the proposition that
a defendant is entitled to the same degree of mercy or clem-
ency that he could have expected at the time he committed
his offense. Under the traditional system of minimum-
maximum sentences (20 years to life, for example), it would
be absurd to argue that a defendant would have an ex post
facto claim if the compassionate judge who presided over the
district where he committed his crime were replaced, prior
to the defendant’s trial, by a so-called “hanging judge.”
Discretion to be compassionate or harsh is inherent in the
sentencing scheme, and being denied compassion is one of
the risks that the offender knowingly assumes.

At the margins, to be sure, it may be difﬁcult to distin-
guish between justice and mercy. A statutory parole sys-
tem that reduces a prisoner’s sentence by ﬁxed amounts of
time for good behavior during incarceration can realistically
be viewed as an entitlement—a reduction of the prescribed
penalty—rather than a discretionary grant of leniency. But
that is immeasurably far removed from the present case.
In
Georgia parole, like pardon (which is granted or denied by
the same Board), is—and was at the time respondent com-
It may be denied for
mitted his offense—a matter of grace.