Case Name: STATE of Louisiana ex rel. Theda BERTRAND v. Elayn HUNT, Director, Dept. of Corrections, et al
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1976-01-19
Citations: 325 So. 2d 788
Docket Number: No. 56501
Parties: STATE of Louisiana ex rel. Theda BERTRAND v. Elayn HUNT, Director, Dept. of Corrections, et al.
Judges: TATE, J., dissents and assigns written reasons.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 325
Pages: 788–791

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana ex rel. Theda BERTRAND v. Elayn HUNT, Director, Dept. of Corrections, et al.
No. 56501.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Jan. 19, 1976.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Ossie Brown, Dist. Atty., James E. Boren, Asst. Dist. Atty., for defendant-respondent.
Vincent Wilkins, Jr., Director, Roland T. Huson, III, Appellate Counsel, Baton Rouge, for plaintiff-relator.

Opinion:
SANDERS, Chief Justice.
Relator, Theda Bertrand, applied to this Court for habeas corpus relief, complaining that her detention in St. Gabriel Prison is illegal because her parole was automatically revoked without a final revocation hearing. We granted her writ to determine whether the procedure followed by the State in revoking her parole constituted sufficient compliance with the requirements set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 475, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972), La., 317 So.2d 624 (1975). We find that the State's procedure satisfied the due process requirements and, accordingly, recall the writ.
Relator was convicted of four counts of issuing worthless checks and two counts of abortion. In 1969, the court sentenced her to serve a total of six years imprisonment on these convictions. She was paroled on June 29, 1971, and while on parole she was arrested on October 4, 1973, and charged with transporting forged travelers' checks in violation of a federal criminal statute. On October 17, 1973, a preliminary hearing was held and probable cause was found to believe that relator had violated the condi tion of her parole, specifying that she refrain from criminal conduct. See also LSA-R.S. 15:574.4(H), the statutory embodiment of that condition. On January 28, 1974, relator pleaded guilty to the federal charge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The court sentenced her to six months imprisonment subject to the state court detainer on the parole revocation, and then suspended the sentence, placing her on federally supervised probation for eighteen months. On August 14, 1974, relator's Louisiana parole was automatically revoked pursuant to LSA-R.S. 15:574.10, and she returned to St. Gabriel Prison to serve the remainder of her six-year sentence.
Defense counsel concedes that the preliminary hearing satisfied the requirements delineated for that stage of the proceedings in Morrissy v. Brewer. Therefore, the only question before us is whether, when parole has been revoked automatically because of a conviction of another offense, Morrissey nevertheless requires a second, final revocation hearing. We resolved this question adversely to the position of relator in State ex rel. (Richard) Bertrand v. Hunt, La., 308 So.2d 760 (1975). That holding controls the disposition of the present case.
Morrissey v. Brewer is easily distinguished from the case sub judice. In Morrissey, the petitioners were at liberty on parole when, at the direction of their parole officers, they were arrested for parole violations and incarcerated. The parole violations in Morrissey were not commissions of criminal offenses. Subsequently, without a hearing in any forum, petitioners' paroles were revoked solely on the basis of their parole officers' reports.
The United States Supreme Court found that this procedure did not meet the requirements of Due Process of the Fourteenth Amendment, and proceeded to establish minimal due process guidelines for preliminary and final hearings to determine whether a parolee has violated his parole, and if so, whether that violation warrants revocation of the parole. However, the Court recognized that "not all situations calling for procedural safeguards call for the same kind of procedure," and declared that its goal in establishing the guidelines was to outline an
" . . . informal hearing structured to assure that the finding of a parole violation will be based on verified facts and that the exercise of discretion will be informed by an accurate knowledge of the parolee's behavior." (Italics here and elsewhere ours.)
The Court asserted that the purpose of a final revocation hearing is to:
" . . lead to a final evaluation of any contested relevant facts and consideration of whether the facts as determined warrant revocation. The parolee must have an opportunity to be heard and to show, if he can, that he did not violate the conditions, or, if he did, that circumstances in mitigation suggest that the violation does not warrant revocation."
The Court, however, stated:
" . . . Obviously a parolee cannot relitigate issues determined against him in other forums, as in the situation presented when the revocation is based on conviction of another crime."
In State ex rel. (Richard) Bertrand v. Hunt, supra, we interpreted the foregoing language to dispense with the requirement of a second hearing when the parole violation consists of an out-of-state conviction for a criminal offense.
In the present case, since the conviction was in Louisiana, the statute itself serves to buttress our decision that the require ments of due process have been satisfied. Relator has had an opportunity to be heard in "another forum," the federal court, in which the procedural safeguards are much more stringent than in an informal revocation hearing. Relator's guilty plea obviates any factual issue.
LSA-R.S. 15:574.10 provides:
"When a person is convicted in this state of a felony committed while on parole, his parole shall be deemed revoked as of the date of the commission of the felony. ."
Under the statute, the conviction itself is conclusive that relator committed acts that per se constitute a violation of parole. The mandatory language precludes the exercise of discretion on the part of the parole board. Hence, in the present case, a second revocation hearing would serve no useful purpose.
We hold, as did the trial judge, that in the procedures followed, relator was denied no constitutional rights.
For the reasons assigned, the judgment of the district court is affirmed and the writ is recalled.
TATE, J., dissents and assigns written reasons.
CALOGERO, J., dissents for the reasons assigned by TATE, J.