Opinion ID: 1383118
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The present system.

Text: The parole revocation process commences when a parole officer has reasonable cause to believe that a parolee has violated the conditions of his parole. If the officer believes that the parole violation is sufficiently serious to constitute cause for revocation, [1] he may report the violation to his unit supervisor. [2] If the parole agent and his supervisor conclude that there is reasonable cause to believe that [the parolee] has violated his parole and his further liberty does not comport with public welfare or safety, [3] the parolee is taken into custody and placed in the county jail facility without possibility of bail. [4] If the parolee has already been arrested, the officer may place a hold so that the parolee cannot be released on bail. [5] The parole officer's written report on the alleged parole violation, together with the comments of the unit supervisor and district administrator, are then submitted to the Adult Authority for consideration at the weekly meetings of a Parole and Community Services (P&CS) panel. Two P&CS panels, composed of one Adult Authority member and one hearing representative, meet each Friday in both San Francisco and Los Angeles to consider the reports of parole officers and to decide whether parolees in custody should be placed back on parole or have their cases set for parole revocation hearings in Vacaville. [6] A panel may request the parole officer who filed a report to appear at the P&CS proceedings, but the panel ordinarily considers only the officer's written report and the comments of his supervisors. [7] The parolee receives no notice of the proceeding and does not appear. [8] Each panel considers between two and five parole suspensions at each meeting. If the panel finds cause for revocation, it suspends parole, sets a date for a revocation hearing, and orders the transfer of the parolee to the Reception Guidance Center at Vacaville. [9] Parole revocation hearings are conducted at Vacaville within approximately 60 days after the P&SC proceeding. [10] The parolee receives specific notice of the charges against him and may personally appear. [11] If he denies the charges, the hearing representative reads to the parolee the facts on which the charge is based. [12] The parolee may then present written information or his own oral testimony to support his case. [13] The parole officer, whose report forms the basis for the parole suspension, never appears at the revocation hearing, and the parolee often does not see the report and other written material which the representative considers. [14] No witnesses appear to support the charges, and the parolee may not bring witnesses in his own behalf or cross-examine witnesses against him. [15] The parolee may not be represented by counsel at the revocation hearing. [16] Nor may the parolee's attorney or any other member of the public attend the hearing as an observer. [17] No record is kept of the proceeding. [18] The revocation hearings ordinarily run between 15 and 30 minutes and are conducted by two Adult Authority hearing representatives. [19] While one representative considers a case and questions a prisoner, the other representative acquaints himself with the reports of the following case on the calendar. The representatives alternate in reading and hearing cases. [20] Although only one representative can devote full attention to any particular case, both representatives ordinarily concur in the decision to revoke parole. The decision may rest on information in the written reports which is never presented at the hearing. [21] That decision only indicates that the parolee has been found guilty of the charges against him [22] by a preponderance of the evidence [23] and does not state the reasons for the decision. [24] The California Assembly Interim Committee on Criminal Procedure recently summarized the parole revocation process in this state: During this entire process, from the time the parole officer and his unit supervisor first decide to report the alleged violation to the time when the panel resets his term at maximum, the parolee is without any formal rights. Under California law he need not be given notice, he has no right to counsel, no right to present witnesses and no right to cross examine witnesses against him. Indeed, during some of the most important stages of the procedure, he does not even have the right to be present. And when he finally does have the right to be present he has usually been cut off for a month or more from any help that he might have received in preparing his case. Assuming he is innocent or assuming there are compelling circumstances in mitigation of his case, he has no way of marshalling the evidence he will need to convince the panel. Usually he will be hundreds of miles from his home or the scene of the alleged violation. There will be no one he can rely on to interview witnesses, gather evidence, or advise him on how to present his case. He can only speak for himself and he is forced to confront, not witnesses, but sheaves of reports he has never even looked at. The reports themselves are the product of a parole officer who wrote them after he participated in the initial decision to revoke parole. There is no way to check the reliability of the parole officer's observations, no way to evaluate the reliability of his sources, and no way to determine what conscious or unconscious motivations may have dictated what he put in or left out of his report. In short, the parolee is impotent. He is called before a panel which, statistically, revokes parole in 98% of the cases it hears, and his only procedural safeguard is his own ability to argue. [25]