Opinion ID: 4229402
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: mr. neese was entitled to greater

Text: PROCESS THAN HE RECEIVED AT HIS ORIGINAL PAROLE GRANT HEARINGS ¶ 25 With these principles in mind, we turn to what procedural protections the Parole Board must respect before it determines that someone who has never before been adjudicated a sex offender is one and effectively conditions his early release on his participation in sex offender treatment. In Labrum, the petitioner argued that he was entitled (1) to “receive adequate notice to prepare for [his] parole release hearing” and (2) to “receive copies or a summary of the information in the [Parole] Board’s file on which the [Parole] Board will rely.” Labrum v. Utah State Bd. of Pardons, 870 P.2d 902, 904 (Utah 1993). We agreed. We explained that providing an inmate with notice of both his parole hearing and the information on which the Parole Board intended to rely in making its determination would both reduce the risk of error (by allowing the inmate to point out factual inaccuracies in his file) and promote the inmate’s perception of fairness (by ensuring that his concerns were taken into account by the Parole Board). Id. at 909. And we held that these protections helped promote sentence uniformity, the rationality of plea bargains, and good behavior in prison. Id. at 908. ¶ 26 Labrum didn’t purport to exhaustively list the procedural protections to which the Utah Constitution entitles an inmate in an original parole hearing. Instead, Labrum “emphasize[d] . . . that this opinion . . . addresses only those procedures specifically requested by this petitioner.” Id. at 911. It also explained that, in many cases, the only question will be whether the information before the Parole Board has basic factual inaccuracies that the inmate can correct simply by bringing them to the hearing officer’s attention. See id. at 909–10 (quoting Greenholtz v. Inmates of Neb. Penal & Corr. Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 33 & n.15 (1979) (Marshall, J., dissenting)). But it left for another day “[t]he extent to which additional due process protections must be 9 NEESE v. PAROLE BOARD Opinion of the Court afforded inmates in this and other proceedings in the parole system,” which it recognized would “require case-by-case review.” Id. at 911. ¶ 27 Applying the framework that Labrum articulated, we conclude that the case before us calls for additional procedural protections, over and above notice of a hearing and the opportunity to review the information on which the Parole Board will rely in making its determination about whether, and when, to fix Mr. Neese’s initial release date. The Parole Board’s conduct in this case is, at a minimum, closely analogous to a sentencing court’s considering uncharged or unconvicted conduct in fixing a defendant’s sentence. 4 See id. at 908 (due process protections apply when Parole Board acting analogously to a sentencing court). In this case, the Parole Board has concluded that Mr. Neese committed a sexual offense of which he’s never been convicted (or otherwise found liable), that Mr. Neese was unsuccessfully tried on, and culpability for which Mr. Neese specifically bargained away in plea negotiations. ¶ 28 In this circumstance—essentially turning the presumption of innocence on its head and imprisoning a person for decades for a sex crime they’ve never been convicted of—the two “critical functions” of procedural due process—minimizing error and promoting the perception of fairness—require greater procedural protections than thin notice and the opportunity to review the Parole Board’s information. ¶ 29 Nor is simply giving the inmate an opportunity to speak on his own behalf enough to reduce the risk of error when, as here, unconvicted sexual conduct logically distinct from the offenses of conviction is at issue. See Neel v. Holden, 886 P.2d 1097, 1103 (Utah 1994) (“[T]he touchstone of due process in the context of parole hearings is whether the proposed procedural due process requirement substantially furthers the accuracy and reliability of the [Parole] Board’s fact-finding process.”). This case is different from those instances where the Parole Board is reviewing presumptively reliable court and disciplinary files or otherwise taking into account undisputed background facts about the inmate or his victim. Cf. id. (denying that due process provision gives an inmate the right to have counsel address the Parole Board when the inmate “failed to show how the further participation of counsel at the hearing would have affected the 4 We take care to say “at a minimum” because it may be more accurate for us to describe what happened here as a lopsided trial. 10 Cite as: 2017 UT 89 Opinion of the Court accuracy of the information considered by the [Parole] Board”); Monson v. Carver, 928 P.2d 1017, 1030 (Utah 1996) (denying an inmate the right to call character witnesses). When the Parole Board is assessing whether an inmate has committed unconvicted conduct, it’s sitting as a judicial fact-finder for purposes of parole adjudicating the inmate guilty of a criminal offense of which the inmate was never convicted. In both criminal trials and the closely related context of prison disciplinary proceedings, where prison authorities seek to determine whether an inmate has committed a disciplinary infraction, due process affords inmates greater procedural protections than Mr. Neese received. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 564, 566 (1974) (with exceptions for prison safety, inmates have due process right “to call witnesses and present documentary evidence” in prison disciplinary proceedings because “the right to present evidence is basic to a fair hearing”; they also have a right to a detailed written rationale of the disciplinary determination); see also Rock v. Arkansas, 483 U.S. 44, 52 (1987) (compulsory process in criminal cases). ¶ 30 Additional procedural protections are particularly important when the Parole Board is considering whether an inmate has committed an unconvicted sex offense. The determination that an inmate has committed a sex offense triggers an unusually—perhaps uniquely—harsh set of consequences. Construing the record in the light most favorable to Mr. Neese, as we must, it appears that the Parole Board places significant and perhaps determinative weight on whether an inmate deemed to be a sex offender has participated in sex offender treatment in making its early release determinations. But a prerequisite to participating in sex offender treatment is admitting to having committed a sex offense. See State v. Humphrey, 2003 UT App 333, ¶ 5, 79 P.3d 960 (noting that sex offender treatment programs require inmates to “admit[] guilt”). Thus, unlike in other situations where the Parole Board might erroneously conclude that an inmate has committed unconvicted conduct and ask that the inmate participate in additional prison programming, when the Parole Board erroneously determines that an inmate is a sex offender, that inmate can’t truthfully participate in the treatment program. Unconvicted sex offenses thus pose a unique problem that requires unique procedural protections. ¶ 31 There are additional reasons why the interest in minimizing error is particularly urgent in cases where the Parole Board has determined that an inmate has committed a sex offense of which he’s not been convicted, and where—as here—it’s alleged that this 11 NEESE v. PAROLE BOARD Opinion of the Court determination has caused the Department of Corrections to classify the inmate as a sex offender. Inmates who are classified as sex offenders are beaten and raped at significantly higher rates than others in the prison population. See Renchenski v. Williams, 622 F.3d 315, 326 (3d Cir. 2010) (“[S]ex offenders are considered an anathema in the inmate subculture . . . [and] inmate norms call for their savage beating.” (alterations in original) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)); Alice Ristroph, Sexual Punishments, 15 COLUM. J. GENDER & L. 139, 159–60 (2006) (“[S]ex offenders are a distinct and disfavored category within prison populations, subject to heightened abuse from both corrections officers and fellow inmates. By many reports, sex offenders are themselves disproportionately likely to be the target of sexual assault in prison.” (citations omitted)); see also U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE, NATIONAL PRISON RAPE ELIMINATION COMMISSION REPORT 75 (2009), https://perma.cc/Y762-K8U5 (noting that inmates with “prior convictions for sex offenses against an adult or child” face a heightened “risk of victimization” in prison). Additionally, sex offender treatment is highly invasive and degrading. Among other things, male participants are required to undergo penile plethysmograph tests, in which they’re shown pornography while their penis is hooked to a device that measures blood flow and, hence, arousal. See UTAH ADMIN. CODE R. 251-109-6(2). According to Mr. Neese’s pleadings, they’re also removed from the general prison population and placed in more restrictive conditions and in closer proximity to sexual predators. These deleterious effects, when coupled with the problem that it’s impossible for a person who has erroneously been classified as a sex offender to truthfully participate in sex offender treatment, make the risk of error in cases where the Parole Board decides that an inmate has committed an unconvicted sex offense particularly acute. ¶ 32 Additional procedural protections are also needed to protect the integrity of the parole-grant process and to promote the other criminal procedure values that Labrum seeks to safeguard: uniformity in sentences, rational plea bargaining, and good behavior in prison. Labrum, 870 P.2d at 908. As far as the record before us reveals, Mr. Neese has never been convicted of a sex offense or adjudicated a sex offender in a disciplinary, juvenile, or any other proceeding. While he was tried for a sex offense, the trial ended in a mistrial, and Mr. Neese subsequently entered a plea agreement only to other, nonsexual charges. In short, Mr. Neese accepted an offer to plead to nonsexual crimes after having steadfastly maintained that he was 12 Cite as: 2017 UT 89 Opinion of the Court innocent of sexual misconduct, having gone to trial to hold the State to its burden of proving him guilty of a sex offense and having not been convicted. We think an inmate in this position would justly question the integrity of a system in which the Parole Board could, after all this, adjudge him a sex offender and postpone his release date for up to twenty-eight years based solely on unproven allegations and without giving the inmate the opportunity to call witnesses or affording him a meaningful explanation of its decision. ¶ 33 The risk of unjustified sentencing disparities in such a system is great. By the same token, defendants will be justifiably wary of accepting plea deals if they know that bargained-for dismissed charges, on which they have steadfastly maintained their innocence and that are not logically implicit in the factual basis of their allocution, can come roaring back at their parole hearing and result in a sentence decades longer than the sentence all parties contemplated based on the sentencing matrix at the time. And, given that the perception of fairness is important to good behavior in prison, this value will also be wellserved by according inmates in Mr. Neese’s shoes the procedural protections that basic fairness requires. See id. ¶ 34 The transcripts of the parole-grant hearings in this case underscore the need for additional procedural protections for inmates like Mr. Neese. In both his initial parole hearing and his rehearing in 2014, Mr. Neese testified consistently and emphatically that he wasn’t a sexual offender. The transcripts of these hearings reveal that both his account of the events of the night on which he was accused of committing rape and his explanation of why the alleged victim falsely accused him have surface plausibility. We’re hard pressed to see how Mr. Neese could have mounted a more effective defense while availing himself only of the basic due process protections to which Labrum entitles all inmates. Yet, without explaining why, the Parole Board chose to believe unproven allegations in a police report over Mr. Neese’s explanation of why they were false. We lack confidence in the accuracy of these proceedings. ¶ 35 On appeal, the Parole Board argues that because Mr. Neese isn’t entitled to parole, he can’t have a “protectable liberty interest” in early release that would trigger the protections of due process over and above what Labrum already requires. The Parole Board directs our attention to federal cases holding that, in discretionary parole systems, parole boards may ask inmates to participate in sex offender treatment 13 NEESE v. PAROLE BOARD Opinion of the Court and even make participation a precondition to early release without according any process at all. ¶ 36 The Parole Board appears to be correct that Mr. Neese doesn’t enjoy federal procedural due process protections in a discretionary parole grant hearing. Under federal law, the Due Process Clause applies only to prospective parolees who have a protected “liberty interest” in early release. Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 477 (1995). But only prospective parolees who enjoy a legal entitlement or presumption in favor of early release—for example, because a statute presumptively entitles them to good-time credit—are deemed to have such a liberty interest. See Greenholtz, 442 U.S. at 7 (“The Due Process Clause applies when government action deprives a person of liberty or property . . . [but t]here is no constitutional or inherent right of a convicted person to be conditionally released before the expiration of a valid sentence.”); see also Bd. of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369, 373 (1987) (“[T]he presence of a parole system by itself does not give rise to a constitutionally protected liberty interest in parole release.”). Because discretionary parole systems don’t create presumptive entitlements to early release, the federal Due Process Clause doesn’t apply to require any particular process before the Parole Board (1) denies early release based, in part, on its determination that an inmate is a sex offender or even (2) makes the inmate’s participation in sex offender treatment a precondition of early release. See, e.g., Straley v. Utah Bd. of Pardons, 582 F.3d 1208, 1214– 15 (10th Cir. 2009) (Because “[t]he Utah parole statutes grant the [Parole] Board complete discretion in making parole decisions [and an inmate] has no state entitlement to parole . . . [t]he Utah parole statutes . . . do not create a liberty interest entitling [an inmate] to federal due process protections.”); Hughes v. Owens, 320 F. App’x 271, 272 (5th Cir. 2009) (“It is axiomatic that because Texas prisoners have no protected liberty interest in parole they cannot mount a challenge against any state parole review procedure on procedural (or substantive) Due Process grounds.” (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)); Grennier v. Frank, 453 F.3d 442, 446 (7th Cir. 2006) (holding that there is no “liberty or property interest in the prospect of parole under Wisconsin’s discretionary system” and therefore no due process right to hearing before parole board may consider failure of inmate not convicted of sex offense to participate in sex offender treatment). ¶ 37 Mr. Neese has adduced no contrary authority; each of the cases that Mr. Neese cites for the proposition that the federal Due Process Clause entitles inmates to procedural protections before they 14 Cite as: 2017 UT 89 Opinion of the Court may be classified as sex offenders first found a protected liberty interest based on an underlying statutory entitlement to release that the sex offender classification jeopardized. See, e.g., Coleman v. Dretke, 395 F.3d 216, 225 (5th Cir. 2004) (holding that parolees have protected liberty interest in not being required to participate in sex offender treatment); Gwinn v. Awmiller, 354 F.3d 1211, 1217 (10th Cir. 2004) (holding that classification as sex offender that, by operation of law, reduced rate at which inmate could earn good time credits interferes with protected liberty interest); Neal v. Shimoda, 131 F.3d 818, 829 (9th Cir. 1997) (holding that inmate’s protected liberty interest is implicated when “State’s regulations render the inmate completely ineligible for parole [to which the inmate is otherwise statutorily entitled] if the [sex offender] treatment program is not satisfactorily completed”). ¶ 38 We acknowledge that in Sandin v. Conner, the United States Supreme Court retreated somewhat from the view that statutory and regulatory entitlements are necessary or sufficient to create protected liberty interests, and that Sandin instead urged courts to focus on the functional questions whether a parole or correctional decision has imposed an “atypical and significant hardship” on the inmate or “will inevitably affect the duration of [the] sentence.” 515 U.S. at 484, 487. But federal circuit courts that have considered whether, after Sandin, inmates in discretionary sentencing schemes have any protected liberty interest in early release have uniformly concluded that they don’t. See, e.g., Jenner v. Nikolas, 828 F.3d 713, 717 (8th Cir. 2016) (Sandin doesn’t change the rule that absent a statutory right to parole there’s no “protected liberty interest” for purposes of Due Process Clause); Duemmel v. Fischer, 368 F. App’x 180, 182 (2d Cir. 2010) (holding that an inmate in discretionary parole system not entitled to due process before participation in sex offender treatment made a prerequisite for parole eligibility because, absent indication that inmate enjoys a “presumption of parole release,” no indication that the requirement “will inevitably affect the duration of his sentence” (quoting Sandin, 515 U.S. at 487)); Michael v. Ghee, 498 F.3d 372, 378 (6th Cir. 2007) (noting that “Sandin was decided only in the context of prison conditions, not parole eligibility” and concluding that an inmate “under a discretionary parole system” has no protected liberty interest (quoting Swihart v. Wilkinson, 209 F. App’x 456, 458–59 (6th Cir. 2006))); McQuillion v. Duncan, 306 F.3d 895, 903 (9th Cir. 2002) (“Sandin does not deal with a prisoner’s liberty interest in parole and does not overrule Greenholtz and Allen.” (citing Ellis v. District of Columbia, 84 F.3d 1413, 1417–18 15 NEESE v. PAROLE BOARD Opinion of the Court (D.C. Cir. 1996))); Ellis, 84 F.3d at 1418 (“Until the Court instructs us otherwise, we must follow Greenholtz and Allen because, unlike Sandin, they are directly on point. Both cases deal with a prisoner’s liberty interest in parole; Sandin does not. And so we return to the language of the regulations.”); Orellana v. Kyle, 65 F.3d 29, 32 (5th Cir. 1995) (Sandin doesn’t change the fact that because inmates “ha[ve] no liberty interest in obtaining parole in Texas[‘s discretionary parole system], [they] cannot complain of the constitutionality of procedural devices attendant to parole decisions.”). ¶ 39 So the Parole Board is likely right that Mr. Neese doesn’t presently enjoy a federally protected liberty interest in parole. But the federal cases don’t support the Parole Board’s contention that Labrum sets the ceiling for state due process protections, and they’re curious cases to press into that service. Instead, if the logic of these cases applied under Utah’s Constitution, we’d have to overrule Labrum and hold that our constitution requires the same “liberty interest” analysis that the federal courts employ. But the Parole Board doesn’t ask us to overrule Labrum, and, even more importantly, we believe that Labrum got it right: being kept in prison, potentially for decades longer than one otherwise would, is a paradigmatic example of a deprivation of liberty. Moreover, to the extent that the Parole Board asks us to conclude that Labrum is confined to its facts, we decline the invitation. The Parole Board has given us no cause to repudiate the reasoning of Labrum, and our task is to faithfully apply our precedent. We adhere to Labrum absent any argument or indication that it should be overruled. See State v. Steed, 2015 UT 76, ¶ 11 n.9, 357 P.3d 547 (“We should tread cautiously in overruling precedent and this is especially true where the parties have failed to brief or even argue that a particular precedent should be overruled.” (citation omitted)). ¶ 40 Based on Labrum’s framework and the undisputed facts (1) that Mr. Neese has never been adjudicated a sex offender in any proceeding and (2) that the Parole Board nonetheless determined that he’d committed a sex offense and thus took his refusal to participate in sex offender treatment into consideration as a factor bearing on whether he should be released, we conclude that Mr. Neese was entitled to greater due process protections than he received. 16 Cite as: 2017 UT 89 Opinion of the Court