Opinion ID: 490529
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Inmates for Whom the Procedures Are Required

Text: 44 Plaintiffs appear to assume that the judgment in this case requires the Commission to follow the specified procedures not only for parole grantees but also for inmates for whom the Commission has set only a presumptive parole date as much as 15 years away (presumptive parolees), not an early release date. The judgment does not expressly require this and there are valid reasons why it should not do so. 45 First, the liberty interest of the presumptive parolee occupies a lower place in the inmate-liberty-interest continuum than does the interest of a parole grantee. Not only is the presumptive parolee's release expectation temporally more remote, it is also subject to greater control by the Commission. The release of the presumptive parolee is not conditioned just on the absence of any new unfavorable facts but is also contingent upon an affirmative finding by the Commission that his conduct has been good and that he has an acceptable plan for the period following his release. 28 C.F.R. Sec. 2.12(d) (emphasis added). Thus, the right of the presumptive parolee is significantly more conditional than that of the parole grantee, and the focus of the additional condition may ordinarily be far less fact-specific than is the Commission's focus when charges of specific misconduct or adverse information have been leveled against the parole grantee. The district court did not purport to explore these differences or to analyze whether the same procedures that Drayton ordered for parole grantees would be needed to protect the interests of presumptive parolees. The district court simply relied on Drayton as establishing required procedures. 46 In light of the district court's reliance on Drayton and the absence of any analysis with regard to the presumptive parolee, we conclude that the court did not intend its injunction to reach Commission proceedings involving presumptive parolees in addition to parole grantees, for Drayton plainly focused only on those for whom early release dates had been set. It described such an inmate as ha[ving] the taste of freedom in his mouth, the smell of freedom in the air, the touch of freedom within his grasp. 584 F.2d at 1219. In contrast, under the regulations in effect when Drayton was decided, a presumptive parole date could be as much as four years away, see 28 C.F.R. Sec. 2.12(c) (1977), and Drayton did not purport to deal with these more remote expectations. Certainly Drayton could not have had in mind today's presumptive parolee, whose presumptive date of release under current regulations may be as much as 15 years away. 47 Lastly, it appears that all of the plaintiffs in this series of proceedings, from Williams onward, have been parole grantees, not merely presumptive parolees. Plainly the two named plaintiffs here, Green and Porter, were parole grantees; and in light of the greater liberty interest of parole grantees, plaintiffs' adequacy to represent a class of inmates who were merely presumptive parolees is somewhat suspect. 48 Accordingly, we construe the judgment as requiring the Commission to provide the specified procedures for parole grantees and as not governing the rights of presumptive parolees, and we affirm it as thus construed.