Opinion ID: 1426020
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Majority v. Individual

Text: ¶37 The trial court, on its own initiative, stated in a footnote that section 77-27-11(3) may violate article VII, section 12, the Utah Constitutional provision that establishes the Board, because it allows any member of the board to issue retaking warrants. The trial court found this statute to conflict with the constitutional mandate that the Board by majority vote and upon other conditions as provided by statute, may grant parole . . . subject to regulations as provided by statute. Utah Const. art. VII, § 12, cl. 2(a) (emphasis added). The trial court concluded that an individual board member does thus not have the legal authority to issue a retaking warrant without the majority vote required by article VII, section 12. ¶38 We find this to overly expand the range of Board activities requiring full Board participation. The purpose for requiring a majority vote in matters of granting parole, remitting fines, forfeitures and restitution orders, commuting punishments, and granting pardons is to ensure that a prisoner is afforded his full measure of due process. This is more clearly articulated in the next provision of the constitution, which states: A fine, forfeiture, or restitution order may not be remitted and a commutation, parole, or pardon may not be granted except after a full hearing before the board, in open session, and after previous notice of the time and place of the hearing has been given. Utah Const. art. VII, § 12, cl. 2(b). ¶39 To insist that by majority vote and upon other conditions as provided by statute means that every decision made by the Board must be approved by a majority is to ignore the fact that the same rigor of process is not due each of those decisions. A more practical and logical reading suggests that some tasks, those more ministerial in nature than the grant or revocation of parole, can be performed by one individual. At oral argument, Mr. Jones' counsel stated that such retaking warrants are issued five or six times a day. With such a high frequency, a majority vote on each warrant would be an administrative clog to the system that greatly outweighed any benefit to the due process of the parolees in question. ¶40 While the issuance of a retaking warrant is not as ministerial as, for example, filling out forms, it is clearly less demanding of due process safeguards than granting or revoking parole. The purpose of a retaking warrant is not to grant or deny rights to a parolee; rather, its practical purpose is to initiate the process of revoking parole, a duty which mandates a majority action. ¶41 This view is also consistent with the constitutional history of this provision. We do not suppose that, when the Board was comprised of its original membership, the governor, the attorney general, and the justices of the supreme court, a majority vote by these individuals was required before any of the Board's powers could be invoked. Instead, a majority vote was more likely meant for activities that involve the most important rights of a prisonersuch as the granting or revoking of parole, extending pardons, and the like. ¶42 We are also led to this conclusion by the twice-mentioned authority of the legislature to shape the operations of the Board. Where the constitution has so clearly delegated to the legislature the authority to prescribe the detailed operations of the Board, we will not exercise our authority to declare its directives unconstitutional. Accordingly, we do not hold that section 77-27-11(3) is in constitutional conflict with its own progenitor, article VII, section 12.