Opinion ID: 3014592
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: served the minimum term of imprisonment;

Text: (ii) participated in the program under subsection (a); and (iii) agreed to comply with any special conditions of parole imposed for therapy or counseling for sex offenders, including sexually violent predators. . . . Section 3 of Act No. 2000-98 (December 20, 2000), P.L. 721, No. 98, provides in relevant part: This act shall apply as follows: (1) [T]he addition of 42 Pa.C.S. § 9718.1 shall apply to offenses committed on or after the effective date of this act. 10. It is not disputed that one part of the prescribed J.J. Peters Institute program required admission of guilt and that Thomas did not participate in that part. 22 parole, factors that were not already incorporated into the Guidelines forms. The Board failed to comply with our instruction and again “defaulted in its duty to consider factors other than the underlying offense and risk to public safety.” Mickens-Thomas I, at 388. Defying our instruction, the Board used the above two factors in the same old manner to foreclose any consideration of factors showing Thomas’s rehabilitation and accomplishments. The Board wrote: There are no meaningful circumstances countervailing the Guideline recommendation to refuse parole . . . . Your educational achievement and lack of assaultive behavior while in prison do not alter this conclusion, for the following reasons: (1) Your assaultive sexual behavior, not your lack of education, has caused your present predicament. Sexual criminality and higher education are not mutually exclusive, since your sexual problems have not been adequately addressed, you remain, in the Board’s opinion, a dangerous sexual offender, whatever your education. Board’s Notice, IV, at 4-5, A31-32. In the same manner of its post hoc rationalization of Thomas’s prior history of alcohol abuse, the Board uses the historical factors of “instant offense” and “victim injury” to foreclose any possibility of parole, in an apparent effort to circumvent the constitutional ex post facto prohibitions. The Board’s use of the historical factors for this purpose is also tantamount to nullifying Thomas’s commutation and resentencing him to life imprisonment without eligibility of parole in violation of the Pennsylvania pre-1996 law and parole guidelines.