Opinion ID: 1467272
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: 1996-2000: The First Parole Hearing, the First Habeas Corpus Petition and First Interim Parole Hearing

Text: Furnari's first parole hearing was in December 1996. At the hearing the Government produced evidence of Furnari's involvement in a number of murders and other violent acts. The Parole Commission assigned Furnari an offense severity rating of Category Eight, the most severe rating. See 28 C.F.R. § 2.20. Category Eight offenders are not granted parole in the absence of compelling mitigating circumstances. The Parole Commission recommended that Furnari continue to serve his sentence until a 15-year reconsideration hearing in December 2011. In its Notice of Action the Parole Commission specified that Furnari's involvement in the Lucchese crime family and his participation in murders and violence were the pertinent factors warranting consideration for release after more than 148 months served. See 28 C.F.R. § 2.20 (For decisions exceeding the lower limit of the applicable guideline category by more than 48 months, the [Parole] Commission will specify the pertinent case factors upon which it relied in reaching its decision.). Furnari's applicable parole guideline category as set forth in 28 C.F.R. § 2.20 was 100+ months predicated on his offender characteristics. Of course, service of 148 months imprisonment merely made Furnari eligible for parole rather than ensuring that he would be paroled. On August 19, 1997, the National Appeals Board (Board), the administrative appeals authority in the parole system, affirmed the decision of the Parole Commission. In reaching its result the Board relied in part on information that Anthony Casso, a violent mafia member, had supplied. In justifying this reliance the Board pointed out that there was corroboration for some of Casso's information. In February 1998 Furnari petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court contending that his Category Eight rating was erroneous. The court denied Furnari's petition on April 12, 1999, finding that there was a rational basis for the Parole Commission's decision assigning him that category. Furnari then appealed to this Court. While that appeal was pending, the Parole Commission granted Furnari a statutory Interim Parole Hearing in December 1998 pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4208(h) and 28 C.F.R. § 2.14. During the hearing Furnari argued that Casso's information was unreliable and he presented an affidavit from an assistant United States attorney supporting his contention. Nevertheless the Parole Commission did not change the prior order requiring Furnari to serve his sentence until a 15-year reconsideration hearing in December 2011. The Board affirmed the order of the Parole Commission on April 2, 1999, and issued a Notice of Action on Appeal. In our disposition of Furnari's appeal from the denial of his first habeas corpus petition we took judicial notice of Furnari's December 1998 interim hearing and the April 2, 1999 Notice of Action on Appeal. Furnari v. Warden, Allenwood F.C.I., 218 F.3d 250, 255-56 (3d Cir.2000). We found that the Parole Commission and the Board erred because they did not explain whether they had continued to deny Furnari parole based on Casso's information and, if so, why they did so. Id. at 257. Consequently, we vacated the District Court's order denying the habeas corpus petition and remanded the case with the direction that the District Court enter a conditional order granting the petition and directing the Parole Commission to provide a new statement of reasons for its decision or conduct a de novo hearing on Furnari's parole application. Id. at 258. In response to the District Court's order implementing our mandate, the Parole Commission conducted a de novo hearing in December 2000 and upheld Furnari's Category Eight rating as well as its decision to postpone a rehearing for more than 148 months. Furnari appealed to the Board which on April 24, 2001, affirmed the order of the Parole Commission, stating that the Parole Commission had chosen to rely on Casso's information in part because information from other witnesses corroborated it.