Opinion ID: 394034
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Are the Policies of the Ex Post Facto Clause Implicated?

Text: 47 There is another point to be made at the outset of our analysis: Warren's case implicates the policies behind the ex post facto clause hardly at all. This is because the reparole guidelines were promulgated after Warren committed his first crime but before Warren was released on parole and before he committed his fresh offenses. This means, as a consideration of the aims of the ex post facto prohibition demonstrates, that the use of the guidelines in Warren's case cannot offend the policies behind the ex post facto clause. 48 For after the promulgation of the guidelines, Warren was not powerless to avoid their impact. He knew or is charged with notice 51 of the new guidelines and the consequences that would await him should he commit another crime while on parole. Moreover, the Parole Commission, when it promulgated the guidelines, had no way to know which convicts then incarcerated, if any, would commit crimes while on parole in the future and thereby subject themselves to the force of the new system. For these reasons none of the principal evils the ex post facto clause was designed to prevent is threatened by the use of the guidelines to aid consideration of Warren's case. 49 First, the adoption of the guidelines could not be used to perpetrate legislative abuses of the type the clause was principally designed to prevent, because at the time the guidelines were promulgated the parole authorities had no way to determine whom the guidelines would affect. Thus no one in Warren's position could have been unfairly singled out for vindictive or malicious condemnation. Second, Warren was provided fair notice on which he could rely regarding the consequences of prohibited conduct while he was released on parole. And finally, assuming hypothetically that the guidelines do in fact add to an inmate's punishment for crimes committed on parole, the imposition of the guidelines serves the core purpose of the criminal law, special deterrence of future crime. There is thus no danger the guidelines could be used inappropriately to invoke the drastic stigma and focused penalties of the criminal law in circumstances in which the central aim of the criminal law could not possibly be achieved. In sum, as applied to Warren and others like him, the guidelines do not offend the policies behind the ex post facto clause. 50 Support for this position can be found in Gryger v. Burke. 52 In that case the Supreme Court upheld a recidivist statute calling for augmented penalties for subsequent convictions for the same offense, as applied to a criminal whose first offense occurred before the statute was passed. The recidivist statute in Gryger enhanced the penalty to be imposed on past wrongdoers for future misconduct, just as the reparole guidelines hypothetically augment the penalty for the future crimes of past wrongdoers committed while on parole. Both, upon enactment or promulgation, affected past wrongdoers, but neither runs afoul of the aims of the ex post facto clause because the operation of each can be triggered only by future crimes. To put this in other words, in Warren's case the reparole guidelines would not have affected him but for his subsequent criminal convictions. 53 Gryger thus appears to dispose of Warren's case on the basis that the guidelines if they punish at all punish acts committed after they were promulgated. 51 For formal, technical reasons, however, Gryger may not control. The problem is this: Warren is incarcerated for a federal crime but the crimes he committed while on parole were state crimes. The United States Parole Commission is without authority to punish Warren for his state offenses; whatever action it takes in cognizance of those crimes can only be part of the punishment for Warren's federal crimes. That is, strictly speaking, when the Parole Commission judges Warren unfit for reparole on the basis that he committed state crimes while on parole, it is not actually punishing him for those state crimes that is for the state authorities but merely using the fact of those crimes as a basis for prediction of Warren's reparole prognosis. Not until Warren is turned over to the state authorities will his punishment for his state offenses begin. Formally, then, the guidelines are an incident of Warren's punishment for his first crime, which was committed before the guidelines were promulgated. Thus, while the reparole guidelines may operate for ex post facto purposes very much like the recidivist statute in Gryger, such functional considerations may be formally inapposite. 54 52