Opinion ID: 394034
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Has Warren's Punishment Been Increased?

Text: 41 To offend the ex post facto clause the guidelines must somehow increase Warren's punishment. The existence of the guidelines, however, may not in fact augment Warren's punishment, either actually or potentially. First, the Parole Commission may choose not to follow the guidelines in Warren's case. It may reparole him earlier than suggested by the guidelines. Or it may refuse to reparole him in spite of guideline recommendations to the contrary. Whether to follow the guidelines or to change the guidelines is, after all, at the Commission's discretion. 42 But even if the Commission chooses to follow the guidelines, it cannot be said that Warren is thereby worse off than he would have been under the old system; no one knows what the old Parole Board would have done in Warren's case. Had it continued to operate, the Board might have reacted with great disfavor to the news that Warren had committed two crimes while on parole and refused ever to reparole him. If that had been its decision, Warren would have had no grounds to complain and no recourse elsewhere. 48 43 Furthermore, we cannot say even that the category of prisoners to which Warren belongs (based on his salient factor and offense severity scores) has been disadvantaged by the introduction of the guideline system. The Commission's guideline table grew directly out of the Parole Board's past practice. The offense severity index, for example, is simply an average of the subjective offense severity evaluations of individual hearing examiners and Parole Board members. 49 Similarly, the salient factor score is based on the Board's experience with the success rate on parole of groups of inmates with similar characteristics. 50 As a result, the guidelines embody what may well have been the Board's practice anyway. 44 The adoption of the guidelines has had one effect of which we can be fairly certain, however. Great deviations from the average term must now be far less frequent than before. Warren must now be relatively unlikely to receive a reparole term much below or above the average. But it is unclear that this smaller random scatter disadvantages Warren, because the reduction in his chance of receiving a far belowaverage reparole term has been compensated by a corresponding decrease in his chance of receiving a far above-average term. 45 Thus the guidelines may not offend the ex post facto clause in Warren's case simply because they may not have worsened his position. But we do not base our resolution of this case on this ground alone. For the purposes of this case we can assume that the existence of the guidelines somehow does operate to Warren's detriment. 46