Opinion ID: 483876
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: disparity with co-defendants

Text: 24 Roberts' second claim is that the Parole Commission violated her rights to due process and equal protection by giving her co-defendants a lower severity rating than she received. Convicted on the same conspiracy count, as well as on counts on which Roberts was not convicted, all three co-defendants received severity ratings of 6. Roberts received a rating of 8. Roberts' contention of disparate treatment is based on her argument that the Parole Commission guidelines call for the same severity rating to be given to the same conspiracy offense. The district court dismissed this claim, ruling that Roberts had failed to state an equal protection or due process claim. 25 In alleging that she received a higher severity rating for the same conspiracy offense, Roberts misunderstands the Parole Commission's guidelines for evaluating the severity of an offense. The offense behavior rated by Commission is not the same as the count on which a prisoner was convicted. As the district court properly held, the Commission is not limited to evidence adduced at trial in determining the severity rating. See 18 U.S.C. Sec. 4207 (1982); 28 C.F.R. Sec. 2.19. Nor is the Commission required to find that each co-conspirator was involved with the same amount of heroin. Any participant in a conspiracy may be equally culpable as a matter of law. The parole inquiry into offense severity is much more factual, however, and focuses on the actual offense behavior of the individual prisoner. See U.S. Parole Commission, Rules and Procedures Manual Sec. 2.20-04 at 71 (1985). The Commission must therefore determine what amounts of heroin each co-conspirator was actually involved with, and whether that involvement was peripheral or managerial. See C.F.R. Sec. 2.20. The Commission determined that all four co-defendants had managerial or proprietary roles in the drug operation. 1 The Commission also determined that different co-defendants were involved with different amounts of heroin. Both determinations were entirely within the discretion of the Parole Commission. 26 The district court properly dismissed Roberts' claims as being without merit. As with Roberts' first due process allegation, this failure to state a constitutional claim means that we lack jurisdiction. In light of Wallace, we affirm this decision, too, on jurisdictional grounds. 27