Opinion ID: 3179275
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Decisions Passed to Next Panel

Text: The district court found that there was a structural barrier to relief through the PTA process because decisionmakers denied a few PTAs without explaining whether there was a reasonable likelihood that further incarceration was not needed. According to the district court, this “tend[s] to show that the [Board] viewed certain issues as categorically exempt from the PTA process, and therefore could only be decided by panels after the deferral period imposed by the last panel.” Here, the district court assumed the Board was required to determine whether an inmate was suitable for parole whenever he filed a PTA because “that was the only question [the decisionmaker] had to decide.” The district court did not consider whether the PTAs it referenced satisfied the statutory prerequisite: a “change in circumstances or new information” regarding suitability. Cal. Penal Code § 3041.5(d)(1). Indeed, it summarily dismissed the Board’s finding that the statutory prerequisite had not been met by labeling the language the decisionmaker checked on the form order denying the PTA as “boilerplate”: Denied, after conducting a review of the case factors and considering the new information of change in circumstances, the prisoner did not establish a reasonable likelihood that consideration of the public and victim’s safety does not require the additional incarceration. GILMAN V. BROWN 27 That the Board may have decided to give additional reasons for its decision in other portions of its form order does not mean that the checked box’s language is inadequate to establish that the Board made a decision on suitability, there and then. It does not mean that the Board made no decision as to the PTA by engaging in a “categorical exemption,” as found by the district court in its claim that the Board had not exercised its discretion.16 In the example of a “boilerplate” denial cited by the district court, inmate T. Nguyen’s “reason for denial” was first that he had not met the “change in circumstance or new information” requirement regarding suitability, and then that, not having met the requirement, the next regularly scheduled panel could consider his parole-suitability factors. The district court’s reading of Nguyen’s PTA denial was selective and does not support the inference that requiring further findings at the next scheduled hearing is evidence that there is a “categorical exemption” structural barrier to PTA grants, whereby the Board does not exercise its discretion to deny a 16 Notably, in a different context—habeas review of state convictions and sentences—we are required to treat a summary denial of a discretionary appeal as a decision on the merits and determine whether there exist reasons that could have supported the decision. See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 99 (2011) (“When a federal claim has been presented to a state court and the state court has denied relief, it may be presumed that the state court adjudicated the claim on the merits in the absence of any indication or state-law procedural principles to the contrary.”). Although habeas jurisprudence has no direct application here, our review of decisions by state parole authorities, like our review of state convictions and sentences, is limited and recognizes that state actors have wide latitude in their decisionmaking. 28 GILMAN V. BROWN PTA, but simply passes the decision to the next regularly scheduled hearing.17