Opinion ID: 77353
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether the District Court Erred in Denying the Ex Post Facto Claims

Text: 15 Article I, § 10 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the states from passing any ex post facto Law. The Ex Post Facto Clause is directed at laws that retroactively alter the definition of crimes or increase the punishment for criminal acts. Collins v. Youngblood, 497 U.S. 37, 43, 110 S.Ct. 2715, 111 L.Ed.2d 30 (1990). In California Department of Corrections v. Morales, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits any legislative change that has any conceivable risk of affecting a prisoner's punishment. Cal. Dep't of Corr. v. Morales, 514 U.S. 499, 508, 115 S.Ct. 1597, 131 L.Ed.2d 588 (1995). Instead, the Court held that the clause forbids only those retroactively applied laws that produce[ ] a sufficient risk of increasing the measure of punishment attached to the covered crimes. Id. at 509, 115 S.Ct. 1597. 16 The appellants spend considerable time arguing that the 90% policy violates the Ex Post Facto Clause and that the Board had to comply with the Northern District of Georgia's decision in Jackson. This case, however, does not concern whether the 90% policy violates the Ex Post Facto Clause because the Board abandoned the policy and reconsidered the TPMs of all individuals to whom the Board had applied the policy. Therefore, we express no opinion regarding the Jackson decision or the validity of the 90% policy. Instead, the issues are whether the Board applied a de facto 90% policy when reconsidering the appellants' TPMs and whether, if the de facto policy exists, it violates the Ex Post Facto Clause. 17 The appellants assert that the Board enacted and applied the 90% policy and continued to apply a de facto 90% policy even after abandoning the official 90% policy in order to obtain federal grants under the Violent Offenders Incarceration — Truth in Sentencing Act (VOI/TIS), 42 U.S.C. § 13704, et seq. VOI/TIS provided federal grants to build new prisons to states that complied with certain prerequisites, including requiring that certain violent offenders serve a substantial percentage of their judicially imposed sentences. See, e.g., 42 U.S.C § 13704(a)(1)(C)(i), (ii). The appellants allege that to that end, in 1994, the Georgia legislature passed O.C.G.A. § 17-10-6.1, which at the time of passage, required that offenders convicted of rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy or aggravated sexual battery serve 100 percent of their judicially imposed sentences. The appellants also allege that the Georgia legislature failed to enact a similar law that included more of the violent offenses listed in VOI/TIS, and in response, the Board approved the 90% policy to ensure that the State complied with VOI/TIS's requirements. In its application for VOI/TIS funds, the State of Georgia cited to the 90% policy as evidence that it met the Act's prerequisites. As of 2000, the State of Georgia had received over $82 million under VOI/TIS. 18 The appellants cite to statistics compiled by the Board following its reconsideration of individuals to whom the Board had impermissibly applied the 90% policy. According to the appellants' calculations, the reconsidered TPMs were on average 5.6 years greater than the Guidelines dictated and averaged 79% of the judicially imposed sentence as opposed to the one-third statutory threshold for parole eligibility. Nevertheless, these statistics are unavailing for two reasons. First, even assuming that the statistics could assist the appellants, the appellants fail to offer any statistics that compare parole determinations given before the enactment of the 90% policy with those given under the alleged de facto 90% policy. Appellants' unsupported allegation that the Board strictly limited parole determinations before the enactment of the 90% policy to that dictated by the Guidelines and one-third statutory threshold is insufficient to meet the appellants' burden on summary judgment. Second, the Board has always had virtually unfettered discretion to vary a prisoner's TPM and need not comply strictly with the Guidelines or the one-third statutory threshold. Therefore, we doubt whether comparison statistics would assist the appellants in showing that the Board violated the Ex Post Facto Clause. 19 Most important, the appellants have failed to offer any evidence that the Board applied a de facto 90% policy to them. As detailed in the district court's order, the Board determined, based on the nature and circumstances of the cases of appellants Fisher, Heftler, Pennie, Porter, Walker, and Williams, that those individuals warranted TPMs longer than one-third of their judicially imposed sentences and greater than the Guidelines dictated. 9 Based on the Guidelines, each of the appellants had an excellent or average parole success likelihood score. The Guidelines, however, place little emphasis on the nature and circumstances of the current offense, and the Board retained the discretion to determine, based on the nature and circumstances of the offenses, that these appellants should serve longer sentences before being paroled. We are convinced that the nature and circumstances of the appellants' offenses are so egregious that the Board met its burden on summary judgment by showing that no genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether the Board applied a de facto 90% policy, and the appellants did not meet their burden. We believe that the facts demonstrate that the Board merely exercised its discretion when determining the appellants' TPMs. 10 Having determined that the appellants did not meet their burden to show that the Board applied a de facto 90% policy, we do not address whether such a policy would violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. 20