Opinion ID: 776026
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Board's Objections to Standing

Text: 37 Defendants argue that the plaintiffs cannot meet the likelihood of repetition requirement, because their right to parole and parole revocation hearings depends upon their engaging in illegal conduct that they are under an obligation to avoid. Although we have held that there is sufficient likelihood that an injury inflicted during a hearing will be repeated when a plaintiff can assert a right to another such hearing, see Hawkins, 251 F.3d at 1237, nonetheless, standing is inappropriate where the future injury could be inflicted only in the event of future illegal conduct by the plaintiff. Lyons, 461 U.S. at 108. See also Hodgers-Durgin v. De La Vina, 199 F.3d 1037, 1041 (9th Cir. 1999) (en banc) (no standing where injury contingent upon respondents' violating the law, getting caught, and being convicted.). 38 With respect to the prisoners' complaints regarding conditions at their various hearings, the Board's regulations require that prisoners sentenced to life with the possibility of parole be provided with certain hearings as a matter of formal Board policy. These include documentation hearings, progress hearings, and recission hearings, as well as the parole hearings themselves. No matter how well behaved the prisoners are, no matter how pure and proper their conduct, they must receive the specified hearings, so that the Board may document or determine their parole suitability. The Board's regulations establish that prisoners of the type before us are entitled to parole hearings before the Board at least every five years, and as often as every year, unless they waive those hearings. The likelihood that a prisoner will be subjected to the hearings involved is, therefore, not at all speculative; rather, it is certain. The lawfulness or unlawfulness of his conduct in the interim is irrelevant to that fact. 39 The situation is different with respect to the complaints of parolees regarding deprivations of their rights in connection with the parole revocation process. The Board asserts that these plaintiffs could avoid parole revocation hearings entirely by refraining from engaging in future illegal conduct. For support of this proposition, it relies on Lyons, 461 U.S. at 102 (no standing where likelihood of further injury premised on repetition of unlawful traffic violation); O'Shea, 414 U.S. at 497 (no standing where plaintiffs planned to induce future injury by unlawful civil disobedience); and Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 13, 140 L. Ed. 2d 43, 118 S. Ct. 978 (1998) (no standing where future injury will not arise unless plaintiff has been convicted of and served sentence for future unlawful conduct). To the extent that these cases hold that standing does not exist where plaintiffs can avoid future injury by refraining from illegal conduct, they are not apposite here. 40 In Hodgers-Durgin, we expressly distinguished the Lyons line of cases on the basis that the Hodgers-Durgin plaintiffs asserted that the conduct on their part that triggered the defendants' violations was not unlawful. In that case, the plaintiffs alleged that while driving their vehicles in the normal course, they were stopped by the United States Border Patrol on the basis of their race, or because of their proximity to the border. We found that the plaintiffs had standing because, although the police were sufficiently suspicious of the plaintiffs to stop, question, and search them, plaintiffs did nothing illegal to prompt the stops by the Border Patrol. Hodgers-Durgin, 199 F.3d at 1041. 22 41 Here, as in Hodgers-Durgin, plaintiffs need not engage in unlawful conduct to become subject to the unlawful practices they seek to enjoin. The Board is not required to establish probable cause to begin the parole revocation process, nor is it necessary that any law enforcement officer observe the alleged violation: 23 the Board may start parole revocation proceedings when a rather low level of suspicion arises as the result of some minimal inquiry into the facts of the case. See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 485, 33 L. Ed. 2d 484, 92 S. Ct. 2593 (1972). 24 However, mere suspicion of misconduct is insufficient to defeat standing: in Hodgers-Durgin, although the Border Patrol officers were suspicious enough to stop, question, and search the plaintiffs' cars, we still found that the plaintiffs had standing to sue. 25 42 Next, the Board contends that the named plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate standing for each type of relief sought, and cite Lewis v. Casey for that proposition. However, Lewis simply limits standing to the injury shown: a plaintiff who has been subject to injurious conduct of one kind does not have standing to sue for a different, although similar, injury to which he has not been subjected. 518 U.S. at 358 n. 6. When determining what constitutes the same type of relief or the same kind of injury, we must be careful not to employ too narrow or technical an approach. Rather, we must examine the questions realistically: we must reject the temptation to parse too finely, and consider instead the context of the inquiry. Viewed in this light, the named plaintiffs all established the same injury: that the Board propounded a policy and engaged in a practice that denied them their rights under the ADA, and harmed them by preventing them from attending, communicating at, or comprehending parole and parole revocation hearings. Each showed that the Board discriminated against him, in a manner that resulted in a failure to afford him the benefit of the same service or program. As a result, it is evident that each suffered from the same injurious conduct; each incurred the same injury; and each is seeking the same relief. 43 The Board also asserts that the likelihood that the parolee plaintiffs will be subject to a future parole revocation hearing is purely speculative. However, five of the parolee plaintiffs were repeatedly subjected to parole revocation proceedings, some of them on a yearly basis. Abrams, Whisman, Blessing, and Badillo, waived their rights to a parole hearing because the accommodations provided did not enable them to comprehend the notification proceedings; Gough was unable to understand the notification or hearing process. Because the named-plaintiff parolees can establish a pattern of continuing discrimination that shows no sign of abating, we find that the parolee plaintiffs have standing to sue for a violation the ADA. 44 Our conclusion is bolstered by the fact that a person with disabilities is more likely to be suspected of conduct that results in the revocation of parole than other parolees. The district court specifically found that hearing impaired, learning impaired, and developmentally disabled individuals engage in a range of coping mechanisms that can give the false impression of uncooperative behavior or lack of remorse. It is therefore likely that these individuals will have difficulty interacting with the personnel who supervise their parole, explaining any innocent but non-conforming behavior, and showing remorse for otherwise minor infractions of the conditions of their parole that do not rise to the level of unlawful conduct. These problems make it more likely that such parolees will be subjected to the parole revocation process, even though they have not committed any unlawful act or violated any condition of their parole.