Opinion ID: 782843
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Morrissey and the Protected Liberty Interest in Parole

Text: 14 Although the Supreme Court has not considered whether there exists a liberty interest in extended furlough from prison of the sort enjoyed by Holcomb in the days preceding April 18, 2000, the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause creates a liberty interest in parole, such that parole revocation must be accompanied by sufficient process, Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 482, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972). In Morrissey, the Court identified several aspects of parole that made the interest of the parolee in his continued liberty, id. at 481-82, 92 S.Ct. 2593, similar to other citizens' interest in their continued liberty and therefore worthy of due process protection: 15 The liberty of a parolee enables him to do a wide range of things open to persons who have never been convicted of any crime.... Subject to the conditions of his parole, he can be gainfully employed and is free to be with family and friends and to form the other enduring attachments of normal life. Though the State properly subjects him to many restrictions not applicable to other citizens, his condition is very different from that of confinement in a prison. He may have been on parole for a number of years and may be living a relatively normal life at the time he is faced with revocation. The parolee has relied on at least an implicit promise that parole will be revoked only if he fails to live up to the parole conditions. In many cases, the parolee faces lengthy incarceration if his parole is revoked. 16 Id. at 482, 92 S.Ct. 2593 (footnotes omitted). After Morrissey, courts considering whether the Due Process Clause creates a protected liberty interest in various forms of conditional release have resolved the issue by comparing the specific conditional release in the case before them with the liberty interest in parole as characterized by Morrissey. 17 In Young v. Harper, 520 U.S. 143, 117 S.Ct. 1148, 137 L.Ed.2d 270 (1997), the Court, using that approach, held that a program of conditional release was a kind of parole as [the Court] understood parole in Morrissey,  and that participants in that program were therefore entitled to the procedural protections set forth in Morrissey. Young, 520 U.S. at 152-53, 117 S.Ct. 1148. Under the Oklahoma Preparole Conditional Supervision Program at issue in Young, which had been implemented to reduce prison overcrowding, inmates became eligible for preparole after serving fifteen percent of their sentence and became eligible for parole after serving one-third of their sentence. Id. at 145, 117 S.Ct. 1148. In reaching its conclusion that this preparole sufficiently resembled parole to require federal due process protection, the Court relied on the passage in Morrissey quoted above: 18 [H]e can be gainfully employed and is free to be with family and friends and to form the other enduring attachments of normal life. Though the State properly subjects him to many restrictions not applicable to other citizens, his condition is very different from that of confinement in a prison.... The parolee has relied on at least an implicit promise that parole will be revoked only if he fails to live up to the parole conditions. 19 Young, 520 U.S. at 147-48 (quoting Morrissey, 408 U.S. at 482, 92 S.Ct. 2593) (alterations and ellipsis in original). The Court concluded that the interest of the Oklahoma preparolee in his or her liberty was substantially similar to that of the parolee. Young, 520 U.S. at 149, 117 S.Ct. 1148. 20 At this point in the inquiry, then, the question for us with respect to Holcomb's claim is whether Vermont's extended furlough is similar enough to parole as characterized by Morrissey and Young with respect to the extent and conditions of the liberty conferred to him as a furloughee to be treated as though it were parole for Fourteenth Amendment purposes. 5