Court Opinion

ID: 9548630
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:06:14.120259+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:12.305363
License: Public Domain

WARREN, J.,
dissenting.
The majority reaches a result that may reflect its sense of good policy but that does not reflect what the legislature did. Because I believe that we should require the Parole Board to follow the statute rather than its (or our) current ideas of what is the best policy, I dissent.
The issues in this case can best be understood in the context of the parole system that was in effect at the time of plaintiffs offense and that applies to him. Under that system, which was the predecessor of the current sentencing guidelines, the Board’s parole matrix is the primary determinant of a prisoner’s actual period of incarceration. The trial court’s sentence simply sets the maximum term that the prisoner can serve. The heart of the matrix system is ORS 144.120(1), which required the Board to establish plaintiffs initial parole release date shortly after he began serving his sentence. In setting the date, the Board was to follow the parole matrix that it had previously adopted and was also to consider other things that the statute rendered relevant, including the presentence report, ORS 144.120(3), and information from the victim and the district attorney. ORS 144.120(5). The parole release date has a crucial legal significance for a prisoner under the matrix system: “When the State Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision has set a date on which a prisoner is to be released upon parole, the prisoner shall be released on that date,” unless the prisoner remains subject to an unexpired minimum term, an exception that does not apply to plaintiff. ORS 144.245(1) (emphasis supplied). *21Plaintiff had a statutory entitlement to be released on the initial release date in the absence of valid Board action extending that date.
The only authority that the Board cited when it extended plaintiffs parole release date is ORS 144.125(3). The validity of plaintiffs continued imprisonment, thus, turns on whether the Board properly exercised its authority under that statute. The majority correctly holds that the 1991 version of ORS 144.125(3), rather than the 1993 version, controls. Meadows v. Schiedler, 143 Or App 213, 924 P2d 314 (1996). That version provides:
“If a psychiatric or psychological diagnosis of present severe emotional disturbance such as to constitute a danger to the health or safety of the community has been made with respect to the prisoner, the board may order the postponement of the scheduled parole release until a specified future date.” (Emphasis supplied.)
It is hard to see how this statute could be more clear. In order to extend a parole release date under it, there must be a psychiatric or psychological diagnosis with respect to the prisoner, and that diagnosis must be of a “present severe emotional disturbance such as to constitute a danger to the health or safety of the community.” The statute does not say that the Board, after considering the diagnosis and other information in its possession, may extend the parole release date if the Board comes to that conclusion; rather, it says that there must be a psychiatric or psychological diagnosis to that effect. The diagnosis is an absolute prerequisite to Board action.
The majority does not like that express statutory requirement, but each of the reasons that it gives for ignoring the plain language of the statute is unconvincing. First, it states that the psychiatric and psychological professions do not make diagnoses in the precise terms that the statute provides and prefer that agencies not use diagnoses in the way that the statute requires. That does not change the fact that the legislature has required that the diagnosis satisfy the conditions that it stated before the diagnosis can be the basis for extending a parole release date. The Board must follow the law that the legislature created, even if that law does not *22fit perfectly into some profession’s categories. The statute does not mean that the diagnosis must use the precise statutory terms. The Board may examine the expert’s report in order to determine whether it contains a diagnosis that meets the legal standard that the legislature adopted. That does not affect the fact that the statute unequivocally permits the Board to examine only the expert’s report for that purpose.
Second, the majority relies on ORS 144.185, which lists a number of factors that the Board should take into account before making a determination regarding a prisoner’s release on parole under ORS 144.125, to suggest that ORS 144.125(3) does not mean what it says. There are at least two obvious answers to the majority’s position, each of which is sufficient in itself to refute it. The first is that under ORS 144.125(3) a finding of the appropriate diagnosis does not require the Board to extend the parole release date; rather, it simply allows the Board to exercise its discretion. The material described in ORS 144.185 would assist the Board in that task. The second answer is that ORS 144.125(1) requires an adequate parole plan before the prisoner’s actual release; under ORS 144.125(4), the Board may postpone the parole release date by no more than three months if the parole plan is inadequate. All of the information in ORS 144.185 is relevant to determining whether the parole plan is adequate, and that statute can be entirely explained by the need to evaluate the parole plan. There is no reason to use that statute to distort the meaning of ORS 144.125(3).
In its order in this case, which follows the form that it has used in many other cases, the Board did not find that there was a psychiatric or psychological diagnosis that met the statutory standard.1 Rather, it stated that “THE DOCTOR’S DIAGNOSIS COUPLED WITH ALL THE INFORMATION [THE BOARD] IS CONSIDERING, DOES RESULT IN A FINDING OF A SEVERE EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCE THAT CONSTITUTES A DANGER TO THE *23HEALTH OR SAFETY OF THE COMMUNITY.” (Emphasis supplied.) Because the Board expressly relied on information beyond the expert’s report, its order does not satisfy the requirements of ORS 144.125(3), and plaintiff is entitled to relief.
One purpose of the matrix system, which continues in effect for defendant and a number of other prisoners, was to bring uniformity and certainty to the actual effect of judicial sentencing decisions. It did so by relying on uniform and certain parole decisions, which became the primary determinant of the length of incarceration. To achieve that result, the matrix system restricted the Board’s discretion in setting and changing the dates for releasing prisoners. The strict requirements for extending the parole release date that ORS 144.125(3) contains are an essential part of the system and, thus, of the overall legislative purpose. By its decision in this case, the majority has overturned an important part of the matrix system and has thus thrown the entire system out of balance. Because I cannot join in undoing the legislature’s action, I respectfully dissent.
Edmonds, Armstrong and Wollheim, JJ., join in this dissent.

 I do not need to consider whether the Board could have concluded that the report that the majority quotes does meet that standard; it is the Board’s responsibility to evaluate that report, at least in the first instance.