Court Opinion

ID: 9462389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:40:00.845278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:34.222126
License: Public Domain

GODBOLD, Circuit Judge
(specially concurring).
If I were free to do so I would follow Childs v. United States Board of Parole, 167 U.S.App.D.C. 268, 511 F.2d 1270, 1278 (1974), and Bradford v. Weinstein, 519 F.2d 728 (CA4), vacated and remanded for dismissal as moot, 1975, 423 U.S. 147, 96 S.Ct. 347, 46 L.Ed.2d 350, which hold that procedures of the parole board relating to consideration of a prisoner for parole are subject to the demands of due process just as procedures relating to parole revocation. This is the position which I took as one of the dissenters in Scarpa v. United States Board of Parole, 477 F.2d 278 (CA5), vacated for consideration of mootness, 414 U.S. 809, 94 S.Ct. 79, 38 L.Ed.2d 44 (1973), dismissed as moot,. 501 F.2d 992 (CA5, 1973). As Judge Winter pointed out, writing for the Fourth Circuit in Bradford, the right-privilege distinction, which is central to Judge Bell’s conclusion on this matter, has now been eradicated.
I feel, however, that I am bound, albeit tenuously, by the cryptic decision in Sexton v. Wise, 494 F.2d 1176 (CA5, 1974), which, in a single sentence and without discussion or citation of authority, appears to hold that due process protections do not apply until after parole has been granted.
Without reservation I agree with the majority with respect to the availability of review by habeas where a prisoner is held “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States”, and with the holding on the merits of such review in this instance directed to the statutory “laws of the United States”.