Court Opinion

ID: 9748591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:07:10.068587+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:37.431765
License: Public Domain

NICKELL, Judge,
Concurring.
Respectfully, I concur with the opinion of the majority. Parker executed a document, dated September 20, 2002, and titled “Conditions of Supervision,” wherein, as conditions of the Parole Board placing him under the supervision of the Kentucky Division of Probation and Parole, he agreed, in pertinent part, to make restitution payments to the McCracken Circuit Court at the rate of $25 per month for a total of $1,238, and to have no contact with his victim or the victim’s family. Parker’s agreement to these conditions of parole and the Parole Board’s order releasing him to such supervision upon those terms are separate and distinct from the trial court’s belated August 22, 2002, order of restitution, which was subsequently held void by a previous panel of this Court. Parker has never challenged the validity of the Parole Board’s order releasing him to parole supervision, nor the agreed terms and conditions upon which that order was based.
As noted in our Court’s previous opinion entered' February 20, 2009, Parker has long asserted “that he did not know of the restitution order until years after it was entered.” Parker v. Commonwealth, 2009 WL 414050 (Ky.App.2009) (2008-CA-000072-MR). Thus, Parker’s agreement to the condition of his payment of restitution to his victim clearly was not predicated upon the trial court’s untimely entry of the order of restitution, later held void, but logically rested upon his admission of responsibility for the debt and his desire to *637be placed on parole supervision. In signing the aforesaid document Parker acknowledged that, “I fully understand and accept the above conditions.... ”
As stated by the majority, Kentucky law authorizes the Parole Board to make restitution a condition of parole supervision. See KRS 439.563; KRS 532.032(2) and (4). More particularly, making a convicted thief pay restitution does not violate any constitutional or statutory right. In Kentucky, parole is a “matter of legislative grace” to which the inmate has no entitlement. Belcher v. Kentucky Parole Board, 917 S.W.2d 584, 587 (Ky.App.1996). It is not a right but a privilege. Commonwealth v. Polsgrove, 231 Ky. 750, 22 S.W.2d 126, 128 (1929). Because Kentucky is not required to provide for parole, but does, it “may stipulate its terms and conditions.” Rose v. Haskins, 18 Ohio Misc. 81, 388 F.2d 91, 93 (6th Cir.1968). Moreover, “because [there is] no protected liberty interest in parole [prisoners] cannot mount a challenge against any state parole review procedure on procedural (or substantive) Due Process grounds.” Johnson v. Rodriguez, 110 F.3d 299, 308 (5th Cir.1997) (citations omitted); see also Stewart v. Commonwealth, 153 S.W.3d 789, 792 (Ky.2005) (citations omitted).
Based on the analysis contained in the majority opinion and the foregoing reasons, I agree that Parker is not entitled to reimbursement of restitution paid pursuant to the agreed terms and conditions of his release to parole supervision by the Parole Board, and concur that the decision of the trial court should be affirmed.