Court Opinion

ID: 9439914
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 06:53:39.359826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:42.381445
License: Public Domain

STAHL, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I agree that the Commonwealth did not violate Hamm’s rights under the Due Process Clause when it failed to provide him a parole hearing in 1983. Unlike my colleagues, however, I am persuaded that, as applied to Hamm and other similarly-situated prisoners, the 1977 aggregation policy is an unconstitutional ex post facto law. First, I believe that the 1977 aggregation policy, which effectively altered the date of Hamm’s initial parole hearing, is a “law” subject to ex post facto limitations. Second, contrary to my colleagues, I believe that the 1977 policy, as applied to Hamm and other similarly-situated prisoners, clearly produces a risk of increasing the measure of punishment sufficient to violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. Hence, I respectfully dissent from parts II. B.-III.
I.
Article 1, § 10 of the Constitution clearly proscribes the authority of a state to enact *960any ex post facto law. As the majority explains, it is long settled that the Clause forbids
any statute which punishes as a crime an act previously committed, which was innocent when done; which makes more burdensome the punishment for a crime, after its commission, or which deprives one charged with crime of any defense available according to law at the time when the act was committed.
Collins v. Youngblood, 497 U.S. 37, 42, 110 S.Ct. 2715, 2719, 111 L.Ed.2d 30 (1990) (quoting Beazell v. Ohio, 269 U.S. 167, 169-70, 46 S.Ct. 68, 68, 70 L.Ed. 216 (1925)); see also California Dep’t of Corrections v. Morales, - U.S. -, -, 115 S.Ct. 1597, 1601, 131 L.Ed.2d 588 (1995) (“the Clause is aimed at laws that retroactively alter the definition of crimes or increase the punishment for criminal acts”) (internal quotation omitted). In general, an ex post facto inquiry requires a two-step analysis. See Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 430, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 2451, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987). A court should ask (1) whether the challenged provision is a “law” that acts retrospectively, and (2) whether the burden the law retrospectively imposes is of sufficient type and degree to violate the Constitution.
In this case, Hamm argues that the 1977 aggregation policy violated the Ex Post Fac-to Clause by retroactively depriving him of opportunities to obtain his release earlier than November 2001. In response, the Commonwealth contends that the 1977 aggregation policy was not a “law” subject to ex post facto limitation, and that, in any event, the aggregation did not increase Hamm’s punishment. My colleagues agree with the second contention, and therefore find it unnecessary to consider the first. Because, as I explain more fully infra at 961-964,1 believe that the 1977 aggregation policy engendered a sufficient risk of increasing Hamm’s punishment, I cannot avoid the first prong of the Commonwealth’s argument. Accordingly, I proceed first to explore fully whether the 1977 aggregation policy is a “law” subject to ex post facto proscription, and, second, to discuss my disagreement with the majority over whether the new policy produces a risk of increasing the measure of punishment sufficient to violate the Constitution.19
A Is the 1977 Aggregation Policy a “Law"?
I agree with the district court that the 1977 aggregation policy was a “law” for purposes of ex post facto analysis. Although the aggregation policy was not formally promulgated as a regulation governing the Parole Board, it was as binding on the Parole Board, on a case-by-case basis, as an act passed by the legislature would have been. Moreover, the Commonwealth does not argue that, once the policy had been promulgated, the Parole Board had any discretion to deviate from the policy in any particular instance.
The Supreme Court has not addressed the question of whether an administrative policy or regulation can be an ex post facto law. A number of circuit courts, however, have held that binding administrative regulations, as opposed to those that serve merely as guidelines for discretionary decisionmaking, are laws subject to ex post facto limitation. For example, in a case factually similar to this one, the Ninth Circuit held that the California Department of Corrections’s recalculation of a prisoner’s parole-eligibility date under its new interpretation of the governing statutes violated the Ex Post Facto Clause because “the Department has changed its interpretation of the authority itself.” Love v. Fitzharris, 460 F.2d 382, 385 (9th Cir.1972), vacated as moot, 409 U.S. 1100, 93 S.Ct. 896, 34 L.Ed.2d 682 (1973). The Love court stated that:
the interpretation of the relationship between the statutes ... by the administrative agency charged with their enforcement has the force and effect of law.... [N]ot only defendants, in contemplating their pleas, but also trial courts, in imposing sentences, are entitled to rely on such administrative interpretations.... A new administrative interpretation which subjects the prisoner already sentenced to *961more severe punishment has the same effect as a new statute lengthening his present term....
Id. (citations omitted). The Eleventh Circuit similarly concluded that a regulation, promulgated pursuant to the Georgia parole board’s delegated legislative power, that changed the period between inmate’s parole hearings from one to eight years was a “law” subject to ex post facto limitation. Akins v. Snow, 922 F.2d 1558, 1561 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1260, 111 S.Ct. 2915, 115 L.Ed.2d 1079 (1991); see also Rodriguez v. United States Parole Comm’n, 594 F.2d 170, 174 (7th Cir.1979) (new regulation eliminating parole hearing after one-third of sentence is “tantamount to a statute” for ex post facto purposes).
In those cases holding that particular administrative regulations or guidelines were not laws subject to the Ex Post Facto Clause, courts have often premised their holdings, at least in part, on the advisory nature of the regulation or guidelines in question. See, e.g., Kelly v. Southerland, 967 F.2d 1531, 1532-33 (11th Cir.1992) (rescission guidelines promulgated by federal Parole Commission did not violate Ex Post Facto Clause because they both were subject to amendment by the Commission and merely guided, but did not dictate, actual parole decisions); Smith v. United States Parole Comm’n, 875 F.2d 1361, 1367 (9th Cir.1988) (finding parole “regulation” was not an ex post facto law and noting that “the operative factor in assessing whether a directive constitutes a ‘lav/ for ex post facto purposes is the discretion that the Parole Commission retains to modify that directive or to ignore it altogether as the circumstances may require”); Inglese v. United States Parole Comm’n, 768 F.2d 932, 936 (7th Cir.1985) (“The power to exercise discretion indicates that the [parole] guidelines are merely guides, and not law: guides may be discarded when circumstances require; laws may not.”). Moreover, these cases involve the federal Parole Commission’s guidelines, which are “truly advisory” because the Commission possesses the authority to disregard them in the appropriate circumstances. Bailey v. Gardebring, 940 F.2d 1150, 1158 (8th Cir.1991) (Lay, C.J., dissenting), cert. denied, 503 U.S. 952, 112 S.Ct. 1516, 117 L.Ed.2d 652 (1992). The Commonwealth makes no claim that its aggregation policy was merely “advisory” or that it was free to disregard the policy in a particular case.
The Commonwealth does postulate, however, that because it had discretion to adopt the 1977 aggregation policy in the first place and to modify the policy subsequently, as it did in 1988, the policy should not be considered a law. Although a number of the federal Parole Commission cases have relied in part on this reasoning,20 see, e.g., Smith, 875 F.2d at 1367, I would reject it here. The argument not only exalts form over substance but its logic suggests that even legislative acts, because they too may be modified, should be immune to challenge under the Ex Post Fac-to Clause. See Bailey, 940 F.2d at 1158 (Lay, C.J., dissenting). A binding policy or regulation, promulgated pursuant to delegated legislative authority by an administrative body that implicitly retains authority to amend it in the future, is no different in its force and effect than a law passed by a legislature that retains authority to amend or revoke that law. The Commonwealth’s Parole Board possessed delegated legislative authority to promulgate the aggregation policy: “The parole board shall ... make rules relative to the performance of its duties.” Mass.Gen.L. ch. 27, § 5(e). Furthermore, under Massachusetts law, an agency regulation 21 “promulgated pursuant to a legislative *962grant of power generally [has] the force of law.” Kenney v. Commissioner of Correction, 393 Mass. 28, 468 N.E.2d 616, 619 (1984). Thus, because the 1977 aggregation policy was effectively a regulation having the full force and effect of law, I would hold that it is subject to limitation under the Ex Post Facto Clause.

B. Does the 1977 Aggregation Policy Produce a Sufficient Risk of Increasing the Measure of Punishment?

I now turn to the issue at the heart of my disagreement with the majority: Whether, as applied to Hamm and other similarly-situated prisoners, the 1977 aggregation policy produces a risk of increased punishment sufficient to violate the Ex Post Facto Clause? My colleagues answer this question in the negative, basing their conclusion on two premises. First they deem it highly unlikely that, under the prior policy, Hamm would have won early parole from his life sentence and acquired the necessary good-time credits to advance the date of his ultimate parole hearing to a point earlier than 2001. Hence, they conclude that any harm to Hamm ensuing from the 1977 aggregation policy is highly speculative. Second, they posit that, due to structural differences between the two policies, a “real” benefit accrues to Hamm under the new policy. Then, combining these two premises, my colleagues ultimately conclude that, on balance, the 1977 aggregation policy does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. I strongly disagree.
My colleagues favorably compare the risk of increased punishment occasioned by the 1977 aggregation policy with the risk of increased punishment recently examined by the Supreme Court in California Dep’t of Corrections v. Morales, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 1597, 131 L.Ed.2d 588 (1995). In Morales, the Court considered an amendment permitting the California state parole board to defer annual parole-suitability hearings for up to three years for prisoners at least twice convicted of murder. Id. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1600. In upholding the amendment, the Court rejected the contention that it violated the Ex Post Facto Clause simply because the deferral of subsequent suitability hearings deprived affected prisoners of an opportunity to gain an earlier release from prison. Id. at - n. 3, 115 S.Ct. at 1602 n. 3. The Court explained that just because the amendment caused the loss of some theoretical opportunity to gain an earlier release did not mean that it necessarily violates the Constitution. Id. Instead, the Court held that, for ex post facto purposes, the test is whether the loss of that opportunity actually produces a “sufficient risk of increasing the measure of punishment for the attached crimes.” Id. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1603.
In applying this test, the Court focused on several factors that significantly minimized the California amendment’s risk of harm. Morales, at n-, 115 S.Ct. at 1603-05. First, the Court noted the amendment’s limited application. Id. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1603. The amendment had no effect on any prisoner unless the California parole board first found that the prisoner was both unsuitable for parole and unlikely to be found suitable at subsequent hearings during the deferral period. Id. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1604. Moreover, the Court noted that the amendment did not affect “the date of any prisoner’s initial parole suitability hearing: it affected the timing only of subsequent hearings.” Id. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1605.
Next, the Court observed, inter alia, that, even with respect to a prisoner who might have actually received a favorable recommendation at an omitted hearing, the practical effect of the amendment on that prisoner’s ultimate release date was only slight. Morales, at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1605. At the deferred hearings, the parole board determined only a prisoner’s “suitability” for parole but did not set actual parole dates. Id. The Court noted that, significantly, in many cases, an actual parole date comes several years after a finding of suitability. Id. Moreover, under California law, evidence that a prisoner in fact had been “suitable” for a year or two prior to the date of the prisoner’s delayed hearing would be relevant in setting the prisoner’s actual parole date. Id. Hence, the Court concluded that, in most *963cases, any delay resulting from the amendment could be corrected by the parole board when it set the prisoner’s ultimate release date. Id.
In short, the Court recognized that the amendment’s built-in limitations, severely restricting both its application and potential effect, effectively minimized any risk of increased punishment caused by the elimination of subsequent suitability hearings. Furthermore, the Court carefully limited the breadth of its holding, expressly disavowing any opinion “as to the constitutionality of any of a number of statutes that might alter the timing of parole hearings under circumstances different from those present here.” Morales, at -, n. 6, 115 S.Ct. at 1603 n. 6.
On close analysis, I believe the effect of the 1977 aggregation policy challenged here differs significantly from the risk of increased harm produced by the Morales amendment. First, in contrast to the Morales amendment, the adoption of the 1977 aggregation policy potentially affects all Massachusetts prisoners previously eligible for parole from a life sentence into consecutive from-and-after sentences. No provision in the policy limits the class of affected prisoners to only those adjudged by the Commonwealth’s Parole Board (or some similar body) to be unlikely to win early parole or to earn significant good-time credits. Moreover, where the Morales amendment affected only subsequent hearings, the 1977 aggregation policy essentially delays an affected prisoner’s initial parole hearing.
Second, also in contrast to Morales, the impact of the 1977 aggregation policy on those it affects is substantial. For example, under the prior policy, Hamm could have terminated his incarceration as early as 1995, through the acquisition of earned and statutory good-time credits and the application of his jail credits.22 The 1977 aggregation policy extinguished that possibility; Hamm’s term of incarceration cannot end under the 1977 policy before his first-available parole hearing in 2001. Thus, in contrast to the amendment in Morales, which will have little, if any, real impact on an affected prisoner’s actual time in prison, the 1977 aggregation policy could potentially increase Hamm’s prison term by up to six years. See Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 26-27, 31-34, 101 S.Ct. 960, 962-63, 965-67, 67 L.Ed.2d 17 (1981) (holding that new state statute reducing amount of good time that could be earned prospectively by current inmates violates Ex Post Facto Clause because it removed existing opportunity for shortened prison time).
My colleagues gloss over these clear distinctions by positing that, whatever the risk might have been at the outset, given the brutal nature of Hamm’s crime and his poor record as a prisoner, it is highly unlikely that Hamm could have availed himself of the opportunity to obtain an earlier release. Such analysis, however, is more akin to a harmless error inquiry focusing on the particulars of Hamm’s case than to a proper ex post facto inquiry into whether the new law posed a sufficient risk of increasing the measure of punishment. Moreover, while it is clear that Hamm bears the ultimate burden of establishing that the new law changes the measure of punishment, Morales, —- U.S. at -, n. 6, 115 S.Ct. at 1603 n. 6, this does not mean that he must necessarily show “that he would have been sentenced to a lesser term under the measure or range of punishments in place under the previous statutory scheme.” Id. (citing Lindsey v. Washington, 301 U.S. 397, 401, 57 S.Ct. 797, 799, 81 L.Ed. 1182 (1937)); see also id. — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1607 (Stevens, Souter, J.J., dissenting); Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 432, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 2452, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987) (reaffirming Lindsey). Indeed, the proper “inquiry looks to the challenged provision, and not to any special circumstances that may mitigate its effect on the particular individual.” Weaver, 450 U.S. at 33, 101 S.Ct. at 966.
In any event, the fact of the matter is that the 1977 aggregation policy completely deprived Hamm of his once-existing opportuni*964ty to gain a release from prison as much as six years earlier than he can now. Moreover, notwithstanding my colleagues’ post hoc evaluation of Hamm’s chances, because Hamm never received a parole hearing, no findings exist to inform us whether or not the Commonwealth would have found Hamm to be a likely candidate for early parole from his life sentence. Indeed, without such findings or even knowledge concerning the standards and policies that guide the Commonwealth’s Parole Board in making such recommendations, this court can only speculate as to whether the 1977 aggregation policy posed a sufficient risk to Hamm.23
In Morales, the Court reasoned that the delay in parole suitability hearings caused by the challenged amendment did not produce a sufficient risk of punishment because, in major part, the amendment affected only a carefully limited class of prisoners, and the impact of any delay on an affected prisoner’s actual time in prison was negligible. Implicit in the Court’s holding, however, is the recognition that delay in a parole hearing produces some possibility of an increase in punishment. Where, as here, the delay is not predicated on a finding that the prisoner is an unlikely candidate for parole, and the delay may significantly increase the prisoner’s sentence, I believe, even in Hamm’s case, such delay produces a “sufficient risk of increasing the measure of punishment.” Morales, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1603.
As noted, my colleagues also base their conclusion on the premise that the 1977 aggregation policy arguably provides a “real” benefit to Hamm and other affected prisoners. I believe, however, that it is this puta-five “benefit” that is too “speculative” to merit significant weight in the ex post facto inquiry. Any fair analysis reveals that the supposed benefit arising from the 1977 aggregation policy assumes several rather contradictory predicates. For example, to find that Hamm would benefit from the 1977 policy, I would need to assume both (1) that, under the prior policy, the Commonwealth’s Parole Board would have refused to grant Hamm parole from his life sentence at least three times (in 1983,1986, and 1989), or that, if the board did grant him such initial parole, he would have subsequently failed to accrue good-time credits, and (2) that, under the new policy, the Parole Board would then grant him “real” parole into society at large in 2001 (notwithstanding that the board would not even have granted Hamm parole from his life sentence into his lengthy from- and-after sentences on at least three prior occasions). In other words, the Parole Board would have to deny Hamm’s request for parole from one lengthy sentence into another at least three times, but then, a short time later, be willing essentially to grant Hamm a complete release from prison. The inherent contradiction in such assumptions discloses the difficulty of quantifying such a “benefit,” or even determining whether one genuinely exists. Thus, I believe that any benefit engendered by the 1977 aggregation policy is much too speculative to serve as an effective counterweight to its real risk of harm.24
II.
In sum, I believe that the 1977 aggregation policy is a “law” subject to ex post facto *965limitation, and that the policy produces a risk of increasing the measure of punishment sufficient to violate the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution. Accordingly, I dissent from parts II.B.-III.

. 1 do not restate the facts or outline the prior proceedings. For a complete discussion of these matters, see Majority Opinion at 949-953.

. The Commonwealth claims that the Eighth Circuit adopted this reasoning in Bailey, which held that a change in Minnesota parole board regulations abolishing annual review of prospective release dates and limiting the board’s discretion in changing such dates did not constitute a law for ex post facto purposes, even though the board lacked discretion to disregard its regulations in any given case. However, the relevant section of Bailey, 940 F.2d at 1156, drew the concurrence of a second panel member as to the result only, and not its reasoning, id. at 1157 (Stuart, J., concurring).

. That the 1977 policy was not formally deemed a "regulation” also does not seem to matter: Under Massachusetts law, a "regulation”
includes the whole or any part of every rule, regulation, standard or other requirement of general application and future effect ... adopted by an agency to implement or interpret the law enforced or administered by it. *962Mass.Gen.L. ch. 30A, § 1(5) (emphasis added).

. As does the majority, I assume the accuracy of Hamm's claim of entitlement to 840 days of jail credit. See Majority at 952. I note, however, that the claim is not critical to my analysis. Even without the 840 days, the 1977 aggregation policy deprives Hamm of the opportunity to advance his initial ultimate parole date by over three and half years.

. The fact that the record lacks the opinion, much less the findings, of the Commonwealth's Parole Board on Hamm's suitability for early parole clearly underscores the inappropriateness of my colleagues' "harmless error” style review.

. My colleagues find further support in the Seventh Circuit's recent decision in United States v. McGee, 60 F.3d 1266, 1271 (7th Cir.1995). In McGee, the Seventh Circuit rejected an ex post facto challenge to a sentencing provision that substituted a mandatory range of 21 to 24 months in place of an open-ended 12 month minimum sentence for the offense of conviction. Id. I find the analogy inapt because in McGee the district court had actually sentenced the defendant to the maximum 24 months under the new sentencing range prior to the Seventh Circuit’s review. Thus, the Seventh Court could fairly quantify both the benefit and the harm produced by the new sentencing range. Significantly, the fact that the district court had sentenced the defendant to the maximum possible under the new sentencing scheme clearly suggested that, if anything, it would have given the defendant a higher, not lesser, sentence under the old scheme. In our case, however, Hamm received no analogous treatment. He received no parole hearing. Thus, instead of fairly quantifying the risk as the McGee court did, we can only speculate as to the effect the 1977 aggregation policy will ultimately have on his sentence.