Court Opinion

ID: 9430250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:20.69238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:23.903589
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice Burger,
concurring in part.
I join Parts I and II of the majority opinion, but do not agree with the Court’s failure, in Part III of the opinion, to resolve an important question that is properly before the Court.
Part III declines to address the question whether a claimant may assert a due process “property” interest in the result of a discretionary petition for reduction of a statutory penalty. This question was expressly presented by our grant of the Government’s petition for certiorari. The two opinions of the Court of Appeals are sufficiently ambiguous as to leave unclear whether or not that court was relying on Von Neumann’s interest in the car itself, or on some interest in having his penalty reduced. In its initial opinion the Court of Appeals held that “[t]he delay in processing [respondent’s] petition for remission or mitigation . . . violated his due proc*252ess right to prompt consideration of his claim.” 660 F. 2d 1319, 1327 (CA9 1981) (emphasis added).
Whether respondent has any due process right in his claim for mitigation of the statutory penalty is a question properly before the Court, and we have an obligation to address it. Resolution of this issue is not difficult. We held in Connecticut Board of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U. S. 458 (1981), that a prisoner has no liberty interest cognizable under due process in a claim for a discretionary grant of parole, even though under the state parole procedure inmates were regularly and routinely granted release. It follows directly that there can be no possible due process property interest in a discretionary grant of a reduction in a statutory penalty unless we are prepared to modify Dumschat.
I would confront and resolve this issue rather than relying on the Court’s alternative holding that the 36-day period satisfies due process regardless of what due process “interests” were actually involved.