Court Opinion

ID: 9486734
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:58:11.219272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:54.108511
License: Public Domain

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Connecticut Board of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U.S. 458, 101 S.Ct. 2460, 69 L.Ed.2d 158 (1981) is, despite the state’s argument, rather' in Pickens’s favor than against him. While it holds that due process does not require that a petitioner be given reasons for a denial of clemency, it also holds that there is a constitutionally protected right to seek commutation if the state creates a procedure to obtain it. It seems to me axiomatic that this right to access must be real: It must mean access to a sentient and neutral decision-maker. I don’t mean that the decision-maker has to be ignorant; only that he must be unbiased. An impartial decision-maker is a fundamental requirement of due process. See, e.g., Morrisey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 489, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 2604, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972). Furthermore, Pickens has stated a claim under the equal protection clause. If the petitioner’s allegation were that the governor was biased against him because he was a man, or black, then it seems clear that an equal protection claim would have been made. The right to an unbiased decision-maker can be couched generally as an equal protection claim: The petitioner is asserting that he does not, as a practical matter, have the same access to a state-created process as people with respect to whom the governor has no bias.
Because I think that Pickens’s allegations, if true, would raise a permissible inference that Governor Tucker is not neutral in the matter, I vote to reverse and remand the case for a hearing on the question of the governor’s fitness to rule on Pickens’s petition.
I therefore respectfully dissent.