Court Opinion

ID: 9534004
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:36:13.000082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:15.531800
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(dissenting) — My narrow area of disagreement with the majority is whether, under the circumstances of this case, the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt should apply to the allegations of the violation in a parole revocation hearing. In this case, the parole revocation hearing was concluded after the defendant’s acquittal on the criminal charges and, as I understand the majority opinion, it concedes that, if the beyond a reasonable doubt test applies, the parole board would be collaterally estopped to reach a different result from the superior court trial which applied that test.
In Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 482, 33 L. Ed. 2d 484, 92 S. Ct. 2593 (1972), the court stated:
We see, therefore, that the liberty of a parolee, al*411though indeterminate, includes many of the core values of unqualified liberty and its termination inflicts a “grievous loss” on the parolee and often on others. It is hardly useful any longer to try to deal with this problem in terms of whether the parolee’s liberty is a “right” or a “privilege.” By whatever name, the liberty is valuable and must be seen as within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. Its termination calls for some orderly process, however informal.
In Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 781, 36 L. Ed. 2d 656, 93 S. Ct. 1756 (1973), the court again emphasized that “[e]ven though the revocation of parole is not a part of the criminal prosecution . . . the loss of liberty entailed is a serious deprivation requiring that the parolee be accorded due process.”
An issue before the court in Gagnon was whether the right to counsel during probation or parole revocation proceedings was an inherent part of due process. The court emphasized that fundamental fairness was the touchstone of due process. It then ruled that, while counsel need not be provided in each case, they presumptively should be provided in cases where, after being informed of their right to request counsel, the probationer or parolee makes such a request based on a timely and colorable claim that he has not committed the alleged violation of the conditions upon which he is at liberty. Alternately, the court indicated counsel should also presumptively be appointed even if the violation is uncontested or a matter of public record if there are substantial reasons which justify or mitigate the violation and make revocation inappropriate and the reasons are complex or otherwise difficult to develop or present.
If the right to counsel is granted a parolee at a revocation hearing in cases where the offense is denied, as a basic due process right, how can we fail to also apply the beyond a reasonable doubt standard in the same circumstances where the offense is denied, as a basic right of due process and fundamental fairness? I believe the language and logic of In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 25 L. Ed. 2d 368, 90 S. Ct. *4121068 (1970), compels such a result. There, at pages 363, 364, the court stated proof beyond a reasonable doubt has a “vital role in our criminal procedure for cogent reasons” and emphasized:
Lest there remain any doubt about the constitutional stature of the reasonable-doubt standard, we explicitly hold that the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.
The policy reasons for this, as stated by the court at page 363, were that:
It is a prime instrument for reducing the risk of convictions resting on factual error. The standard provides concrete substance for the presumption of innocence — that bedrock “axiomatic and elementary” principle whose “enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.” . . . “a person accused of a crime . . . would be at a severe disadvantage, a disadvantage amounting to a lack of fundamental fairness, if he could be adjudged guilty and imprisoned for years on the strength of the same evidence as would suffice in a civil case.”
. . . “There is always in litigation a margin of error, representing error in factfinding, which both parties must take into account. Where one party has at stake an interest of transcending value — as a criminal defendant his liberty — this margin of error is reduced as to him by the process of placing on the other party the burden of . . . persuading the factfinder at the conclusion of the trial of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Due process commands that no man shall lose his liberty unless the Government has borne the burden of . . . convincing the factfinder of his guilt.” To this end, the reasonable-doubt standard is indispensable, for it “impresses on the trier of fact the necessity of reaching a subjective state of certitude of the facts in issue.” . . .
Moreover, use of the reasonable-doubt standard is indispensable to command the respect and confidence of the community in applications of the criminal law. It is critical that the moral force of the criminal law not be diluted by a standard of proof that leaves people in doubt *413whether innocent men are being condemned. It is also important in our free society that every individual going about his ordinary affairs have confidence that his government cannot adjudge him guilty of a criminal offense without convincing a proper factfinder of his guilt with utmost certainty.
The court made clear that these considerations applied to adult proceedings and only after enunciating them, did it turn to the question of their application to juvenile proceedings.
The issues before the court in Morrissey and Gagnon did not involve the precise issue raised by Winship. The only context in which Winship was mentioned in either of these two cases, was in footnote 12, page 789 of Gagnon. There the court discussed why counsel were not needed in every revocation hearing as distinguished from their need in original criminal cases. The court stated they were dealing “not with the right of an accused to counsel in a criminal prosecution, but with the more limited due process right of one who is a probationer or parolee only because he has been convicted of a crime.” The footnote then cited In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 18 L. Ed. 2d 527, 87 S. Ct. 1428 (1967), which established a juvenile’s right to counsel. The court distinguished this right available to juveniles, if requested, in every case where they are charged with a crime, noting that one charged “with violation of a generally applicable statute is differently situated from an already-convicted probationer or parolee, and is entitled to a higher degree of protection.” Winship was then cited as establishing the burden of proof in juvenile cases as beyond a reasonable doubt.
This footnote makes clear the court’s later explicit ruling in Gagnon that counsel is not required as a matter of right compelled by due process in all probation or parole revocation hearings, as contrasted to being required in all criminal prosecution and juvenile proceedings where the defendant’s freedom may be taken. Gagnon does affirm that due process considerations can, however, compel the state to furnish counsel where the defendant denies commission of *414the act or where counsel’s special skills are needed in other ways. Winship is consistent with this approach. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is required, as a matter of due process, at the point where specific allegations are made regarding the commission of criminal acts which are contested and are the sole basis for revocation of parole.
It would seem to me that all of the policy reasons stated by the court establishing the importance of applying the beyond a reasonable doubt standard in Winship apply in this case. As previously stated in Morrissey and Gagnon, due process does apply to probation and parole revocation proceedings despite the fact that the defendant is not an “accused” person as in original criminal proceedings. Due process is based upon a concept of fundamental fairness and where the court in Winship has specifically identified the proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard as basic to a concept of fundamental fairness, the reasons for its application appear even more cogent. The cases cited by the majority on the burden of proof issue are not persuasive. They either predate Winship or fail to discuss it.
Where the sole reason advocated for petitioner’s violation of his parole is the commission of criminal acts upon which he has been adjudged not guilty by application of the beyond a reasonable doubt standard in the superior court of this state, to subsequently remove petitioner’s freedom by the application of a lesser standard seems to me to completely ignore the unusually strong language used in Win-ship, asserting the importance of this fundamental right.
I would, therefore, grant the writ.
Petition for rehearing denied March 29, 1974.