Court Opinion

ID: 9756640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:43:36.723908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:56:58.968955
License: Public Domain

Morse, J.,
dissenting. In this case, we have no record of the evidence underlying the parole violation or the findings and conclusions of the Parole Board. We do not know whether the Board was convinced of Ralph Relation’s guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” “by clear and convincing evidence,” “by a preponderance,” or by some other standard of proof. The predicate for this action in superior court is merely the one word answer, “Tes,” from the chair of the Board, who is not lawyer, in answer to a defense lawyer’s question, “Does the Board interpret [‘substantial evidence’] as less than a preponderance?” Defense counsel at the time he elicited the incriminating “Yes” even admitted, “[Substantial evidence is a very murky kind of term as I understand it and I don’t really know what it means.” Based on this, counsel for the parties entered into a stipulation which in part stated:
In reaching its determination, the Board found that the alleged violations were established by substantial evidence. The Board did not apply the standard of preponderance of the evidence.
The stipulation means little because a higher standard of proof than a preponderance may have been satisfied.
I do not believe after reviewing the limited record that the Board purposefully violates parolees on the basis that some suspicion of guilt is tantamount to guilt — despite its belief that the parolee is innocent of wrongdoing. The record does not demonstrate that the Board lives in Lewis Carroll’s “Wonderland” where up is down and the sentence precedes the trial.
There must have been confusion over semantics. The statute governing the board’s role, 28 Y.S.A. § 552(b)(2), states:
If the alleged violation is established by substantial evidence, the board may continue or revoke the parole, or enter such other order as it determines to be necessary or desirable.
Baxter v. Vermont Parole Board, the case the Board expressly followed in deciding the parole violation here, states:
A parole violation must be established by substantial evidence. . . . This requires that there be “‘such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to *541support a conclusion.’”. . . Unlike a criminal prosecution, a parole violation does not need to be established beyond a reasonable doubt. “[A]ll that is required is that the evidence and facts reasonably demonstrate that the person’s conduct has not been as good as required by the terms and conditions of the release.”
145 Vt. 644, 647-48, 497 A.2d 362, 364-65 (1985) (citations omitted). This quotation may not be a paragon of clarity, but it does not remotely suggest that the standard is less than a preponderance of the evidence. Less than a preponderance would mean that a violation would be proved if the evidence and facts demonstrate that the person’s conduct has been better than required.
As pointed out in In re Muzzy, 141 Vt. 463, 470-71, 449 A.2d 970, 973 (1982), “substantial evidence” is a legal term of art that describes the deferential standard of review used by an appellate tribunal. The “substantial evidence” test is decidedly not a burden of proof. Section 552(b)(2) simply requires the Board to render its decisions to withstand appellate scrutiny. That statute is not unconstitutional merely because it is silent on the burden of proof.
The burden of proof, preponderance of the evidence, means that the evidence supports one outcome more than another. Burdens of proof may be greater than “more likely than not,” such as “clear and convincing” and “beyond a reasonable doubt,” but a burden of proof that fixes liability at less than “probability” is impossible.
To define liability on an “improbability” is unheard of — more arbitrary than “a flip of a coin.” If the Board does its business in such a fashion, this record does not establish it. The question by the public defender and the simple “yes” by the Board’s chair is hardly the foundation needed to launch this lawsuit. The record of the merits of the parole violation hearing is indispensable to this action. It is curiously absent. I would vacate the judgment.