Court Opinion

ID: 9745118
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:35:48.708075+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:56.340931
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE WARD, dissenting: I must respectfully dissent. I believe an inmate does have a constitutionally protected interest in parole release and that the Board’s statement of reasons for its denial of defendant’s parole application was insufficient to satisfy his constitutional interest. The Board’s purported explanation of reasons for its denial of the application reads: “We the members of the Prisoner Review Board have carefully reviewed all aspects of your case for possible parole consideration. The record reflects that you are serving a sentence of 100 to 200 years for the offense of murder. The shooting death of an East St. Louis police officer. Your institutional adjustment along with your face to face interview before members of the Board is considered, as well as your release plans. The Board feels to grant parole at this time would deprecate the seriousness of the offenses, and promote disrespect to the criminal justice system. Therefore, parole is denied.” I recognize that it well may be that under what are the undisclosed circumstances, Tiller is not entitled to parole consideration, but he is entitled to a meaningful statement of reasons for refusal of his application. Some will be apprehensive that much of the statement is simply an example of institutional cant that could and may be routinely sent to rejected applicants. The Board’s statement informs the inmate that the record reflects he is serving a sentence for murder and that the murder was that of a police officer, of which the inmate certainly is already aware. It says that his institutional adjustment and interview before the Board were considered as well as his plans for afterlife, if and when he is released. He is not advised how the Board viewed his adjustment — whether, for example, he is viewed as a disciplinary problem or a well-adjusted inmate or simply as an unrepentant. The inmate is not informed of the impression he made in his interview and on his statement of release plans. If the impression on either was unfavorable he does not learn the reason for the unfavorable impression so that he might question it or attempt to explain the cause of the impression or avoid making it in future applications. The statement went on to say that the Board felt that if it granted parole then it would deprecate the seriousness of the offense and promote disrespect of the criminal justice system. It is interesting to observe that similar language was used as a reason for denying the petition in United States ex rel. Scott v. Illinois Parole & Pardon Board (7th Cir. 1982), 669 F.2d 1185. There the Board’s statement explained that releasing Scott on parole at the time would have deprecated the severity of the crime he committed. The Board, as it did here, had noted that Scott had been convicted of murder and had received a 25- to 40-year sentence. The court held that unless the Board’s practice was to automatically deny parole to inmates imprisoned for murder, the statement of reasons given Scott was inadequate. The court remanded to determine whether or not that was the practice of the Board. The Scott court said that the inadequacy of the Board’s rationale stemmed from the Board’s failure to “considerf ] the inmate’s specific conduct, and not just the statutory offense for which he had been found criminally liable.” (Scott, 669 F.2d at 1191.) The majority judges that its holding is consistent with Scott, but I believe that the failure of the Board in Scott is matched here. I consider that to satisfy constitutional standards something more than what appears to be a type of form letter is required. I think the inmate must be informed what really are the reasons for the denial of a petition which importantly affects his life and maybe the lives of others — it may be antisocial behavior while incarcerated, defiance of authority, a history of recidivism that makes him a poor candidate for parole until there is more evidence of rehabilitation, etc. The validity of requiring that the Board’s reasons be articulated in its statement to the inmate is illustrated by the holding in United States ex rel Stevens v. Klincar, where the Board gave this reason for denying parole: “[T]he members feel that you are not a fit person to serve your sentence outside the institution ***.” (United States ex rel. Stevens v. Klincar (N.D. Ill. 1983), 566 F. Supp. 335, 337.) The Stevens court concluded that this was a “meaningless statement” that did not give the inmate any insight into why parole was denied. I submit that the statement here, suggestive of language from an administrative style book, was inadequate to satisfy the inmate’s constitutional interest. The majority observes that in Heirens v. Mizell (7th Cir. 1984), 729 F.2d 449, 467, it was stated: “If the Parole Board cites to facts.upon which its reasons for denial of parole can be justified, due process is met.” Looking to the opinion in Heirens one finds a near model statement of facts as the rationale for refusing to grant parole. Here, in comparison, there are no facts given, in my opinion, to satisfy due process.