Engweiler v. Board of Parole

• Decision Date: 13 December 2007
• Docket Number: USDC No. CV 02-630.,USDC No. SC S054153.,USDC No. CV 02-1453.,USDC No. CV 06-957.
• Citation: 175 P.3d 408,343 Or. 536
• Parties: Conrad ENGWEILER, Lydell M. White, and Laycelle T. White, Plaintiffs, v. BOARD OF PAROLE AND POST-PRISON SUPERVISION, Robert O. Lampert, and Stan Czerniak, Defendants.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

175 P.3d 408

343 Or. 536

Conrad ENGWEILER, Lydell M. White, and Laycelle T. White, Plaintiffs, v. BOARD OF PAROLE AND POST-PRISON SUPERVISION, Robert O. Lampert, and Stan Czerniak, Defendants.

USDC No. CV 06-957.

USDC No. CV 02-1453.

USDC No. CV 02-630.

USDC No. SC S054153.

Supreme Court of Oregon. En Banc.

Argued and Submitted June 19, 2007.

Decided December 13, 2007.

Andy Simrin, Salem, argued the cause for plaintiffs. With him on the brief was Dennis N. Balske, Portland.

Janet A. Metcalf, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause for defendants. With her on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General.

LINDER, J.

This case is before the court on certified questions of Oregon law from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon.¹ The questions arise in each of three habeas corpus cases pending before that court. All three federal habeas petitioners committed aggravated murder when they were juveniles under the age of 17. Each was prosecuted as an adult and, on conviction, sentenced to life imprisonment. The certified questions concern petitioners' statutorily eligibility for parole and the legal effect of any administrative rules governing their potential parole eligibility. The specific questions that the federal court has certified to us are best understood in the context of the statutes and administrative rules that give rise to them. We therefore begin with that background, and then turn to the certified questions and our answers.

I. BACKGROUND

The questions that the federal court has certified to us arise because of changes made to Oregon's laws punishing aggravated murder, as well as changes made to Oregon's sentencing laws more generally, through the 1980s. Before 1985, the maximum penalty for aggravated murder was life imprisonment, with a mandatory minimum sentence of either 20 or 30 years, depending on the particular form of aggravated murder committed.² Pursuant to ORS 144.110(2)(b) (1983), the Board of Parole (the board)³ was prohibited from releasing on parole any person convicted of aggravated murder except as provided in the statute providing those minimum terms. A juvenile 16 years of age or older who was alleged to have committed a criminal offense could be remanded to the appropriate court for trial as an adult. Former ORS 419.533 (1983), repealed by Or. Laws 1993, ch. 33, § 373. A juvenile so remanded and convicted of aggravated murder was subject to the same penalty as an adult; no provision exempted juveniles from the minimum term of incarceration required under ORS 163.105 (1983) or otherwise made juvenile aggravated murderers eligible for parole before an adult would be.

Oregon voters reinstated the death penalty for aggravated murder through a constitutional amendment and other enactments that became effective on December 6, 1984.⁴ As amended, ORS 163.105 (1985) made the potential punishment for aggravated murder death, if the jury made the requisite statutory findings, or life imprisonment with a minimum term of 30 years without the possibility of parole. Or. Laws 1985, ch. 3, § 1. The statute governing the remand of juveniles to adult court was changed as well. The remand age was lowered to include juveniles 15 years or older at the time of the offense, but remand was limited to juveniles who allegedly had committed one of several enumerated felony offenses, including aggravated murder. Or. Laws 1985, ch. 631, § 1 (amending former ORS 419.533). Finally, the death penalty enactments included a statute that was new: ORS 161.620. Or. Laws 1985, ch. 631, § 9. That statute prohibited a trial court from imposing a death sentence or mandatory minimum sentence on any remanded juvenile, but it made an exception for the mandatory minimum sentence under ORS 163.105 if the juvenile committed aggravated murder at age 17.

Shortly after those changes took effect, the board modified its rules for setting parole release dates for persons convicted of aggravated murder. In particular, the board deleted parole hearing procedures for persons convicted of aggravated murder from division 30 of OAR chapter 255, which was (and remains) the set of rules that governed parole release procedures for felony offenders generally. See former OAR 255-030-0012 (deleted May 31, 1985). Simultaneously, the board created a new set of rules — division 32 — that specifically addressed parole procedures for persons convicted of aggravated murder. Those rules — both procedurally and substantively — tracked the mandatory minimum sentence required by ORS 163.105(1) (1985). Under OAR 255-032-0005 (1985), the rules required that an aggravated murderer receive a "prison term hearing" under the procedures provided in division 30 of the rules. OAR 255-032-0010(1) (1985) identified the "minimum period of confinement for a person convicted of Aggravated Murder as defined by ORS 163.105(1) [ (1985) ]" to be 30 years. Thus, for persons convicted of aggravated murder, the rules did not provide for a proceeding in which a parole date would be determined until after the inmate had served the minimum term of confinement imposed pursuant ORS 163.105(1) (1985). In effect, the rules did not anticipate the need to do so for any person convicted of aggravated murder. No board rule specifically addressed juveniles convicted of aggravated murder or made any other provision for them.

A few years later, another legislative change to Oregon's sentencing laws took place, one that also has bearing on the questions before us. Effective November 1, 1989, the legislature abolished Oregon's indeterminate sentencing system and replaced it with a so-called "sentencing guidelines" scheme. See generally Or. Laws 1989, ch. 790. Before that change, Oregon had used a "parole matrix system" for determining the actual length of an offender's incarceration. See Hamel v. Johnson, 330 Or. 180, 185-86, 998 P.2d 661 (2000) (explaining parole matrix system). Under the matrix system, for any particular offender, the trial court imposed an indeterminate sentence of a specified maximum duration, and the board determined the actual duration of imprisonment by its parole release decision. In contrast, under the sentencing guidelines system that came into force in 1989, trial courts are charged with imposing a determinate sentence for most felony convictions. That sentence is based on a presumptive term determined pursuant to a set of legislatively approved guidelines, from which a sentencing court has limited discretion to deviate. The inmate then serves the sentence that the trial court imposes, without eligibility for release on parole. See State ex rel Engweiler v. Cook, 340 Or. 373, 380-82, 133 P.3d 904 (2006) (discussing former parole matrix system and current sentencing guidelines scheme). The sentencing guidelines system thus eliminated any kind of release on parole for persons subject to its provisions. Consistently with that change, the board amended its parole "matrix" rules — i.e., division 30 — to apply only to an inmate "whose crime was committed prior to November 1, 1989." OAR 255-030-0010(1) (1989).

By late 1989, then, the board's rules had undergone two significant modifications. First, in response to the enactment of the death penalty provisions, the board had removed aggravated murder from division 30, which contains the "matrix" rules by which parole release dates are set for felony offenses generally; aggravated murder instead became subject to a separate set of rules set out in division 32. Second, in response to the new determinate sentencing guidelines scheme, the board expressly limited its parole authority under division 30 to felony offenses committed before November 1, 1989. Neither set of rules contained different provisions for juveniles convicted of aggravated murder. Instead, all persons convicted of aggravated murder, including juveniles under the age of 17 at the time of their offense, were subject to division 32, which was written with a built-in assumption that all persons convicted of aggravated murder were required to serve a 30-year minimum sentence under ORS 163.105(1) (1989).

That was the state of the board's rules when each of the three federal habeas petitioners — Conrad Engweiler, Lydell M. White, and Laycell T. White (referred to individually by last name, or collectively as petitioners) — committed their crimes of aggravated murder. Engweiler committed aggravated murder in 1990. He was 15 years old at the time. The Whites, who are brothers, jointly committed aggravated murder in 1993. They, too, were 15 years old at the time of their crimes. All three juveniles were tried as adults, convicted of aggravated murder, and sentenced (Engweiler in 1994 and the Whites in 1995) to life imprisonment without a minimum sentence — that is, to life with the possibility of parole.⁵

In 1999, the board promulgated new rules as part of division 32 to establish procedures and standards by which the board would consider whether and when to grant parole to juvenile aggravated murderers (the "JAM" rules).⁶ The board then applied those rules to petitioners. In Engweiler's case, the board entered an order that gave him a 480-month prison term and a corresponding "murder review date" of February 22, 2030; the board further ordered that a "murder review hearing" would be scheduled for him in December 2029. The effect of that order is that the board has not established an initial parole date for Engweiler. Engweiler v. Board of Parole, 340 Or. 361, 371, 133 P.3d 910 (2006) (Engweiler II). The board has, however, determined that, after 480 months, Engweiler will be eligible for consideration for parole and it has scheduled further proceedings for review. Id.; State ex rel Engweiler, 340 Or. at 383, 133 P.3d 904. In each of the White's cases, the board imposed a prison term of "life," thus effectively determining that they should be denied release on parole. The board...