Hill v. U.S. Parole Comm'n, Civil Action No. 16-1476 (JEB)
| Decision Date | 02 June 2017 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 16-1476 (JEB) |
| Parties | ARNOLD J. HILL, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES PAROLE COMMISSION, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Having spent the last thirty years locked up for strangling an ex-girlfriend, Plaintiff Arnold Hill is eager to get out. In bringing this action, he asserts that the U.S. Parole Commission has unfairly blocked his release in a number of ways, including by failing to give him notice about testimony from the victim's family, treating him (a District of Columbia offender) differently from federal prisoners, and rescinding a prior parole grant. Although a further rehearing is now set for November 2018, Hill is unwilling to linger any longer in limbo. He has thus filed suit against the USPC and its three Commissioners in their official capacities, seeking various forms of injunctive and declaratory relief.
Defendants now move to dismiss, contending that Plaintiff's claims that the proceedings violated due process and equal protection and reached an arbitrary result cannot break the parole cycle. This is so. Because Hill's only avenues to relief involve a further parole hearing or filing a habeas petition, the Court will grant the Government's Motion and dismiss the case.
Hill is an inmate in his mid-sixties serving time for murdering his ex-girlfriend, Shelby Teresa Duncan, in September 1987. See Mot., Exh. 1 (Sentence Monitoring Computation Data) at 1. For that crime, the District of Columbia Superior Court sentenced him to an indefinite term of imprisonment of twenty years to life. Id. Under the District's old sentencing scheme, this meant that Hill would first be eligible for parole after serving the bottom number — i.e., twenty years — and could not serve longer than the top number, which, in this case, was redundant since it was life. See Warren v. U.S. Parole Comm'n, 659 F.2d 183, 196 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (). All told, Plaintiff has now been incarcerated for this murder for almost thirty years. See Computation Data at 2.
Given his twenty-to-life term, Hill first became parole eligible in October 2007. Id. Although he had been sentenced in a D.C. court for a D.C. Code offense, the U.S. Parole Commission handled his case, as Congress had abolished the D.C. Board of Parole, largely done away with local parole, and transferred jurisdiction to the Commission for remaining offenders by enacting the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997, Pub. L. No. 105-33, § 11231, 111 Stat. 712, 745 (). Over time, the Commission would consider Hill's eligibility on numerous occasions, as it is required to do. See 28 C.F.R. § 2.75(a)(2)(i) ().
The Commission initially conducted a hearing in July 2007 and denied release after finding that Hill's parole guidelines recommended at least 26 years' imprisonment. See Mot., Exh. 3 (August 7, 2007, Notice of Action). The agency then scheduled a rehearing for July 2012. Id.
Apparently realizing thereafter that it should have applied the D.C. Board of Parole's so-called "1987 Guidelines," not the federal ones, the Commission conducted a rehearing earlier than scheduled in November 2009. Id., Exh. 4 (December 17, 2009, Notice of Action); see ECF No. 1 (Complaint), ¶¶ 33-34; see also 28 C.F.R. § 2.80(o)(1) (). The correct Guidelines recommended current parole, as opposed to at least several more years' imprisonment, but the Commission nonetheless denied release, instructed Hill to complete his GED and a 500-hour drug-abuse program, and then set a further rehearing a year later. See 2009 Notice of Action.
That second rehearing took place in November 2010. See Mot., Exh. 5 (February 11, 2011, Notice of Action). This time, despite a Guidelines recommendation of release (again) and his compliance with rehabilitative programs, the USPC again denied parole. Id. It informed Hill that "there is a reasonable probability that you would not obey the law if released and your release would endanger the public safety." Id. More specifically, he was a "more serious parole risk" than the Guidelines suggested because: he was "involved in the strangulation of the victim, following [his] harassment of her due to the relationship ending," "[t]he victims' nude body was discovered by her children," and he had "two previous convictions which appear violent in nature, Assault & Battery and Unlawful Wounding," the details of which had not been fleshed out in previous proceedings. Id. Another rehearing was then scheduled in one year's time. Id.
The third rehearing in November 2011 seemed, at first, to be the charm. The Commission granted parole and set an effective release date of August 7, 2012. Id., Exh. 6 (January 11, 2012, Notice of Action). In doing so, it informed Hill that the "parole effective date is contingent upon approval of your release plan by the Commission." Id. (citing 28 C.F.R. § 2.82); see 28 C.F.R. § 2.83.
Would that it were so simple. Come February 2012, the USPC learned that Duncan's family members wished to testify. Id., Exh. 9 (July 25, 2012, Hearing Summary). When the Commission receives "new and significant information concerning the prisoner," 28 C.F.R. § 2.75(e) (citing § 2.28), including "adverse information," id. § 2.28(f), it may reopen any case for a special reconsideration hearing. That process begins with one Commissioner's recommending reconsideration to the others; this referral "automatically retard[s] the prisoner's scheduled release date until a final decision is reached in the case." Id. § 2.28(f). If two Commissioners concur in a reopening, then a new hearing is set. Id. That is what happened here. See Mot., Exh. 7 (February 15, 2012, Notice of Action).
In the subsequent, fourth rehearing in July 2012, an examiner heard testimony from Duncan's sister and eldest daughter. The sister mentioned how Hill had never given specifics about how or why he killed Duncan. See 2012 Hearing Summary at 2. And the daughter discussed how she and her two siblings (10, 6, and 4 years of age back then) were at home during the crime and how the youngest one discovered their mother's body the next morning. Id. at 1, 3. She also testified that Hill had previously threatened to kill Duncan. Id. at 1. Finally, she objected to his plan to live nearby, in the same Maryland county in which she resided, once released. Id. at 1. Plaintiff was not represented, but apologized and testified that he did notremember how or why he strangled Duncan, both because the events occurred some 25 years ago and because he may have been on drugs. Id. at 2.
The hearing examiner recommended against release, or, in other words, he advocated for rescinding the initial parole grant. He recounted how, at the hearing, Hill "never really displayed any remorse" and was "very methodical," and was "a bit evasive" about "remember[ing] details of the offense" and "just did not want to bring them up." Id. The examiner found it "unimaginable to kill the mother of these young children and then to walk out and leave a lifeless strangulated body in her apartment knowing full well that sometime the body would be discovered by the three children who were residing in the bedroom next to the mother's bedroom." Id. at 3. Given that this "total disregard for the victim in this case and the safety of her children [wa]s so egregious," he concluded that there is a "reasonable probability" he would not obey the law and that release would "endanger public safety." Id. (). The Commission agreed and scheduled the next rehearing in five years' time — that is, in July 2017. Id., Exh. 8 (August 29, 2012, Notice of Action).
Not even this settled things for long. In September 2015, Plaintiff's counsel asked the Commission to reopen the case once again. Id., Exh. 10 (September 30, 2015, Letter from Chanale Fiebig to Hon. J. Patricia Wilson Smoot). In particular, Hill argued that he had not received notice of the nature of the testimony from Duncan's family (thereby impairing his preparation and retention of legal representation), and he had recently developed an alternate release plan to live in a different county in Maryland. Id. at 2-4. This was to no avail, as the Commission rejected his plea. Id., Exh. 11 (February 2, 2016, Memorandum). It reasoned that, "at the outset of the hearing, the Examiner asked Mr. Hill if was aware that victims would betestifying and he said that he was" and that Hill "also informed the Examiner that he was aware of his right to have a person of his choice represent him but did not want a representative." Id. The Commission then found that "the fact that he now has a release plan that is outside of the county where the victims live" was not so "significant as to warrant earlier parole reconsideration." Id.
Hill responded by filing this lawsuit in July 2016. His Complaint states two constitutional counts (due process and equal protection) brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and one Administrative Procedure Act claim. See Compl., ¶¶ 58-83. It asks the Court to reverse the Commission's rescission of Plaintiff's grant of parole (or, alternatively, to grant a parole rehearing with the right to appeal) and to declare that D.C. Code offenders have the right to appeal to the National...
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