Jackson v. Jamrog

• Decision Date: 02 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. 02-2057.,02-2057.
• Citation: 411 F.3d 615
• Parties: Paul JACKSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. David JAMROG, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

411 F.3d 615

Paul JACKSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. David JAMROG, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 02-2057.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: October 21, 2003.

Decided and Filed: June 2, 2005.

Andrew N. Wise, Federal Public Defenders Office, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellant.

Charles C. Schettler, Jr., Office of the Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee.

Laura Graves Moody, Office of the Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee.

Before: KEITH, DAUGHTREY, and GILMAN, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal from the district court's denial of habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, we are asked to determine the constitutionality of a Michigan statute, M.C.L.A. § 791.234(9), which permits an appeal to state court by prosecutors and crime victims from decisions of the state parole board granting parole, but provides no equivalent right of appeal to state prisoners who are denied parole. The petitioner, Paul Jackson, is a Michigan prison inmate who contends that the state legislature's 1999 amendment to § 791.234(9) that produced this dichotomy violates his right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The district court, utilizing rational-basis analysis, upheld the state statute as constitutional. We agree with this decision and affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Jackson was convicted of unarmed robbery in Michigan state court in 1989 and was sentenced to a prison term of 4-15 years. Although he was paroled in 1997, he was eventually arrested again, this time for possession of less than 25 grams of a controlled substance and for resisting arrest. As a result, the petitioner's parole was revoked and he was re-incarcerated. At parole hearings conducted on June 24, 2000, and August 8, 2001, the Michigan Parole Board denied Jackson's requests for release, concluding that "[t]he Parole Board lacks reasonable assurance that the prisoner will not become a menace to society or to the public safety."

Alleging that he, unlike state prosecutors and crime victims, could not avail himself of state court remedies to contest even the constitutional validity of the procedures used to deny him parole, Jackson filed with the federal district court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus that raised an equal protection challenge to the Michigan statute governing the parole process. The court denied that petition on the merits, determining that even though the respondent "has waived exhaustion of state remedies as a defense," the petitioner's "claim does not warrant habeas relief." Specifically, the district judge ruled that, assuming that prisoners are similarly situated with prosecutors and crime victims, no suspect classifications or fundamental rights are implicated in the parole decision. Employing the deferential rational-basis review standard in judging the statute, the district court concluded that the state's legitimate explanation — the attempt to minimize the number of frivolous prisoner appeals — rationally accounted for the differing treatment of prisoners on the one hand and prosecutors and crime victims on the other. From this determination, Jackson now appeals.

II. DISCUSSION

A. The Statute

Prior to 1982, Michigan's correctional code contained a general prohibition against appeals from parole board decisions. Public Act 314 of 1982 amended the relevant statute to permit appeals from the grant or denial of parole. After prisoners began using this mechanism to appeal denials of parole by the board, the legislature amended the statute to make it clear that appeals from orders granting parole could be undertaken by prosecutors and crime victims. Hence, until it was once again amended effective March 10, 2000, M.C.L.A. § 791.234(7) (1998) provided, in relevant part:

[A] prisoner's release on parole is discretionary with the parole board. The action of the parole board in granting or denying a parole is appealable by the prisoner, the prosecutor of the county from which the prisoner was committed, or the victim of the crime for which the prisoner was convicted. The appeal shall be to the circuit court in the county from which the prisoner was committed, by leave of the court.

That statute, as amended and renumbered, now provides that "[t]he action of the parole board in granting a parole is appealable by the prosecutor of the county from which the prisoner was committed or the victim of the crime for which the prisoner was convicted." M.C.L.A. § 791.234(9) (2003 Supp.) (emphasis added). Consequently, Michigan law no longer authorizes state court review of parole board decisions denying parole, while continuing to provide judicial review of the granting of parole.

B. The Exhaustion Requirement

We note as a threshold matter that the question now before us has not been addressed by the Michigan state courts, an issue that the district court treated only briefly, finding that the state had waived any objection to the failure to exhaust by failing to raise the issue in a timely fashion. We find this ruling questionable, at best, given the provision in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(3) that "[a] State shall not be deemed to have waived the exhaustion requirement or be estopped from reliance upon the requirement unless the State, through counsel, expressly waives the requirement." There was no express waiver in this case, and on appeal the state raises the issue, while simultaneously maintaining that the district court should be affirmed on the merits and not that the petition should be dismissed for failure to exhaust.

At the time of oral argument, we were concerned, despite the state's ambivalence, with the possibility of having the Michigan courts review the constitutionality of their own state statute before we were called upon to do so. Although the petitioner maintained that there was no avenue of review — given the 1999 amendment to M.C.L.A. § 791.234(9) — at least one district court, in an unrelated case raising the same equal protection issue as the one now before us, held that an inmate unable to appeal the denial of parole under § 791.234(9) might nevertheless appeal under M.C.L.A. § 600.631, the Revised Judicature Act. See Matson v. Mich. Parole Bd., 175 F.Supp.2d 925 (E.D.Mich.2001). That provision authorizes an appeal of "any order ... of any state board ... from which an appeal ... has not otherwise been provided ... to the circuit court of the county of which the appellant is a resident...."

Although the plain language of M.C.L.A. § 600.631 would seem to indicate that an appeal by a prisoner of a decision of the parole board should be allowed under the Revised Judicature Act, the Michigan Court of Appeals has held, in the period since this case was argued, that an appeal from the denial of parole is "not allowed under the [Act]." Morales v. Mich. Parole Bd., 260 Mich.App. 29, 676 N.W.2d 221, 225 (2003), app. for leave to appeal denied, 470 Mich. 885, 682 N.W.2d 90 (Table) (2004). Given this background, it appears that the petitioner's failure to exhaust prior to filing the current habeas action is excusable under § 2254(b)(1)(B)(i), because "there is an absence of available State corrective process."

C. The Equal Protection Claim

As we have noted, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution "protects against arbitrary classifications, and requires that similarly situated persons be treated equally." Richland Bookmart, Inc. v. Nichols, 278 F.3d 570, 574 (6th Cir.2002). Nevertheless, "[t]o withstand Fourteenth Amendment scrutiny, statutes that do not interfere with fundamental rights or single out suspect classifications must bear only a rational relationship to a legitimate state interest." Id. (citing City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 440, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985)).

The respondents here contend that the equal protection clause is not implicated in this matter because prisoners seeking parole are not "similarly situated" with prosecutors and crime victims seeking to restrict releases from imprisonment. It is, of course, axiomatic that parties on opposite sites of any true dispute will not be similarly situated, because one litigant, after all, is attempting to achieve a result that is the opposite of the goal sought by the opponent. The district judge recognized the inherent fallacy in the state's argument and simply presumed that the parties in this litigation met the "similarly situated" prerequisite for equal protection analysis. On appeal, we assume likewise. The challenged statute merely seeks to define the appellate options available to parties aggrieved by decisions of the parole board. Because prisoners, as well as prosecutors and crime victims, can be aggrieved by such determinations, all three groups are "similarly situated."

The district court then determined that the rational-basis standard of review was appropriate in this case because the challenged statute "does not violate a fundamental right or make a suspect distinction." Without question, prisoners are not considered a suspect class for purposes of equal protection litigation. See Wilson v. Yaklich, 148 F.3d 596, 604 (6th Cir.1998). Moreover, there is no fundamental right to parole under the federal constitution. See Bd. of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369, 373, 107 S.Ct. 2415, 96 L.Ed.2d 303 (1987). As the district court correctly noted, prison inmates do have a fundamental right of access to the courts, see Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 828, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977), but the right is not an absolute one:

Bounds does not guarantee inmates the wherewithal to transform themselves into litigating engines capable of filing everything from shareholder derivative actions to slip-and-fall claims. The tools it requires to be provided are those that the inmates need in order to attack their...