Jones v. Utah Board of Pardons & Parole, 20020485.

• Decision Date: 29 June 2004
• Docket Number: No. 20020485.,20020485.
• Citation: 94 P.3d 283,2004 UT 53
• Parties: Scott Allen Jones, Plaintiff, Appellee, and Cross-Appellant, v. Utah Board of Pardons & Parole, and Hank Galetka, Warden of the Utah State Prison Defendants, Appellants, and Cross-Appellees,
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

2004 UT 53

94 P.3d 283

Scott Allen Jones, Plaintiff, Appellee, and Cross-Appellant, v. Utah Board of Pardons & Parole, and Hank Galetka, Warden of the Utah State Prison Defendants, Appellants, and Cross-Appellees,

No. 20020485.

Supreme Court of Utah.

FILED June 29, 2004.

This opinion is subject to revision before final publication in the Pacific Reporter.

Edward K. Brass, Salt Lake City, for plaintiff.

Mark L. Shurtleff, Att'y Gen., Sharel S. Reber, Asst. Att'y Gen., Salt Lake City, for defendants.

NEHRING, Justice:

¶1 This case presents the question of whether the Utah Constitution authorized the legislature to enact Utah Code section 77-27-11(3), which empowers the Board of Pardons and Parole to issue warrants to retake parolees believed to have violated parole. Utah Code Ann. § 77-27-11(3) (2003). We hold that it did.

BACKGROUND

¶2 Scott Jones is now incarcerated at the Utah State Prison. He had been previously committed to prison following a conviction for theft of an automobile and was paroled in June 1995. When he was paroled, Mr. Jones signed a parole agreement that required him to comply with numerous conditions, including that he complete a program at a community correctional center and that he not abscond from parole supervision.

¶3 Two days after his release, Mr. Jones absconded from the correctional center. Acting under the authority of Utah Code section 77-27-11(3), a member of the Board of Pardons and Parole issued a warrant to retake Mr. Jones on the basis that he had violated his parole (the "retaking warrant"). See Utah Code Ann. § 77-27-11(3) (2003). Mr. Jones was taken into custody and returned to prison in September 1995. He admitted that he violated his parole. While at large, Mr. Jones had committed aggravated robbery. He was convicted and sentenced to prison for this offense in June 1996.

¶4 In November 1996, the Board conducted a hearing and revoked Mr. Jones' parole. It based its revocation on both Mr. Jones' guilty plea to a parole violation and his conviction for aggravated robbery.

¶5 Appearing pro se, Mr. Jones filed a petition for extraordinary relief in August 1999, seeking to be released from prison. In his lengthy petition, Mr. Jones mounted broad and diffuse attacks on the constitutional authority of the Board to revoke his parole, as well as the conduct of both the district attorney who prosecuted him and the public defender appointed to represent him. The trial court appointed counsel to represent Mr. Jones with respect to this petition.

¶6 Both the Board and Mr. Jones filed dispositive motions, which pruned Mr. Jones' claims into the form in which they are now presented to us. His claims centered around his challenge to the Board's authority to issue the warrant that resulted in his post-absconsion apprehension. Mr. Jones contended that, when the Board issued this retaking warrant, it exercised a "core judicial function" that can be lawfully performed only by a member of the judicial branch of government. He further argued that the issuance of the retaking warrant violated article V, section 1 of the Utah Constitution, which mandates the separation of governmental powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial departments. Utah Const. art. V, § 1.

¶7 In a memorandum decision issued in November 2001, the trial court agreed with Mr. Jones' contentions and issued an order permanently enjoining the Board and its members from issuing retaking warrants. The trial court stayed the order pending resolution of the Board's appeal. We reverse the ruling of the trial court and remand.

ISSUES AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶8 The major portion of our analysis is directed toward Mr. Jones' contentions that section 77-27-11(3) is unconstitutional, both because it enables the Board to exercise a "core judicial function" and because it violates the principle of separation of powers. We also take up two subsidiary questions raised in the trial court's memorandum decision: whether section 77-27-11(3) unconstitutionally allows a single Board member to issue a retaking warrant, in violation of article VII, section 12 of the Utah Constitution, which requires the Board to act as a majority; and whether section 77-27-11(3) violates the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution, both of which prohibit unreasonable searches and seizures, because it allows for a retaking arrest without probable cause.

¶9 The four issues presented on appeal call on us to undertake statutory and constitutional interpretation. This is a task we perform without deference to the trial court's determinations. Utah Safe to Learn-Safe to Worship Coalition, Inc. v. State, 2004 UT 32, ¶ 10, P.3d .

¶10 We presume that the statute is constitutional and, therefore, that the warrant it authorized was proper. "`[S]tatutes are presumed to be constitutional until the contrary is clearly shown. It is only when statutes manifestly infringe upon some constitutional provision that they can be declared void. Every reasonable presumption must be indulged in and every reasonable doubt resolved in favor of constitutionality.'" Salt Lake City v. Ohms, 881 P.2d 844, 847 (Utah 1994) (quoting In re Estate of Baer, 562 P.2d 614, 616 (Utah 1977)). Thus, the party challenging a statute's constitutionality bears a heavy burden of proving its invalidity. Blue Cross & Blue Shield v. State, 779 P.2d 634, 637 (Utah 1989).

¶11 Finally, Mr. Jones cross-appeals, asking us to review the trial court's denial of his demand for an evidentiary hearing on his claim that his guilty plea and admissions to parole violations were the product of his illegal arrest.

ANALYSIS

I. ISSUES ON APPEAL

¶12 The statute that Mr. Jones contests, and that the trial court found to be constitutionally infirm, states:

Any member of the board may issue a warrant based upon a certified warrant request to a peace officer or other persons authorized to arrest, detain, and return to actual custody a parolee, and may upon arrest or otherwise direct the Department of Corrections to determine if there is probable cause to believe that the parolee has violated the conditions of his parole.

Utah Code Ann. § 77-27-11(3) (2003).

A. The Core Judicial Function Challenge

¶13 The trial court anchored its holding that section 77-27-11(3) was unconstitutional on the conclusion that the Board's power to issue a retaking warrant was a "core judicial function," and thus could be performed only by a judicial officer who was appointed pursuant to article VIII of the Utah Constitution. As authority for this conclusion, the trial court relied largely on State v. Thomas, 961 P.2d 299 (Utah 1998). In that case, we held that the power of a court of record to issue a search warrant was a "core judicial function" that could not be exercised by court commissioners because they are not judicial officers appointed pursuant to article VIII of the Utah Constitution. Id. at 302.

¶14 Thomas was based largely on a previous case, Salt Lake City v. Ohms, in which we first used the nomenclature "core judicial function." Salt Lake City v. Ohms, 881 P.2d 844, 848 (Utah 1994). In Ohms, we held that court commissioners in courts of record did not have the power to enter final judgments and to impose sentences on defendants in criminal misdemeanor cases. Id. at 851. We characterized that power as a "core judicial function" and held that, in courts of record, only judicial officers appointed pursuant to article VIII could exercise it. Id.

¶15 The trial court in this case reasoned that the Board is analogous to the court commissioners in Ohms and Thomas because neither enjoy status as an article VIII judicial power. The trial court also found similarity between the power of a retaking warrant to arrest a suspected parole violator, and the power of a search warrant to search a citizen's dwelling, and concluded that a retaking warrant, like a search warrant, is a "core judicial function." We depart from both elements of the trial court's analysis.

¶16 The trial court overextended the reach of Ohms and Thomas. It is true that the members of the Board, like court commissioners, do not acquire or maintain their positions pursuant to the judicial selection and retention process set out in article VIII. However, Board members, unlike commissioners, do not serve in "courts of record," a characteristic that defined the realm of both Ohms and Thomas.

¶17 The statutory grant of authority to court commissioners exceeds constitutional limits "`to the extent that it purports to vest ultimate judicial power in courts of record in persons who have not been duly appointed as article VIII judges.'" Thomas, 961 P.2d at 302 (quoting Ohms, 881 P.2d at 855). Thus, because the Board is not a court of record, Ohms and Thomas do not apply to warrants which it issues.¹

¶18 The trial court also overstated the similarity between a retaking warrant and a search warrant. When we held that the issuance of a search warrant was a "core judicial function," we noted that search warrants implicate a right preeminent among those protected by our constitution. Id. at 303. We need not retreat from our recognition of the importance of the right to be free from unreasonable searches, or our commitment to defend it, to conclude that retaking warrants, issued to apprehend absconding parolees, are not entitled to equal dignity.

¶19 When Mr. Jones was sentenced to serve a prison commitment, he was placed in the custody of the Department of Corrections.² See Utah Code Ann. § 64-13-7 (2003). The Department's custodial responsibilities extend to offenders who, like Mr. Jones, are paroled. Id. Although parolees are entitled to a greater range of constitutional protections than prison inmates, they do not enjoy the full complement of constitutional freedoms. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 482 (1972). "`Revocation [of parole] deprives an individual, not of the absolute liberty to which...