McQuillion v. Duncan
| Decision Date | 05 September 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 03-55702.,03-55702. |
| Citation | 342 F.3d 1012 |
| Parties | Carl D. McQUILLION, Petitioner-Appellee, v. William DUNCAN, Warden, Respondent-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Julie L. Garland, Office of the California Attorney General, San Diego, California, for the respondent-appellant.
Monica Knox, Federal Public Defender's Office, Los Angeles, California, for the petitioner-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; Dickran M. Tevrizian, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-98-03680-DT.
Before: KIM McLANE WARDLAW and WILLIAM A. FLETCHER, Circuit Judges, and RONALD M. WHYTE,** District Judge.
Petitioner-Appellee Carl D. McQuillion was convicted in 1973 of two counts of murder and sentenced to seven years to life. In 1979, the Board of Prison Terms1 ("the Board") found McQuillion suitable for parole and set a parole date of October 7, 1998. At each of six progress hearings after the initial grant of parole, McQuillion's parole date was advanced for good behavior by four months for every year served. However, at a final progress hearing in May 1994 a panel of the Board refused to advance McQuillion's parole date, even though there was no question about his continuing good behavior. If the panel had advanced the date, as the previous six panels had done, he would have been immediately released. Instead, the panel referred the case to the full Board, which voted to hold a rescission hearing. In September 1994, a panel of the Board found "good cause" to rescind the grant of parole and voted to rescind McQuillion's parole date as improvidently granted.
After exhausting his California remedies, McQuillion sought a writ of habeas corpus in federal court. The district court denied the writ, but we reversed that decision on appeal. McQuillion v. Duncan, 306 F.3d 895 (9th Cir.2002)[hereinafter McQuillion I]. We held that McQuillion "had a constitutionally protected interest in freedom from confinement in accordance with the substantive criteria established by the State that would require release or permit rescission." Id. at 903. Because none of the grounds relied on by the Board in its rescission determination was supported by "some evidence," we held that McQuillion's due process rights were violated when his parole was rescinded as improvidently granted. Id. at 906. We rejected, as unsupported by "some evidence," the Board's findings that the panel that initially granted McQuillion's parole had failed adequately to consider the gravity of his offense, his prior criminal history, and ambiguous psychiatric reports. Id. at 906-11. We also rejected, as unsupported by "some evidence," the Board's determination that McQuillion's lack of vocational training constituted "good cause" for rescission of parole. We noted, among other evidence, that the prison warden at San Quentin had stated that he had "observed more growth and potential in Carl McQuillion ... than [in] any other inmate in my career at Corrections." Id. at 911. We remanded to the district court with instructions to "grant the writ." Id. at 912.
On remand, the district court granted judgment and ordered McQuillion immediately released from prison. Respondent-Appellant William Duncan ("the Warden") entered no opposition prior to the court's entry of judgment. Before McQuillion's actual release, however, the Warden asked the court to alter or amend its judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e). The Warden asked the court to order, in lieu of immediate release, that the Board of Prison Terms grant McQuillion a new rescission hearing. The district court denied the motion. McQuillion v. Duncan, 253 F.Supp.2d 1131 (C.D.Cal. 2003). It found that we had directed it to grant unconditionally McQuillion's petition for a writ of habeas corpus and that it was therefore required to order McQuillion's immediate release. The court then stayed its judgment to allow the Warden time to appeal. Id. at 1132-33.
The Warden now appeals the district court's denial of his Rule 59 motion. A Rule 59 motion should not be granted "unless the district court is presented with newly discovered evidence, committed clear error, or if there is an intervening change in the controlling law." McDowell v. Calderon, 197 F.3d 1253, 1255 (9th Cir. 1999) (en banc) (internal quotation marks and emphasis omitted). We review a district court's denial of a Rule 59(e) motion for abuse of discretion. Zimmerman v. City of Oakland, 255 F.3d 734, 737 (9th Cir.2001). We find none.
The Warden claims that the district court should not have ordered the immediate release of McQuillion pursuant to our direction to the district court that it "grant the writ." McQuillion I, 306 F.3d at 912. The Warden does not assert either that there is "newly discovered evidence" or that there has been "an intervening change in the controlling law." Rather, the Warden claims that the district court committed "clear error." We disagree.
The district court properly interpreted our direction in McQuillion I. McQuillion had petitioned for his immediate release in the district court and had appealed to us the denial of that petition. We reversed the district court and directed that it "grant the writ" on remand. The district court properly interpreted this instruction to mean that it should grant the relief sought by McQuillion and order his immediate release. The district court thus did not err — and certainly did not clearly err — in so understanding our direction.
The Warden urges us to revisit the correctness of our decision in McQuillion I. With the case in its present posture, we do not believe that the correctness of our earlier decision is before us. However, even if it were, we would reject the Warden's arguments.
The Warden argues that, at a minimum, McQuillion should not be released immediately without an accompanying three-year period of parole. This argument overlooks the fact that if McQuillion had been released on the date to which he was entitled, he would have been released in May 1994. The three-year parole, which he would have been required to serve if he had been released on time, has long since expired.
The Warden also makes the linked arguments...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Ledesma v. Marshall
...BPH's determination the petitioner was not suitable for parole, immediate release can be a proper remedy. McQuillion v. Duncan ("McQuillion II"), 342 F.3d 1012, 1015-16 (9th Cir.2003) (affirming order of immediate release without imposing parole conditions, reasoning that if the petitioner ......
-
Milot v. Haws
...that the only remedy available to a federal habeas court is a remand to the Board for a new hearing. Indeed, in McQuillion v. Duncan, 342 F.3d 1012, 1015 (9th Cir.2003), where the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's finding that the Board's 1994 parole grant was rescinded in violati......
-
Envtl. Def. Ctr. v. Bureau of Ocean Energy Mgmt.
...We review for an abuse of discretion a district court's decision to deny a motion to alter or amend a judgment. McQuillion v. Duncan , 342 F.3d 1012, 1014 (9th Cir. 2003). The district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that DCOR did not meet the standards articulated in Rule......
-
Murr v. Marshall
...since the date his parole release date became final should be credited to his period of parole supervision. See McQuillion v. Duncan, 342 F.3d 1012, 1015 (9th Cir.2003) (appropriate habeas remedy was release without parole supervision when petitioner's parole supervision period would have l......