Snyder v. United States Board of Parole, Civ. A. No. 74-M-230.

• Decision Date: 30 October 1974
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 74-M-230.
• Parties: John Graham SNYDER et al., Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES BOARD OF PAROLE et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Colorado

383 F. Supp. 1153

John Graham SNYDER et al., Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES BOARD OF PAROLE et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 74-M-230.

United States District Court, D. Colorado.

October 30, 1974.

C. Thomas Bastien and Richard L. Nathan of Tallmadge, Tallmadge, Wallace & Hahn, Denver, Colo., for plaintiffs.

James L. Treece, U. S. Atty., Gary M. Jackson, Asst. U. S. Atty., Denver, Colo., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

MATSCH, District Judge.

This case has been submitted on stipulated facts. The issues are moot with respect to plaintiffs Richard L. Garnett and Jeffrey Bruce Wolf because they have been released. The other plaintiffs are presently incarcerated in the Federal Youth Center (a facility operated by the Bureau of Prisons) in Englewood, Colorado pursuant to sentences imposed under the Youth Corrections Act, 18 U.S.C. § 5010(b).

John Graham Snyder entered a plea of guilty to distribution of cocaine in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. He entered the F. Y.C. on or about September 5, 1973 and soon thereafter he appeared before a parole examiner. The Plaintiff Snyder has been informed that he is not scheduled for another institutional review hearing until November 1975. He has had two jobs since his arrival at the institution. The first job was as a clerk for the institution's work study office from September 15, 1973 until April 1, 1974. Since then Snyder has been a driver for the institution and as such he spends most of his days driving fellow inmates to and from outside obligations. Snyder has had no negative incident reports since the outset of his confinement.

Joseph Scott Helma entered a guilty plea to distribution of cocaine in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, and he began serving his sentence at the F.Y.C. on or about August 30, 1973. Helma appeared before the Parole Board and was scheduled for an institutional review hearing in March, 1975. He worked full time at the institution's commissary for five months, and he was then approved for study release. For three days a week Helma audited courses at the University of Colorado Denver Center while working as a clerk in the institution's work study office. In May of 1974, Helma became a full-time student at the University of Colorado, Denver Center. Currently Helma remains a full-time student and, additionally, works fifteen hours per week in the C. U. Engineering Department of Calibration Laboratory. Plaintiff Helma has had no negative incident reports since the outset of his confinement.

Ronald Vernon Vallery entered a plea of guilty to distribution of cocaine in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. He entered the F. Y.C. on or about September 5, 1973, and he was scheduled for an institutional review hearing in July of 1975. Vallery worked in the institution's records office until May of 1974 when he was given a job as the work release driver and has held that job ever since.

On November 19, 1973 the Board of Parole published a statement of general policy in the Federal Register, which included rules and regulations relating to parole release of federal prisoners. 38 Fed.Reg. No. 222, Part III. These rules and regulations include a table designated as "Table II — Youth Guidelines for Decision Making" which sets forth a range of months constituting the customary time to be served before release based upon a combination of offense severity and offender characteristics. Examples of offense severity are set out on the vertical axis of this table, and different gradations of parole prognosis are set out on the horizontal axis. These gradations from "very good" to "poor" are the score given to a particular offender by the application of "salient factors" which are set out as objectively ascertainable facts based upon computer prepared experience tables relating to the risk of recidivism. These facts include prior convictions, whether auto theft was involved in the commitment offense, educational level achieved, history of drug dependence and other matters.

The plaintiffs' crime is rated as "very high" in this table, and each plaintiff has "very good" offender characteristics. Accordingly, each plaintiff comes within a range of 20 to 27 months confinement.

The plaintiffs complain that the application of these guidelines has the effect of altering their sentences into determinate periods in violation of the spirit, purpose, and legislative intent of the Youth Corrections Act. They ask for a judgment declaring this system of parole consideration to be a denial of due process and an arbitrary action by the Board of Parole.

Congress created the Board of Parole and gave it a broad discretion. Under the applicable statutory authority, 18 U.S.C. § 4203(a), the only legislated standards are whether there is a reasonable probability that the prospective parolee will live and remain at liberty without violating the law and whether the release is compatible with the welfare of society. It is not the function of the courts to interfere in the exercise of that discretion. Earnest v. Moseley, 426 F.2d 466 (10th Cir. 1970); Scarpa v. U. S. Board of Parole, 477 F.2d 278 (5th Cir. 1973); Brest v. Ciccone, 371 F.2d 981 (8th Cir. 1967).

The decisions of the Board of Parole are reviewable, however, where it has acted in an arbitrary or capricious manner, where it has abused its discretion, or where there is a denial of a constitutional right. United States ex rel. Harrison v. Pace, 357 F. Supp. 354 (E.D. Pa. 1973). The scope of judicial review is that set forth in the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706. King v. United States, 492 F.2d 1337 (7th Cir. 1974). There can be no question but that the adoption of guidelines for the exercise of parole discretion has important advantages in developing a consistent policy to aid hearing examiners in making their decisions. Fairness is perceived in dealing with similar persons in similar situations in similar ways. The use of these guidelines may be assumed to have a significant impact on reducing the effects of disparate sentencing, and that is one of the stated purposes of their adoption. Thus, the use of some standards may well be an important advance in criminal justice.

The difficulty presented by this case is the contradiction between the board's policy of comparability and the congressional intent to individualize the treatment of young offenders through the use of...