CINCINNATI - Parole “is a privilege, not a right” and inmates don’t have a constitutional right to be released even if a computer program improperly classifies them as dangerous, a federal appeals court ruled in a lawsuit against Tennessee Board of Parole.
Two inmates sought to establish a class action on behalf of prisoners who, they claim, were denied parole because of an improperly administered program called “STRONG-R.” That program assesses a variety of factors to determine whether an inmate’s risk to the public is low or high.
Prison employees are supposed to input specific information but don’t always do that, the court said. Inmates only learn the test results at their parole hearing, meanwhile. The plaintiffs argued this meant the system “works to ensure that no inmate can meaningfully challenge or address the results.”
A district court dismissed their case and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit agreed, citing U.S. Supreme Court decisions that repeatedly have held prisoners don’t have a “liberty interest” in receiving parole.
The Sixth Circuit once found such an interest under Tennessee law when it instructed parole board members there was a “presumption” in favor of parole. Lawmakers removed that language, however, and the Sixth Circuit decided the liberty interest no longer exists.
“As Tennessee’s parole statutes—and accompanying Board rules—have changed over time, so too have our conclusions,” the court said in a June 9 opinion by Judge R. Guy Cole.
Plaintiffs Carvin Thomas and Terrell Lawrence sued the parole board, claiming the use of STRONG-R violated their 14th Amendment due process rights. Tennessee law requires every prisoner to receive the test annually and the board uses the results to determine eligibility with a “high” or “moderate” score grounds for denying parole.
Thomas claimed his scores went from “low” to “moderate” after he was transferred to another prison because employees there input wrong information, such as stating he’d been confined to a mental institution. “The results also stated that Thomas committed his decades-old crime for thrill or pleasure,’” the court observed, “but Thomas states he committed those crimes to obtain money.”
Thomas requested a re-test but says a prison counselor told him to drop the request or “things might get `worse.’”
Lawrence’s score went from “High” to “Low” after retesting, despite no new information. A prison counselor then inputted new data, producing a “Moderate” score.
The district court dismissed their claim, ruling they received due process because they got an opportunity to be heard and were informed about why they were denied parole. The Sixth Circuit upheld the dismissal.
A 14th Amendment claim must state the plaintiff had a “life, liberty, or property interest” that was taken away without due process of law, the Sixth Circuit ruled. But the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that prisoners have no liberty interest in receiving parole unless state law lays out mandatory terms for granting it.
The Sixth Circuit determined in 1984 that Tennessee conferred a liberty interest in parole because the law then stated the Parole Board “operates under the presumption that each resident who is eligible for parole is a worthy candidate.” But the Sixth Circuit reversed its opinion after legislators removed “presumption” from the law and instead declared it “a privilege not a right.”
The law still prohibits the board from denying parole simply because a prisoner committed a violent crime, and lower-class felonies grant an explicit presumption of parole, the court concluded. And a future case might establish the board’s practices did convey a liberty interest.
“Although plaintiffs do not demonstrate a protected liberty interest, they identify serious issues with STRONG-R,” the court said.
“Recognizing that STRONG-R is a new technology that continues to be refined, we nonetheless remind the Board, in its oversight role regarding the state parole system, of the Tennessee legislature’s instruction that the Board consider an inmate’s `individual characteristics, circumstances, needs and potentialities’ in making parole decisions.”
