McLaughlin-Cox v. Maryland Parole Commission

MATRICCIANI, J. On October 23, 2009, appellant petitioned the Circuit Court for Washington County for a writ mandamus. The court heard the matter on June 18, 2010, and issued a memorandum opinion and order on July 2, 2010, denying appellant’s petition. Appellant noted the present appeal on July 27, 2010. Questions Presented Appellant presents one question for our review, which we have reworded, for clarity: Did the circuit court err when it denied appellant’s petition for writ of mandamus ?

For the reasons set forth below, we answer no and we affirm the judgment of the circuit court. Factual and Procedural History On January 12, 1988, appellant pleaded guilty to two counts of second degree murder, and was sentenced to thirty years of confinement for each count, to run consecutively. Appellant’s first parole hearing took place on July 17, 2002. On August 6, 2002, the Maryland Parole Commission (“MPC”) provided appellant a copy of its “Parole Recommendation/Decision” form.

In a single paragraph near the top, the form lists a number of factors that “shall be considered in determining whether you, the inmate, are suitable for parole.” Immediately below that paragraph, there is a single blank line labeled “HEARING OFFICER RECOMMENDATION/COMISSION DECISION,” which contains only the hand-written word “REFUSE.” ¹¹⁸ Appellant then filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 , alleging that the MPC’s decision constituted cruel and unusual punishment and that the MPC violated due process by failing to follow statutory procedural requirements set forth in the Correctional Services Article (“CS”) of the Maryland Code (1999). On May 15, 2003, nearly ten months after its decision, the MPC sent appellant a memorandum in which it explained its decision, as follows: The facts of the case indicate you brutally stabbed to death two victims in their home. The elderly female was the mother of the male victim. You then left the state.

The nature and circumstances of the murders and the victim impact warrants refusal. On August 15, 2003, the U.S. District Court issued an opinion and order holding that appellant’s action was “barred by the Eleventh Amendment and will be dismissed.” Continuing, the court explained that “[e]ven if this matter were to proceed, the plaintiff has failed to present any facts that would entitle him to relief,” in part 1 because “a Maryland inmate has no legitimate liberty interest in parole release,” citing Bryant v. Maryland, 848 F.2d 492, 493 (4th Cir.1988) (“the Maryland parole statute does not create a legitimate expectation of parole release”). On October 23, 2009, appellant petitioned the Circuit Court for Washington County for a writ mandamus directing the MPC to convene a new parole hearing with different commissioners and to remove from its records all information considered in the July, 2002, hearing. The circuit court heard the matter on June 18, 2010, and issued a memorandum opinion and order on July 2, 2010.

First, the circuit court held that MPC complied with CS § 7-307(c)(2) when it provided appellant with the recommendation ¹¹⁹ and decision form on July 17, 2002. Second, the circuit court held that the federal court’s order dismissing appellant’s suit barred his due process claims as res judicata. Appellant noted the present appeal on July 27, 2010. Discussion Appellant argues that the MPC contravened CS §§ 7-305 and 7-307 and thereby violated his right to due process under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as applied to Maryland by the Fourteenth Amendment.

While the trial court disposed of these arguments as res judicata, it appears that the federal court’s holding on those claims may have been dicta because the action was dismissed on Eleventh Amendment immunity grounds. Therefore, we must consider the merits of appellant’s due process claims. 2 Appellant’s constitutional claim is predicated on two violations of the Maryland Code. First, appellant maintains that the MPC violated the Correctional Services Article because it did not consider all factors listed in § 7-305. Second, appellant maintains that the MPC violated CS § 7-307(c)(2), which requires the MPC to “give the inmate a written report of its findings within 30 days after the hearing.” We need not determine whether the MPC actually violated these provisions, because appellant’s constitutional claims are groundless.

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that no person shall be deprived of ¹²⁰ life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, and the Fourteenth Amendment applies “due process” to state governments. In order for due process guarantees to attach, they must protect a legally cognizable “liberty interest,” but appellant lacks this necessary interest. And although that is the direct application of Bryant v. Maryland, several important opinions followed that opinion, so it behooves us to determine whether its holding is still valid. The question of what constitutes a “liberty interest” is complicated when the alleged beneficiary of legal guarantees is a convicted criminal who has been rightfully stripped of his or her liberty to be free from confinement.

A prisoner naturally has restricted rights to liberty, but a valid criminal conviction that justifies punitive detention does not entirely eliminate the liberty interests of convicted persons. DA’s Office v. Osborne, — U.S. -, 129 S.Ct. 2308, 2334 , 174 L.Ed.2d 38 (2009). The string of cases relevant to this appeal began with Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 482 , 92 S.Ct. 2593 , 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972), in which the Supreme Court held that a parolee has a “qualified” liberty interest in parole that cannot be deprived without due process. Drawing on Morrissey , the Supreme Court held in Greenholtz v. Inmates of Neb.

Penal and Correctional Complex, 442 U.S. 1 , 99 S.Ct. 2100 , 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979), that statutory language can vest a liberty interest in prisoners if the language creates “a protectible expectation of parole,” 442 U.S. at 11 , 99 S.Ct. 2100 . In subsequent cases, the Court refined its holding and explained that an “expectation” requires “ ‘explicitly mandatory language,’ i.e., specific directives to the decisionmaker that if the regulations’ substantive predicates are present, a particular outcome must follow, in order to create a liberty interest.” Kentucky Dep’t of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 463 , 109 S.Ct. 1904 , 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989) (citing Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 471-72 , 103 S.Ct. 864 , 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983)). ¹²¹ As so often happens, courts then seized upon the narrow rule requiring “specific directives” and “explicitly mandatory language” to generate an interest in parole and considered it sufficient outside of that context, so that whenever a legislature or administration set forth some necessary or sufficient factual condition for even a minute change in a prisoner’s conditions or status, the status quo became a protected “liberty interest” that could not be deprived without due process. With the due process clause strained near its breaking point, the Supreme Court felt it must rein in the rule it had unleashed, and so in Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 483-84 , 115 S.Ct. 2293 , 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995), announced: [W]e believe that the search for a negative implication from mandatory language in prisoner regulations has strayed from the real concerns undergirding the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. The time has come to return to the due process principles we believe were correctly established and applied in Wolff [v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 , 94 S.Ct. 2963 , 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (U.S.1974) ] and Meachum [v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215 , 96 S.Ct. 2532 , 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (U.S.1976) ].

Following Wolff, we recognize that States may under certain circumstances create liberty interests which are protected by the Due Process Clause. See also Board of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369 , 107 S.Ct. 2415 , 96 L.Ed.2d 303 (1987). But these interests will be generally limited to freedom from restraint which, while not exceeding the sentence in such an unexpected manner as to give rise to protection by the Due Process Clause of its own force, see, e.g., Vitek [v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480, 493 , 100 S.Ct. 1254 , 63 L.Ed.2d 552 (1980) ] (transfer to mental hospital), and Washington [v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210, 221-22 , 110 S.Ct. 1028 , 108 L.Ed.2d 178 (1990) ] (involuntary administration of psychotropic drugs), nonetheless imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life. (Internal footnote omitted.) Importantly, the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Swarthout v.