By Elana Bildner
Brown v. Precythe, No. 2:17-CV-04082-NKL, 2017 WL 4980872 (W.D. Mo. Oct. 31, 2017)
A quartet of juvenile lifers challenging the implementation of Missouri’s juvenile parole legislation cleared a substantial hurdle in late October, when a federal district judge ruling on a motion to dismiss concluded that the plaintiffs had stated viable Eighth Amendment and due process claims.
Missouri’s juvenile parole legislation gives juveniles who were previously sentenced to life without parole an opportunity to seek parole after serving 25 years, and directs the parole board to consider post-offense rehabilitation, growth and maturity, accountability for the offense, and institutional record, among other considerations. The plaintiffs—all serving life without parole for first-degree murder committed when they were under the age of 18—were denied parole in recent hearings conducted under the legislation. In their § 1983 suit, they allege that they have been “denied a meaningful opportunity for release, in violation of their constitutional rights, because of the policies, procedures, and customs of the defendants—the Missouri Director of Corrections and each of the members of the [Parole] Board.”
In concluding that the plaintiffs stated a plausible claim to relief under the Eighth Amendment, the court referenced allegations that the parole board routinely failed to take any of the statutory factors into account. As the court noted, the board “invariably cites only one reason for denial of parole: the seriousness of the offense.” The court paid particular attention to allegations that offenders were “severely limited” in the material they were allowed to present at hearings, and that they and their advocates were frequently barred from discussing their youth at the time of the crime or subsequent rehabilitation. In addition, the court noted allegations that parole board members never read offenders’ files; “frequently treat the hearings as games”; and “frequently just ‘don’t believe in parole for people like [the plaintiffs].’”
Finally, the court noted the plaintiffs’ allegation that of the 20 juvenile offenders eligible to receive a hearing since the passage of the legislation—a quarter of those eligible—only two had been granted parole. Most of the 18 who were denied parole were deemed ineligible for parole for another five years—the maximum setback period permitted under Board rules. The remaining offenders were, without explanation, deemed ineligible for even longer terms.
Importantly, in reviewing the contours of the “meaningful opportunity to obtain release” standard, the court cited other federal courts’ inquiries into the sufficiency of state parole procedures, and explicitly disagreed with the defendants’ arguments that the Supreme Court’s opinion in Virginia v. LeBlanc, 137 S. Ct. 1726 (2017), constituted a substantive statement “that the Eighth Amendment does not require more than normal parole procedures.” Instead, the court concluded that “the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, as interpreted in Graham, Miller, and Montgomery, requires states to provide juvenile offenders with a meaningful and realistic opportunity for release—an opportunity that permits the offenders to demonstrate maturity and rehabilitation.” The court further found that plaintiffs have a liberty interest in meaningful parole review, and that denial of a meaningful opportunity for release could constitute a denial of due process.
The favorable ruling in this case is one of several recent positive developments in cases across the country challenging parole procedures and practices as failing to provide the requisite meaningful opportunity for release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation. See Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative v. Hogan, No. ELH-16-1021, 2017 WL 467731 (D. Md. Feb. 3, 2017) (denying in part motion to dismiss concluding that plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that Maryland’s parole system operates as a system of executive clemency with remote opportunity for release only); Hayden v. Keller, 134 F. Supp. 3d 1000 (E.D.N.C. 2015) (concluding that North Carolina’s parole process does not provide a meaningful opportunity for release because, inter alia, it does not distinguish between juvenile and youth offenders or include specific information about maturity and rehabilitation); Greiman v. Hodges, 79 F. Supp. 3d 933 (S.D. Iowa 2015) (denying motion to dismiss in challenge to Iowa’s parole system as failing to provide meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation). For more on these decisions, see our memo “Criteria and Procedures for a ‘Meaningful Opportunity to Obtain Release’ Under Graham, Miller, and Montgomery.”
Since the ruling here, plaintiffs have amended their complaint and pushed forward with discovery, buoyed by the court’s favorable rulings on several discovery challenges (including the defendants’ efforts to provide only a redacted version of a report by the Missouri DOC’s Office of Inspector General into abuses in the parole process).