Court Upholds State's Stricter Limits on Parole Hearings

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court on Monday upheld California laws approved by voters that set stricter limits on parole hearings and give the governor authority to block parole.

The statutes do not violate a constitutional ban against increasing punishments retroactively, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said.

At issue in the ruling were Proposition 9, which is also known as Marsy's Law, and Proposition 89.

Marsy's Law -- approved by voters in 2008 -- extended the amount of time a prisoner must wait for another parole hearing after being denied parole.

Proposition 89 -- passed by voters in 1988 -- gives the governor authority to reverse parole decisions for inmates convicted of murder.

California inmates convicted before the laws took effect sued, saying the changes violated the Constitution by creating a significant risk that their prison terms would be longer.

A federal judge in Sacramento, Lawrence Karlton, agreed with the inmates in 2014. But the 9th Circuit said Monday that Karlton got it wrong.

Monica Knox, an attorney for the inmates, said she would appeal the ruling to a larger 9th Circuit panel.

"There was an entire trial where we put forward evidence," she said. "Judge Karlton made findings based on our evidence, and they're setting them aside."

The 9th Circuit put Karlton's ruling on hold pending the appeal, according to Knox.

The three-judge 9th Circuit panel said in Monday's ruling that Proposition 89 merely transfers final decision-making power over parole for some inmates from the Board of Parole Hearings to the governor.

The court further held that lead plaintiff, inmate Richard Gilman, had not shown he would have received parole had Proposition 89 not gone into effect.

Proposition 9 allows the parole board to schedule a hearing as long as 15 years after an inmate's parole is denied. Before the passage of Proposition 9, prisoners sentenced to life with the possibility of parole were entitled to a hearing each year.

The 9th Circuit said prisoners still had access to a petition process to reduce the amount of time until their next parole hearing.

Karlton's determination that the process failed to provide relief from potentially longer prison terms was based on "speculation and inference, rather than concrete evidence," the ruling states.