Opinion
Case No. 1-CV-73310-DT
July 26, 2002
OPINION AND ORDER DENYING HABEAS CORPUS PETITION
I. Introduction
This matter is pending before the Court on Paul E. Jackson's application for the writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The pleadings allege that, in 1989, Petitioner was convicted of unarmed robbery. The trial court sentenced Petitioner to a term of four to fifteen years in prison for the robbery.
Petitioner was released on parole in 1997, but arrested in 1998 and charged with (1) possessing less than 25 grams of a controlled substance and (2) resisting and obstructing arrest. The Michigan Parole Board ("Parole Board") concluded on the basis of the criminal charges that Petitioner had violated the conditions of parole. Accordingly, Petitioner's parole was revoked.
On November 17, 1999, Petitioner pleaded no contest to possession of less than 25 grams of cocaine. He was sentenced to one year in jail for the offense.
On three subsequent occasions, the Parole Board denied Petitioner's application for release on parole. Petitioner's next parole eligibility date is October 31, 2002.
The habeas petition and supplemental brief allege that Petitioner was denied his right to equal protection of the law when the Michigan legislature eliminated prisoners' right to appeal the Parole Board's decisions denying parole. Respondent maintains that Petitioner's claim is meritless.
II. Discussion
A. Exhaustion of State Remedies
The doctrine of exhaustion of state remedies requires state prisoners to present their claims to the state courts before raising their claims in a federal habeas corpus petition. 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (b)(1)(A), (c); O'Sullivan v. Boerekel, 526 U.S. 838, 842 (1999). Although Petitioner has not presented his equal protection argument to the state courts, his only claim is that there is no state remedy to exhaust. Furthermore, Respondent has waived exhaustion of state remedies as a defense, and Petitioner's claim does not warrant habeas relief. Accordingly, the Court will proceed to adjudicate Petitioner's claim on the merits rather than dismiss the habeas petition for failure to exhaust state remedies. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (b)(2) (authorizing federal courts to deny an application for the writ of habeas corpus "notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the courts of the State"); see also Lyons v. Stovall, 188 F.3d 327, 333 (6th Cir. 1999) (concluding that, when the state fails to raise the defense and the federal constitutional claim is plainly meritless, the exhaustion requirement should be excused), cert. denied, 530 U.S. 1203 (2000).
B. The Equal Protection Claim
In 1999, the Michigan legislature amended MICH. COMP. LAWS § 791.234(9) to eliminate prisoners' right to appeal the denial of parole in state circuit court. Petitioner alleges that the amended statute violates his constitutional right to equal protection of the law because the amendment did not eliminate the right of prosecutors and victims to appeal Parole Board decisions granting release on parole.
1. "Similarly Situated"
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads in relevant part as follows:
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1. This Clause "protects against arbitrary classifications, and requires that similarly situated persons be treated equally." Richland Bookmart, Inc. v. Nichols, 278 F.3d 570, 574 (6th Cir. 2002), petition for cert. filed, 71 U.S. L.W. 3001 (June 11, 2002) (No. 01-1824).
Respondent argues that prisoners, prosecutors, and victims are not similarly situated. Prosecutors and victims are concerned with whether a prisoner will become "a menace to society or to the public safety." MICH. COMP. LAWS § 791.233(1)(a). Prisoners, on the other hand, seek release from custody, regardless of whether they become a threat to society. Petitioner maintains that prisoners, prosecutors, and victims are similarly situated, for each group can become an aggrieved party as a result of the Parole Board's decision.
2. Suspect Distinctions and Fundamental Rights
Even assuming that prisoners are similarly situated to prosecutors and victims, "not every denial of a right conferred by state law involves a denial of the equal protection of the laws, even though the denial of the right to one person may operate to confer it on another." Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U.S. 1, 8 (1944). In other words, the Equal Protection Clause "does not require that all persons be dealt with identically. . . ." Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107, 111 (1966) (citing Walters v. St. Louis, Mo., 347 U.S. 231, 237 (1954)).
"Unless a classification trammels fundamental personal rights or is drawn upon inherently suspect distinctions such as race, religion, or alienage, [the Supreme Court's] decisions presume the constitutionality of the statutory discriminations and require only that the classification challenged be rationally related to a legitimate state interest." New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 303 (1976). Stated differently, legislation which does not classify by race, alienage, national origin, or gender and which does not impinge on personal rights protected by the Constitution need only be rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 440 (1985).
Prisoners are not a suspect class, Wilson v. Yaklich, 148 F.3d 596, 604 (6th Cir. 1998), and there is no fundamental or inherent right to parole under the United States Constitution. Board of Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369, 373 (1987); Greenholtz v. Inmates of the Nebraska Penal and Corr. Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 7 (1979). Prisoners do have a fundamental right of access to the courts. Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 828 (1977). However, it is not an absolute right. In Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343 (1996), the Supreme Court stated that
Bounds does not guarantee inmates the wherewithal to transform themselves into litigating engines capable of filing everything from shareholder derivative actions to slip-and-fall claims. The tools it requires to be provided are those that the inmates need in order to attack their sentences, directly or collaterally, and in order to challenge the conditions of their confinement. Impairment of any other litigating capacity is simply one of the incidental (and perfectly constitutional) consequences of conviction and incarceration.
Id. at 355 (emphasis in original). Seeking judicial review of the denial of parole is not an attack on the prisoner's conviction or sentence; nor is it a challenge to the conditions of confinement.
Furthermore, "[a]s long as a judicial forum is available to a litigant, it cannot be said that the right of access to the courts has been denied." Wilson, 148 F.3d at 605. A prisoner may file an action for the writ of mandamus if he or she "alleges a clear legal right to the performance of a specific duty by the defendant, and the defendant has an uncontrovertible legal duty to act in the manner so requested." Phillips v. Prison Warden, 153 Mich. App. 557, 566 (1986). In addition, as this action demonstrates, prisoners can litigate parole decisions in federal court on federal constitutional grounds. 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3), 2254 (a).
The Court concludes that the amendment to § 791.234(9) does not violate a fundamental right or make a suspect distinction. Therefore, the distinction made in § 791.234(9) between prisoners on the one hand and prosecutors and victims on the other hand is permissible, provided that a rational basis exists for the difference in treatment. United States v. Kras, 409 U.S. 434, 446 (1973).
3. Rational Basis
Under the rational basis standard, the challenging party bears the burden of demonstrating that there is no rational connection between the legislation and a legitimate state interest. See Harrah Independent School Dist. v. Martin, 440 U.S. 194, 198 (1979). The purpose of the 1999 amendment to § 791.234(9) was to eliminate frivolous lawsuits. See House Legislative Analysis Section, First Analysis, H.B. 4624, at 8 (Mich. Mar. 21, 2000) ("House Report"). Statistics indicate that the great majority of appeals from the denial of parole are denied, whereas prosecutorial appeals have been successful about 26% of the time. Deterring prisoners' frivolous lawsuits is a legitimate legislative goal. Hampton v. Hobbs, 106 F.3d 1281, 1287 (6th Cir. 1997); Lewis v. Sullivan, 279 F.3d 526, 528, 531 (7th Cir. 2002).
As explained more fully in the House Report,
from 1995 to 1999, there were a total of 3,879 parole board appeals: 79 appeals by prosecutors and 3,800 appeals by prisoners . . .
Out of the 3,800 parole board appeals filed by prisoners between 1995 and 1999, only 162 cases (or about 4 percent) were remanded by the circuit court to the parole board for reconsideration. of these 162 remanded cases, only 24 (about .6 percent of the total 3,880 (sic) prisoner appeals, or almost 15 percent of the 162 remanded cases) resulted in parole primarily because of the court-ordered reconsideration. of the remaining 138 prisoner appeals remanded by the courts for consideration by the parole board, there was no change in parole status in 130 of these cases (a little more than .4 percent of the total 3,800 prisoner appeals, or almost 90 percent of the 162 remanded cases), while, under the department's reckoning, 8 prisoners were paroled through the regular parole process.
Figures provided by the Department of Corrections indicate that from 1996 through 1999, prosecutor appeals of parole grants have been successful in reversing grants of parole almost 26 percent of the time. (In 1995, there were 6 appeals filed by prosecutors, but no readily available information on outcomes. In the current year, there has been one prosecutor appeal of a parole grant which apparently has not yet been decided).
House Report, at 6-7.
The House Report indicates that "three assistant attorneys general are assigned full-time to parole appeals, and that clerical support occupies most of the time of another two or three clerical positions. The total cost of attorney general staff working on prisoner appeals has been estimated to be about $330,000." House Report, at 8. In addition, "[c]ounties could experience savings to the extent that circuit court time and resources were not occupied by prisoner appeals of parole board denials of parole." Id.
Differentiating between prisoners and non-prisoners has a rational basis because prisoner claims have inundated the judicial system in a manner that non-prisoners have not. Wilson, 148 F.3d at 604 (quoting Carson v. Johnson, 112 F.3d 818, 822 (5th Cir. 1997)). "Prisoners have substantially more free time than do non-prisoners and are provided with food, housing, paper, postage, and legal assistance by the government." Carson, 112 F.3d at 822. They have little incentive not to file frivolous lawsuits. Hampton, 106 F.3d at 1287 (quoting Senator Kyl's remarks regarding the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which amended the in forma pauperis provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 1915). Prisoners "have demonstrated a proclivity for frivolous suits to harass their accusers, the guards, and others who caused or manage their captivity." Lewis v. Sullivan, 279 F.3d at 528-29.
Granted that the solution adopted by the Michigan legislature may not be the most reasonable response to the asserted problem, nevertheless, "courts are compelled under rational-basis review to accept a legislature's generalizations even when there is an imperfect fit between means and ends. A classification does not fail rational-basis review because it "'is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality.'"" Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 321 (1993) (quoting Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485 (1970) (quoting Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61, 78 (1911)).
III. Conclusion
The amendment to § 791.234(9) is rationally related to the legitimate state goal of eliminating frivolous lawsuits filed by prisoners. Therefore, § 791.234(9), as amended, does not violate the Equal Protection Clause, and Petitioner is not entitled to habeas relief on the basis of his equal protection claim. A certificate of appealability may issue because reasonable jurists could find the Court's assessment of Petitioner's constitutional claim debatable or wrong. Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000).