Parole is separate from sentence, says high court

Although his 10 parole denials kept a convict in prison too long, once granted, parole should not have been terminated on those grounds, as it is a separate issue, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

A state appellate court unjustly terminated parole granted to a man who had been serving an indeterminate life sentence for aggravated robbery based on a finding that the previous routine denial of supervised release over the course of two decades amounted to constitutionally excessive punishment, the majority of state high court justices ruled.

They held that while habeas corpus relief is available to convicts like William Palmer, who was denied parole 10 times since he first became eligible in 1996, to the extent that those denials at some point rendered his incarceration unconstitutionally excessive did not justify ending parole once it was finally granted. The court reversed the 1st District Court of Appeal's 2018 decision and reinstated Palmer's five-year parole period. In re Palmer II on Habeas Corpus, S256149.

"[W]hen parole works as intended, it is a sufficiently vital part of the rehabilitation process that ought not be categorically discarded simply because an inmate establishes that the preceding period of incarceration became constitutionally disproportionate," Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar wrote in the unanimous 24-page opinion.

Palmer had argued in his petition his parole must be terminated because if he were to violate it, he would be returned to custody, even though the court of appeal held he had already served a disproportionate term for the robbery. The majority opinion rejected that argument, stating, "Nothing in the statutory scheme requires incarceration of a parolee who's been found to have violated one or more parole conditions."

In a concurring opinion, Justice Goodwin Liu wrote that the court should have taken that analysis a step further for the sake of Palmer's "peace of mind."

"The court says the prospect of Palmer's reincarceration for violating parole is 'only speculative at this point,'" Liu wrote. "But I see no reason why we should not settle this issue and afford Palmer some peace of mind. As a matter of logic, it ineluctably follows from the Court of Appeal's excessiveness finding that Palmer may not be lawfully reincarcerated for his 1988 crime."

Palmer was sentenced in 1988 to life with the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to kidnapping for robbery. Then 17, Palmer had covered his face with a ski mask, broke into a secured parking garage at an apartment complex in Riverside County near where he had previously committed a string of other burglaries and waited until someone entered the garage.

That person was an off-duty police officer named Randy Compton who lived at the complex. While Compton was walking to his truck, Palmer pulled an unloaded .357-caliber handgun and held him at gunpoint. Court records show Palmer kept the gun unloaded because he didn't want to hurt anyone. When Compton said he had no money, Palmer forced him into the truck and ordered him to drive a nearby ATM to pull out $200 while Palmer sat in the back seat pointing the gun at Compton, records show.

After parking at the bank, Compton pulled a gun from a bag he said contained his wallet and unloaded more than a dozen rounds, striking Palmer in the knee. Palmer fled but was arrested and later pleaded guilty to the crime.

Palmer, who was represented by Megan Havstad of O'Melveny & Myers LLP, first sought parole in 1995, when he first became eligible. But over the course of the next 19 years, he was denied 10 times. After that last denial, he filed a habeas corpus petition in the 1st District Court of Appeal arguing the three decades he had already served was constitutionally excessive and disproportionate to the underlying offense.

But before that court had a chance to render a decision, the parole board in 2018 finally granted parole on his 11th bid, and he was released in 2019 on a five-year parole.

Still, his habeas petition remained active after the appellate court held it wasn't moot on the grounds that the conditions of his parole meant Palmer remained in constructive custody. The three-judge panel eventually held that Palmer had been denied parole so many times it "resulted in punishment so disproportionate to his individual culpability for the offense that he committed, that it must be deemed constitutionally excessive."

The high court reversed that decision, holding that parole is a distinct phase of punishment and that a finding of excessive confinement based on routine denial of supervised release does not guarantee an automatic termination of a statutory parole period once its granted.