COURT News:
SANTA FE — Sex offenders on parole are not automatically entitled to immediate release if the state Parole Board fails to meet deadlines for hearings on whether the offender should remain on parole, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled today.
In a unanimous decision, the Court concluded that the rights to procedural due process for two sex offenders on parole were violated by untimely parole duration review hearings. As a remedy, the Court directed district courts to conduct evidentiary hearings to determine whether the parolees should be released on a writ of habeas corpus or other action is necessary.
“Simply put, the Parole Board’s delays undermined the procedural safeguards meant to protect these sex offender parolees from unnecessary continued restrictions on their liberty. Due process applies,” the Court wrote in an opinion by Justice Michael E. Vigil.
State law requires lengthy supervised parole for people convicted of sex crimes, ranging from five to 20 years for certain crimes and five to life for more serious sex offenses. The Parole Board is required to conduct periodic hearings to determine if a person must remain on parole. The initial hearing must be held five years after an offender starts serving parole and then every two and one-half years.
The Court’s decision came in the cases of two sex offenders, Jason Aragon and Ronald Lusk, who had no parole review hearings for more than a decade after completing their prison sentences and starting to serve parole while still incarcerated. Each of them challenged the lack of parole review hearings by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Aragon filed an appeal after a district court denied his request to be discharged from parole. The state appealed after a district court ordered Lusk discharged from parole. The Supreme Court consolidated their cases to decide to resolve the legal dispute about untimely parole duration review hearings.
In today’s opinion, the Court explained that the state law on parole duration hearings for sex offenders “does not provide that parole ends if the hearing is not timely, nor does it provide for any other consequence or penalty for non-compliance.” Additionally, the Court noted, the law “contemplates that a sex offender parolee who does not receive a timely duration review hearing is still subject to the supervision and order of the Parole Board.”
The proper remedy for missed deadlines for duration review hearings is not to automatically release a parolee because that “undermines the Probation and Parole Act’s goal of a parole process facilitating the rehabilitation and reintegration of sex offenders under conditions tailored to each sex offender, with public safety weighing in the balance,” the Court wrote.
In remanding the cases to district courts in Bernalillo County, the Court directed the presiding judges to “allow each party to present evidence and arguments to the district court on their respective positions as to whether either Aragon or Lusk was prejudiced by the Parole Board’s failure to hold a hearing” and then determine what action to take, including possible release on a writ of habeas corpus.
