Looking for input about combined parole and RMS reviews

[RobinsMan]

I have read a number of posts over the past year or so that indicates the parole division does not (for non 3g and RMS eligible inmates) conduct seprate review for parole and Mandatory Supervision after a person is denied their initial Release to Mandatory Supervision. If true, I wonder how that squares with what seems to me to be a clear statutory requirement that a review for parole be performed annually and subsequent review for RMS performed twice in two years. I suppose it would simply a gray area grab for power that they will never have to relinquish.

[Renee]

I'm really interested in this too! I didn't know that RMS had to be performed twice in two years! Thanks! I was recently corrected in my incorrect thinking that RMS reviews were only once at the PRD but parole reviews were continuing. (Obviously, there is still a lot for me to learn!) So the subsequent reviews for RMS are only two times? I hope you get some input here!

[CenTexLyn]

Originally Posted by RobinsMan

I have read a number of posts over the past year or so that indicates the parole division does not (for non 3g and RMS eligible inmates) conduct seprate review for parole and Mandatory Supervision after a person is denied their initial Release to Mandatory Supervision. If true, I wonder how that squares with what seems to me to be a clear statutory requirement that a review for parole be performed annually and subsequent review for RMS performed twice in two years. I suppose it would simply a gray area grab for power that they will never have to relinquish.

Once the PMRD has been reached without a release, then the ONLY release type that exists would be mandatory supervision. As such, there is no need to conduct a parole review. The parole review process ends the moment a Serve All decision has been recorded.

The MS considerations would then occur on an annual basis.

Oh, and it is the Board that does the review, not the Parole Division. There is overlap but the Division is NOT the entity that would be the appropriate party in any litigation related to the voting process.

[RobinsMan]

Originally Posted by CenTexLyn

Once the PMRD has been reached without a release, then the ONLY release type that exists would be mandatory supervision. As such, there is no need to conduct a parole review. The parole review process ends the moment a Serve All decision has been recorded.

The MS considerations would then occur on an annual basis.

Oh, and it is the Board that does the review, not the Parole Division. There is overlap but the Division is NOT the entity that would be the appropriate party in any litigation related to the voting process.

I find no statutory authority for parole reviews to ever stop. GC 508.141(g) reads very clear to me. Each denial of parole invokes GC 508.141(g) which mandates a next review in one year for RMS eligible offenders. Can you point me in the direction of the statute that confers the authority to stop reviewing for parole after a DMS?

[RobinsMan]

Originally Posted by Renee

... So the subsequent reviews for RMS are only two times? I hope you get some input here!

No, the requirement is that they must review twice within two years (annual reviews are a simple way of meeting that requirement) after the previous denial of Release to Mandatory Supervision. Therefore, it is perpetual, just as reviews for parole should be (as far as I can tell).

Now, I have read an appeals court opinion that made mention that they interpreted the statute that (only two more reviews, strike three and you're out) but I think that is not the prevailing legal interpretaion and CenTexLyn seems to confirm that.

[CenTexLyn]

Originally Posted by RobinsMan

I find no statutory authority for parole reviews to ever stop. GC 508.141(g) reads very clear to me. Each denial of parole invokes GC 508.141(g) which mandates a next review in one year for RMS eligible offenders. Can you point me in the direction of the statute that confers the authority to stop reviewing for parole after a DMS?

Sure, it really is very simple. .141 deals with releases to parole supervision. BUT once the serve-all vote has been recorded that takes someone to the PMRD date for mandatory supervision, you have then shifted to a review for an entirely different form of release, specifically mandatory supervision as described in 508.147 -remember, even though conditions are essentially the same for the two types of release, they ARE statutorily distinguished.

[RobinsMan]

I am a simple man so please explain how that shift occurs. I find nothing anywhere that causes 141(g) to cease to operate. Please point me there.

It is the very fact that they are statutorily distinguished that is my point. Their standards for review are fundamentally different which leaves me wondering how a single review can suffice for both. Well, at least statutorily speaking. It is plain to everyone that such legal nuances are trivialities to the board.

I find nothing in the Texas statutes that allows for parole reviews to cease at anytime. Any such contrivance can only be a parole board invention, just as is the notion of a "serveall" in the sense that the term suggests. There is no statutory thing such as a seve all. It is a meaningless and invented term that, by its very defitnition, remains subserviant to the limitations of the law, meaning that the definition of a serveall bounds iteslf within the limits of 141(g). There is no statutory provision for the termination of parole reviews - or reviews for mandatory supervision, for that matter - at any time prior to the full service of a sentence.

For those that are eligible, of course, and deferring to your direction to the appropriate statute.

[CenTexLyn]

I do not know how much more simple I can make it. For the MS-eligible offender, the release has to occur when the total credits equal the sentence of record, triggering the release under .147 (provided the two findings discussed in .149 have been found not to exist and that, instead, it is determined that good time is NOT an accurate portrayal of potential for rehabilitation and that the release poses a threat to the public safety). As such, .147 becomes the controlling mechanism for release at a defined point in time.

.141 ONLY speaks to consideration for and release to PAROLE, not mandatory supervision. One is voted on only one type of release in a given review (prior to Retzlaff and some of its progeny, there were certainly some files where the file was voted twice while in the Board office, once for parole with the Serve All being imposed and then immediately after for the RMS/DMS vote.

The votes still occur on the annual basis. The only difference as far as the vote itself goes is for what provision of the Government Code a release may be taking place under. The review process itself is different, but that is an administrative practice, not a statutory practice...the difference is in the lack of a new IPO interview and the use of a transmittal instead of the full file, although I would fully anticipate the State's argument in any litigation on that, with the advent of the OIMS process, the file is viewable to the voting members in a significant majority of cases by virtue of it being on the server.

As to the lack of statutory authority for a serve-all, one need only look to the legislative grant of authority to create rules to process files for release purposes. It is through that authority that the Board may legally craft such things as a Serve All (which for cases committed prior to September 1996 had a very clear and distinct result once imposed).

And I will reiterate...from a legal standpoint as it relates to release, parole and mandatory supervision are two different things, as evidenced by the fact that parole is addressed in .141 and mandatory supervision in .147 of the Government Code.

[RobinsMan]

I really appreciate you responding. I think that in your first post you confirmed that an inmate is reviewed for early release only once a year following a denial of release to mandatory supervision. If that is the case then I am already ahead because I had no other good way to confirm that. You can probably tell from my posts above that I find something wrong in that since I cannot see where either form of release - parole or mandatory supervision - ever ceases to be a legal possiblity. I find no provision in the statutes that could cause sections 141 and 147 to ever cease to operate and thereby relieve the parole board of the duty to conduct the reviews.

By the way, it was the cessation of reviews for parole to which you referred in post #3 about which I questioned the parole boards authority to do, not the serveall.

Surely from my posts you can see that I am clear on the difference between parole and release to mandatory supervision and have no problem reading or comprehending the words contained within the statutes. I know who Retzlaff was and what his writ accomplished and I've heard of Coleman, too. I had hoped to learn from you how the parole board reads the law and gleens from it the authority to simply stop performing parole reviews as required by 141 but I think now that's not going to happen. I appreciate the time you've taken to type out all those words in response.