UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 13-6723
STEVEN W. GOODMAN,
Plaintiff – Appellant,
v.
WILLIAM W. MUSE; RITA J. ANGELONE; MINOR F. STONE;
FREDERICK M. QUAYLE; KAREN D. BROWN,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of Virginia, at Roanoke. Samuel G. Wilson, District
Judge. (7:12-cv-000568-SGW-RSB)
Submitted: September 19, 2013 Decided: September 30, 2013
Before AGEE, DIAZ, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Steven Wayne Goodman, Appellant Pro Se.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Steven Wayne Goodman appeals the district court’s
order dismissing his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint as frivolous
under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. He also appeals from the denial of his
motion for reconsideration. We affirm.
As he did in his motion for reconsideration, Goodman
avers on appeal that the district court misconstrued one of his
claims. Specifically, Goodman alleges that the Virginia parole
statute limits parole consideration to post-commitment, prison-
related factors and that the Board’s policy guidelines which
permit consideration of other factors violated his
constitutional rights. While the district court did not address
this claim as now framed by Goodman, we conclude that the claim
is nonetheless frivolous because it rests on a faulty
construction of the Virginia statute.
Va. Code Ann. § 53.1-155A (2013) reads as follows:
No person shall be released on parole by the Board
until a thorough investigation has been made into the
prisoner’s history, physical and mental condition and
character and his conduct, employment and attitude
while in prison. The Board shall also determine that
his release on parole will not be incompatible with
the interests of society or of the prisoner.
Goodman avers that the phrase “while in prison”
applies to the entire first sentence, thus only permitting
consideration of the prisoner’s conduct and experience in prison
when determining whether parole is appropriate. However, the
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phrase “while in prison” clearly applies only to “his conduct,
employment and attitude,” and the statute thus also requires
consideration of the prisoner’s history, physical and mental
condition, and character, both while in prison and prior to
incarceration. Moreover, even if Goodman correctly reads the
first sentence of the statute, he ignores the second sentence
which requires consideration of pre-commitment and non-prison-
related factors in determining whether release on parole is
appropriate for both society and the prisoner. See Greenholtz
v. Inmates of the Neb. Penal & Corr. Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 15
(1979) (noting that “[t]he parole determination . . . must
include consideration of what the entire record shows up to the
time of the sentence, including the gravity of the offense in
the particular case”); Vann v. Angelone, 73 F.3d 519, 521-22
(4th Cir. 1996) (noting that “[m]ost parole decisions involve a
considerable degree of discretion . . . parole authorities must
investigate and weigh numerous factors including [the inmate's]
history, mental and physical condition, attitude, and
compatibility with the ‘interests of society’”).
We conclude that Goodman’s reading of the statute is
untenable, and the Board’s policy guidelines are entirely
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consistent with the statute. * Accordingly, we affirm. We deny
Goodman's motion to expedite. We dispense with oral argument
because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented
in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the
decisional process.
AFFIRMED
*
The Board’s Policy Manual outlines fourteen factors to
guide its discretion in parole decisions. “The nature of the
offense of incarceration is one such factor, along with
considerations of rehabilitation and the risk posed by the
prisoner to himself and to society upon his release.”
Burnette v. Fahey, 687 F.3d 171, 176 (4th Cir. 2012).
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