United States Court of Appeals,
Eleventh Circuit.
No. 94-8520.
Charles A. O'KELLEY, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Wayne SNOW, Jr., Chairman, James T. Morris, Bettye O. Hutchings,
David C. Evans, Timothy E. Jones, Members, Georgia State Board of
Pardons & Paroles, Defendants-Appellants.
May 25, 1995.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern
District of Georgia. (No. 1:90-CV-2822-JOF), J. Owen Forrester,
Judge.
Before DUBINA and BLACK, Circuit Judges, and MORGAN, Senior Circuit
Judge.
PER CURIAM:
Defendants/appellants, members of the Georgia State Board of
Pardons and Paroles ("the Board"), appeal the district court's
judgment entered in favor of plaintiff/appellee Charles A. O'Kelley
("O'Kelley") in this prisoner civil rights action.
We reverse and render judgment for the Board.
I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
A. Facts
On February 28, 1990, the Board issued a parole decision to
O'Kelley, a Georgia state prison inmate. At that time, O'Kelley
had a total parole success likelihood score of 7, crime severity
level of I or II, and 12 months recommended to serve from the
Parole Decision Guidelines. The Board, however, determined that
the crime severity level and/or the parole success factors did not
adequately reflect the true nature of O'Kelley's case and instead
set a tentative parole date of August 1994. The Board explained
that Factor D [Parole or Probation Failure] did not fully reflect
the seriousness of O'Kelley's prior probation and parole failures.
On December 3, 1990, the Board issued a second parole decision
regarding O'Kelley. O'Kelley's total parole success score remained
the same, but his crime severity level was increased to Level V,
and the recommended months to serve increased to 40. Again, the
reason given by the Board was that Factor D did not fully reflect
the seriousness of O'Kelley's prior probation and parole failures.
B. Procedural History
O'Kelley filed a pro se 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging that
the Board violated his constitutional rights in departing from the
recommendation from the Parole Decision Guidelines System.
Specifically, O'Kelley's complaint alleged that the Board: (1)
failed to use legislatively-mandated criteria in determining his
reparole eligibility; (2) failed to explain adequately the
specific reason for its actions; (3) abused its discretion by
acting outside of its authority and outside the statutorily set
limits for administrative parole violations sanctions; and (4)
deprived O'Kelley of his liberty without due process of law.
O'Kelley sought declaratory and injunctive relief "to prevent
defendants' further irreparable injury to the plaintiff with their
arbitrary and [capricious] decision making." In addition, O'Kelley
stated in his complaint that he had never violated probation or
parole prior to this parole revocation.1
1
At trial, the Board presented evidence showing, contrary to
O'Kelley's assertion in his complaint, that O'Kelley had
committed several probation and parole violations, including the
commission of criminal trespass, cruelty to children, and simple
battery while on parole.
The district court appointed counsel to represent O'Kelley.
Subsequently, the Board filed a motion to dismiss contending that
O'Kelley had no procedural due process interest in parole, that his
claim that his parole file contained false information failed to
state a claim, and that he was not entitled to a more specific
explanation concerning the Board's action. The district court
denied the Board's motion to dismiss and the action proceeded to a
bench trial.
According to the proposed pretrial order submitted by the
parties, the issue to be tried was "[w]hether the State Board of
Pardons and Paroles' decision to depart from the Parole Decisions
Guidelines—the Grid—violates the Plaintiff prisoner's right to due
process under the Fourteenth Amendment." On the date of trial, the
court held a pretrial conference with the attorneys for the parties
in order to focus on the issues to be tried. Specifically, the
court stated in its order "[i]t became clear to the court that
Plaintiff was seeking only the reasons for the Board's decision to
vary from the tentative parole date set by the Board's guidelines."
District Court's order at 2.2
2
The court discussed with O'Kelley's attorney what relief
O'Kelley wanted:
THE COURT: What do you want me to do today, just make
them say why [the Board did not adhere to the
Guidelines]?
MR. JONES: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: What Mr. Jones wants right now is he ...
wants to know ... what did the parole board know about
pardons and parole failures at the time it made the
decision not to grant parole.
District Court's Order at 2 (quoting Trial Transcript, p. 14
During the trial, the Board admitted into evidence a summary
chart of some exhibits containing information concerning probation
and parole incidents and convictions which were considered by the
Board at the time parole was denied. The court verified that if
O'Kelley submitted any comments based on the chart or the
information contained therein, it would be deemed to be pertinent
information and would be read and considered by the Board. The
court then stated:
[I]t seems to the court that the relief that Mr. O'Kelley
seeks at this stage is complete and has been achieved, and
there is no purpose further to the action at this stage.
Accordingly, it will be dismissed—well, it will be concluded
with, technically, a judgment entered in favor of Mr.
O'Kelley. I guess technically that is correct, in that he has
achieved what he sought on the date of trial.
Trial Transcript at 40-41.
The court then proceeded to enter judgment in favor of
O'Kelley and against the Board. The Board filed a motion to amend
the findings and amend the judgment, arguing that its demonstration
of O'Kelley's misrepresentations in his complaint when he claimed
he had no prior parole or probation violations, did not entitle
O'Kelley to a judgment in his favor. The district court denied the
Board's motion and then awarded O'Kelley's counsel attorneys' fees
in the amount of $1,346.18. The Board then perfected this appeal.
II. ISSUES
The issues presented on appeal are (1) whether the district
court erred in entering judgment for O'Kelley; and (2) whether
O'Kelley's "victory" was merely technical, such that he is not
entitled to an award of attorneys' fees.
and 35).
III. STANDARD OF REVIEW
A district court's findings of fact in actions tried without
a jury may not be reversed unless clearly erroneous. Fed.R.Civ.P.
52(a). "This court may correct errors of law or findings of fact
based on "misconceptions of the law,' " Worthington v. United
States, 21 F.3d 399, 400 (11th Cir.1994) (citation omitted), and we
review the district court's conclusions of law de novo. Id.
This court reviews an award of attorneys' fees for an abuse
of discretion, but "closely scrutinizes questions of law decided by
the district court in reaching the fee award." Hollis v. Roberts,
984 F.2d 1159, 1160 (11th Cir.1993) (citation omitted).
IV. ANALYSIS
The Board argues that the district court erred in granting
judgment for O'Kelley because Georgia law creates no liberty
interest in parole. Accordingly, the Board contends that O'Kelley
is not entitled to procedural due process protections in the parole
consideration system.
We recently decided that the Georgia parole system does not
create a constitutionally protected liberty interest in parole.
Sultenfuss v. Snow, 35 F.3d 1494 (11th Cir.1994) (en banc), cert.
3
denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1254, 131 L.Ed.2d 134 (1995).
Moreover, "[u]nless there is a liberty interest in parole, the
procedures followed in making the parole determination are not
required to comport with standards of fundamental fairness."
Slocum v. Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, 678 F.2d 940,
3
At the time the district court entered its judgment in this
case, it did not have the benefit of our en banc decision in
Sultenfuss.
942 (11th Cir.1982) (citation omitted). Thus, it is now clear that
there is no constitutional basis for O'Kelley's due process claim.
O'Kelley responds that the liberty interest in parole "was not
the basis of the district court's decision." Appellee's Brief at
8. Instead, O'Kelley argues that the Board "came to trial and
presented evidence of what those prior parole and probation
failures were," and, accordingly, "O'Kelley obtained some of the
relief which he had sought for so long." Id. at 9-10. According
to O'Kelley, therefore, the district court's entry of judgment in
his favor was proper. Indeed, the district court, in its order
denying the Board's motion to amend the judgment, enumerated two
reasons why the Board's argument against granting judgment for
O'Kelley must fail: (1) because O'Kelley "prevailed on the relief
which his attorney said he was seeking on the day of trial;" and
(2) because the Board did not object when the court announced that
for technical reasons, judgment would be entered in favor of
O'Kelley. District Court's Order at 3.
The problem with the district court's order is that the court
made no finding of a federal constitutional violation, which is a
threshold requirement for a § 1983 action. Moreover, the court
made no factual or legal findings in O'Kelley's favor at all.
Rather, because the Board presented some evidence to document that
O'Kelley had lied in his complaint and actually had numerous parole
violations, he was granted a "technical" judgment because his
attorney stated that all he wanted was to know the reasons for the
Board's parole decision. As noted above, O'Kelley had no
constitutional right to procedural due process protections, and,
therefore, he had no right to an explanation for departure from the
parole guidelines. There is no procedural due process requirement
that obligates the Board to explain why it did not adhere to the
Parole Decision Guidelines, and the mere fact that the Board
provided evidence to support its decision does not mean that
O'Kelley has succeeded on his constitutional claim. Indeed,
O'Kelley has no constitutional claim. Accordingly, we reverse the
judgment of the district court and render judgment in favor of the
Board.4
REVERSED and RENDERED.
* * * * * *
4
Because O'Kelley is no longer a prevailing party in this
cause, we also vacate the district court's award of attorneys'
fees.