U.S. Court of Appeals Reverses Prisoner’s Parole Board Suit

In a March 14, 2014 order, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded Veronza L. Bowers case to the district court. In his claim, Veronza L. Bowers challenged the practices employed by the United States Parole Commission (the Board) in reviewing his case. Bowers was convicted in the 1976 murder of a United States Park Ranger and sentenced to life imprisonment. In May 2005, Bowers was notified of the Board’s regulation qualifying him for parole, effective June 2005. The exception to that regulation was the Board’s finding any one of several listed behavioral issues which could preclude the granting of parole.

One week before Bowers was to be released, Parole Commissioner Debora Spagnoli, acting on her own, convinced the Attorney General to request the Board to reconsider Bowers’ case. That led to the Board’s October 2005 denial of Bowers’ parole on the basis of a 1979 escape attempt and his likeliness to commit a crime in the future.

Bowers learned of Spagnoli’s involvement after the decision and filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia challenging the Board’s decision to re-open his case. The court denied the petition saying the Board never lacked jurisdiction or authority to revise Bowers’ parole status. Bowers appealed and the Court of Appeals found that the Board was “impermissibly tainted by Commissioner Spagnoli’s unauthorized actions revealing her bias,” violating the Board’s mandate per the Parole Commission Reorganization Act of 1976. The court sent the case back to district court with instructions to return the case to the Board for reconsideration; Spagnoli was by then off the Parole Commission.

The Board re-met and set a deadline of October 14, 2011 for submitting new material, but inexplicably and without notice commenced a record review on October 4, 2011. The Board re-voted on December 8, 2011 and denied Bowers’ parole on the basis of the 1979 escape attempt.

Bowers again challenged the Board’s decision in district court, noting that the expedited action of October 4, 2011 coincided with the “Senate’s consideration of a bill extending the life of the Parole Commission.” Bowers alleged political influence then and also as far back as 2005, another Senate consideration year. The district court noted that the Court of Appeals mandate did not authorize the discovery Bowers sought concerning political influence by outside agencies, nor did the mandate require amendment on Bowers’ part to determine if the Board violated the Parole Act of 1976 or Parole Commission regulations. The district court denied Bowers’ petitions for discovery and leave to amend. Bowers appealed to the instant cause.

The Court of Appeals held that the district court abused its discretion in incorrectly interpreting its mandate and that the district court interpreted the mandate too narrowly, taking a lack of specific direction to conduct discovery as mandate not to discover. The court ruled that the district court should not have denied discovery on the political pressure issue on the grounds that the Court of Appeals did not address the issue: the Court of Appeals had already vacated the Board’s action which supported the idea of political pressure. As issues re-opened leave to amend should have been granted in the interest of justice.

The Court reversed and remanded Bowers’ discovery and leave to amend issues. The Court affirmed the district court on all other grounds. See: Bowers v. United States Parole Comm'n, 745 F.3d 1127 (11th Cir. Ga. 2014).

On July 9, 2014, the July 9, 2014 opinion was substituted and remanded by Bowers v. United States Parole Comm'n, 760 F.3d 1177 (11th Cir. Ga. 2014).

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