In People v. DeLeon, the Supreme Court today holds, as a matter of constitutional law, that parolees are still entitled to a preliminary hearing to assess probable cause of a parole violation, even after 2011 legislation transferred most parole revocation hearings from an administrative board to superior courts. The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Carol Corrigan recognizes the “legitimate institutional concern” of further burdening overworked and under-resourced superior courts, but concludes that the concern “cannot justify depriving a parolee of his right to due process of law.”
The court also finds that the potential future use of a parole violation against a defendant is not “a disadvantageous collateral consequence” that saves an appeal from mootness once the defendant has completed his jail term for the parole violation. (Despite the mootness in this case, the court decides the substantive preliminary hearing issue because “[t]he issue [is] ‘likely to recur, might otherwise evade appellate review, and is of continuing public interest.'”) The opinion further includes a detailed analysis of when the Legislature can amend a statute that has been enacted by initiative.
The court reverses the First District, Division Three, Court of Appeal. It also disapproves 2017, 2015, and 2014 opinions by the Fourth District, Division Three.