In re Morales
Defendant Robert Morales has been in prison for 22 years for fatally stabbing one man and critically wounding another following a failed car burglary. The Board of Parole Hearings (Board) denied defendant’s request for parole, explaining its reasoning as follows: “The first consideration which does weigh against suitability today is the commitment offense, and the Panel feels there is an adequate nexus between the commitment offense and your current risk of danger based on the fact that this is a crime that has never been considered by a previous Panel.†The Board then purported to describe additional unsuitability factors revealed by the record, but failed to relate how those factors were in any way probative of defendant’s current dangerousness. The Board then stated that after “weighing all of the evidence presented today, you’re unsuitable [for] parole because you pose a current and unreasonable risk of danger if released and require at least an additional five years of incarceration.â€
Defendant petitioned the trial court for a writ of habeas corpus to overturn the Board’s decision. In a 23-page decision, the trial court granted defendant’s petition. The trial court explained that the factors enumerated by the Board were either unsupported by the record or lacked a nexus to current dangerousness.
The People now appeal to this court. We affirm.
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