United States First Circuit

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit brought by former inmates and a petition for habeas relief by inmates, re-imprisoned after being admitted into an electronic supervision program (ESP), district court's judgment is reversed and vacated where: 1) the district court erred in finding an ex post facto violation against either group; 2) plaintiffs' substantive due process claim must fail as the decision to re-imprison plaintiffs following their time participating in the ESP does not in itself shock the conscience; 3) plaintiffs' arrangement was sufficiently similar to traditional parole - far more like parole than the work release program in Dominique - to merit protection under the Due Process Clause; and 4) because Public Law 49 provides a valid, independent basis for the deprivation of liberty, any procedural due process violations do not justify the respective remedies that the two sets of plaintiffs have requested.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/10/2010
• Published 06/10/2010

Judges

• HOWARD, Circuit Judge., Before HOWARD, SELYA and EBEL, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States First Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Susana I. Peñagarícano-Brown, Puerto Rico Department of Justice, with whom Roberto J. Sanchez Ramos, Secretary of Justice and Ileana M. Oliver-Falero, Acting Solicitor General, were on brief, for appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Guillermo Ramos Luiña, with whom Carlos V. García Gutiérrez, Alejandra Bird Lopez and Rafael E. Rodríguez Rivera, were on brief, for appellees.