Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 12 (1998)

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12

SPENCER v. KEMNA

Opinion of the Court

454 U. S. 464, 474 (1982),4 and "a part of the basic charter . . . provid[ing] for the interaction between [the federal] government and the governments of the several States," id., at 476. See also Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 559-560 (1992). And finally, of particular relevance to the question whether the practice of presuming collateral consequences should be extended to challenges of parole termination: In the context of criminal conviction, the presumption of significant collateral consequences is likely to comport with reality. As we said in Sibron, it is an "obvious fact of life that most criminal convictions do in fact entail adverse collateral legal consequences." 392 U. S., at 55. The same cannot be said of parole revocation.

For these reasons, perhaps, we have hitherto refused to extend our presumption of collateral consequences (or our willingness to accept hypothetical consequences) to the area of parole revocation. In Lane v. Williams, 455 U. S. 624 (1982), we rejected the contention of convicted felons who had completed their sentences that their challenges to their sentences of three years' mandatory parole at the conclusion of their fixed terms of incarceration (which parole they had violated) were not moot because the revocations of parole could be used to their detriment in future parole proceedings should they ever be convicted of other crimes. We said:

"The doctrine of Carafas and Sibron is not applicable in this case. No civil disabilities such as those present in Carafas result from a finding that an individual has violated his parole." Id., at 632. "[Carafas] concerned existing civil disabilities; as a result of the petitioner's conviction, he was presently

4 The internal quotation is from a portion of Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 95 (1968), which recited this to be the second purpose of the case-or-controversy requirement in general. The opinion later said that the constitutionally required minimum of standing relates to the first purpose alone. Id., at 100-101, quoted in text.

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