524
Stevens, J., dissenting
ing is a prerequisite for early release, the inmates affected by the Board's errors will have had their punishment increased. In my view, the Court's speculation about possible methods of correcting the Board's erroneous findings or of persuading the Board to reinstate a canceled hearing on the basis of new evidence is plainly insufficient to bridge the significant gap between the protection afforded by an unqualified right to annual hearings and the unreviewable discretion of an administrative agency to dispense with such hearings.9
IV
Two final elements of the majority's opinion require comment. First, the majority suggests that a holding in respondent's favor would require that we "invalidate" an "endless array of legislative adjustments," thus plunging the judiciary into micromanagement of state parole procedures. Ante, at 508. The majority's fear is completely unfounded. The provision of a parole hearing in California differs from all of the matters set forth by the majority in one critical way: It is an absolute prerequisite to release. For the three years in which respondent is denied his hearing, he is absolutely deprived of any parole opportunity. Though the changes to which the majority refers might well make it more difficult for prisoners to obtain release, none of them deprives prisoners of the opportunity for release. Our cases
tions. In the state-court litigation over the constitutionality of this statute, the State argued that compliance with the requirement of separate determinations was " 'virtually impossible' " because " '[b]oth the decision to deny parole and to delay a subsequent hearing for two years must be the same.' " In re Jackson, 39 Cal. 3d, at 478, 703 P. 2d, at 109. Indeed, in respondent's case, the findings on parole suitability and on the possibility of future parole are remarkably similar. The Board's findings on which the majority relies so heavily thus seem of particularly questionable utility.
9 I find it somewhat ironic that the majority posits the existence of nonstatutory, extraordinary remedies as a cure for legislation ostensibly motivated entirely by an interest in administrative efficiency.
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