Detar v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole

In Detar v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 890 A.2d 27 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2006), the Board held an evidentiary hearing regarding the custodial conditions at a treatment program, namely, the Gateway Rehabilitation Center. Following the receipt of Detar's evidence regarding the conditions at Gateway, the Court first noted that we had examined the conditions at Gateway in a prior case, and had found those conditions not sufficiently custodial to entitle the parolee to credit spent for time in that program. See Willis v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 842 A.2d 490 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2004). Emphasizing that the parolee in Detar had presented no evidence that the conditions at Gateway differed or had changed since our analysis in Willis, and noting that the evidence presented at the hearing thereon before the Board actually provided further support for the conclusion that the conditions of the Gateway program did not constitute incarceration, the Court found that we were bound by our holding in Willis, and affirmed the Board's denial of the parolee's appeal based upon the support in the record developed before the Board on the issue. Detar, 890 A.2d at 30-31.