Houser v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole

In Houser v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 874 A.2d 1276 (Pa. Cmwlth.), petition for allowance of appeal denied, 586 Pa. 716, 889 A.2d 1218 (2005), the Court addressed the specific issue of credit to be afforded to a parolee who had spent time in the Renewal inpatient program. At an evidentiary hearing before the Board on the issue of the custodial conditions at Renewal, Houser introduced evidence regarding the conditions at Renewal, including evidence that nothing prevented him from leaving that program, that the doors were not locked, that any patient leaving was merely reported as having absconded, that he was given passes to go home and to go to work, and that he was never escorted when he would leave Renewal. Houser, 874 A.2d at 1277. The Court held that the conditions described at Renewal, as established in the testimony to the Board in the hearing before them, did not satisfy Houser's burden to establish characteristics of the program constituting restrictions on his liberty sufficient to warrant credit on his sentence. Id. at 1279.