In Irons v. Warden of California State Prison-Solano (E.D.Cal. 2005) 358 F. Supp. 2d 936, a district court judge in the Eastern District (J. Karlton) found a 17-year-old commitment offense insufficient as "some evidence" of the prisoner's continued dangerousness, even though it was coupled with some other preconviction criminality. Irons had both shot and stabbed the victim. (Id. at pp. 940-941.) In March 1984, the prisoner and the victim were renting rooms in the same house and the landlords told Irons the victim had stolen some items from them. Irons went to the victim's room and an argument ensued, with the victim denying the alleged thefts. Irons left and retrieved a rifle from his room. He fired 12 rounds into the victim then told him he was going to let him bleed to death. Then he pulled out a knife and stabbed the victim twice in the back, rolled him up into a sleeping bag and locked the room. Ten days later he weighted the sleeping bag, drove the body to a deserted coastal area and threw it into the surf. In 2001, some 17 years after Irons's crime and conviction, the Board denied him a release date, a decision that after being upheld in the California state courts came before the federal courts on a habeas corpus petition. The Board's denial was based on a finding Irons committed the murder in a calculated manner, demonstrated a callous disregard for human life, and for a trivial motive. Furthermore, at the time of the crime Irons was a drug user. (Id. at p. 944.) The district court found these factors failed to supply "some evidence" of present dangerousness under the standard of review declared in Biggs v. Terhune (9th Cir. 2003) 334 F.3d 910, but made a somewhat different point than the judge in In re Rosenkrantz (2002) 29 Cal.4th 616. "Important ... in assessing any due process violation is the fact that continuous reliance on unchanging circumstances transforms an offense for which California law provides eligibility for parole into a de facto life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The court asks rhetorically--what is it about the circumstances of petitioner's crime or motivation which are going to change? The answer is nothing. The circumstances of the crimes will always be what they were, and petitioner's motive for committing them will always be trivial. ... Given that no one seriously contends lack of seriousness or lack of triviality at the present time, the potential for parole in this case is remote to the point of non-existence. Petitioner's liberty interest should not be determined by such an arbitrary, remote possibility. "In the instant case, the Board has apparently relied on these unchanging factors at least four prior times in finding petitioner unsuitable for parole. Petitioner has 'continued to "demonstrate exemplary behavior and evidence of rehabilitation."' Under these circumstances, the continued reliance on these factors at the 2001 hearing violated due process." (Irons v. Warden of California State Prison--Solano, supra, 358 F.Supp.2d at p. 947.)