Krug v. NJ State Parole Board

Amicus brief arguing that the retroactive application of 1997 amendments to the parole statute to a person who committed his crime prior to the amendments amounts to an ex post facto violation.

The issue in this case is whether the Parole Board was prohibited from applying the 1997 Amendments to the Parole Act to inmates who were convicted of crimes committed before the 1997 Amendments. Under the 1997 Amendments, the Parole Board is always allowed to consider “all information” about the prisoner, including the severity of the crime for which the inmate was convicted and events in prison that were considered in prior parole determination hearings. Under the old law, each time that a prisoner was up for parole, the Parole Board was limited to consideration of “new information” since the last parole hearing. Our brief argued that application of the new law is unconstitutional as violating the “ex post facto” clause of the Constitution, which prohibits the retroactive increase of a person’s punishment.