Dizick v. Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision

The Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision does not have authority to correct sentencing errors, so it also cannot decide the presumptive sentence.

Dizick was convicted in 1993 for two counts of attempted aggravated murder and other crimes. After the case was appealed and remanded, the trial court sentenced him to a 30 year and a 20 year indeterminate sentence with post-prison supervision for the time unserved for the two counts of attempted aggravated murder, but did not determine the presumptive sentences. The Board denied Dizick’s request for a parole hearing in 2008 and concluded Dizick was not eligible for parole consideration until February 2038. Dizick sought administrative review, and the Board again denied Dizick’s request concluding that it did not have authority to grant relief to Dizick and that the presumptive sentence was the same as the full sentence. On appeal, Dizick argues that the Board had authority to decide that his presumptive sentence should have been no greater than 170 months. The Court agreed with The Board that it does not have authority to decide the presumptive sentence or correct legal errors in sentencing. In addition, the Board cannot decide that the entire sentence is the presumptive sentence. The Court said that this an unusual case where the Board acknowledged that it did not have the authority to decide the presumptive sentence, and then went ahead and decided the presumptive sentence was the full sentence. The Board must decide how to resolve this problem. Reversed and remanded.