# Richard Pickus v. United States Board of Parole

> Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit · December 10, 1974 · 507 F.2d 1107

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9461305

## Case

- **Full name:** Richard PICKUS Et Al., Appellees, v. UNITED STATES BOARD OF PAROLE, Appellant
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
- **Decided:** December 10, 1974
- **Citations:** 507 F.2d 1107; 165 U.S. App. D.C. 284
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** On rehearing
- **Judges:** Hastie, Robb, Wilkey
- **Cited by:** 238 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Red flag:** Overruled in part, on other grounds by Califano v. Sanders, 430 U.S. 99 (1977).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 1
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9461305

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that parole guidelines were “substantive agency action, for they define a fairly tight framework to circumscribe the Board’s statutorily broad power” and “were of a kind calculated to have a substantial effect on ultimate parole decisions”
- concluding that the “formula like” guidance for determining the length of parole constituted a substantive rule, as it involved the “purely mechanical operation” of computing a score using exclusive criteria
- noting that the Probation Service is exempted from the APA’s waiver of sovereign immunity because of “its status as an auxiliary of the courts, which, unlike agencies of the executive branch, are specifically excluded” under the APA, and concluding that the Board of Parole, as…
- explaining that the Probation Service’s exemption from the APA was “warranted not by the functions it performs . . . but by its status as an auxiliary of the courts”
- explaining that superseding agency actions that repeat the same alleged procedural error “preserve, rather than moot, the original controversy”

## Opinion text

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
The appellant has filed a petition for rehearing addressed solely to the question of the retroactive effect of our decision in this case upon past Parole Board hearings and decisions in individual cases.
Our opnion in this ease did not purport to invalidate and our decision does not have the effect of invalidating past determinations of the Board upon the merits of particular cases. Cf. Wolff v. McDonnell, decided June 26, 1974, 418 U.S. 539, at 573 , 94 S.Ct. 2963 at 2983 , 41 L.Ed.2d 935 .
The petition for i*ehearing is denied.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9461305. Public record. Not legal advice.