Burnett

I. Background

In December 1987, Burnett was convicted of two counts of rape in the first degree and one count of robbery in the first degree by an Oregon state court. In January 1988, he was sen- tenced to a total of 40 years in prison, with a 20 year mini- mum under Oregon’s indeterminate “matrix” sentencing system.1 In February 1989, the Board set an initial parole release date of August 27, 1998, thereby reducing Burnett’s period of imprisonment below his minimum sentence of 20 years to 130 months. Over time, the Board made several fur- 1 The Oregon Court of Appeals provided the following illustration of the extent of the Board’s discretion in determining the length of time an inmate actually spends behind bars under the indeterminate “matrix” sen- tencing system: [T]he parole system allows the Board to release an inmate who has not finished serving his or her indeterminate prison sentence, and that person may be kept on parole until the sentence expires. Thus, a person serving a 10-year indeterminate sentence who was paroled after five years could be kept on parole for another five years, whereas a person serving a 10-year indeterminate sentence who was paroled after seven…