William McDowell Lambdin v. Superintendent, California Correctional Institution, Tehachapi, California

This appeal is taken by a state prisoner from denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 . Appellant contends that when the California Community Release Board (now the Board of Prison Terms) fixed his release date, it violated rights bestowed on him by the United States Constitution. The case arises under California’s new determinate sentence law (DSL), and involves California Penal Code § 1170.2, the law’s provision for its retroactive application to prisoners who committed a felony prior to the law’s effective date, July 1, 1977.

Before the DSL became effective, those convicted of crime were usually sentenced by the trial court to the “term prescribed by law,” that is, an indeterminate sentence which was deemed to be a sentence for the statutory maximum term of confinement. The actual length of sentence was left to the discretion of the California Adult Authority (or its predecessor agencies) to be fixed by taking into consideration the nature of the offense, the prisoner’s behavior while in custody and an appraisal of his or her present and prospective rehabilitation. See Cal.Penal Code § 3020, repealed 1977 Cal.Stats. Ch. 165, § 43. Disenchanted…