Swearengen

MEMORANDUM **

Thomas W. Swearengen (“Petitioner”), an Oregon state prisoner, appeals the district court’s order denying his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition challenging the Oregon Parole Board’s (“the Board”) delay of his parole. Based on a psychologist’s report that Petitioner was not a good candidate for parole, the Board postponed Petitioner’s release date in 1996. Petitioner filed a habeas petition in state court, which was denied, and Petitioner appealed. While his appeal was pending, the Board again postponed Petitioner’s release date. Petitioner alleges that the Board applied Or.Rev.Stat. 144.125(3) as amended in 1993, rather than the statute as it existed at the time he committed his offenses in 1987.

The Oregon Court of Appeals dismissed Petitioner’s appeal on the grounds of mootness, reasoning that because the Board had again postponed Petitioner’s release date in 1997, the order upon which Petitioner’s habeas petition was based, had been superseded. 1 See Swearengen v. Baldwin, 158 Or.App. 346 , 974 P.2d 264 (1999). The Oregon Supreme Court denied review on March 23, 1999 and Petitioner filed his federal habeas petition in the District Court of Oregon on July 6,…