Downs

MEMORANDUM *

Elizabeth Dianne Downs, a Oregon state prisoner, was sentenced to an indeterminate term of imprisonment as a “dangerous offender” on account of a severe personality disorder. Downs is not eligible for parole until 2009, when she will have completed her minimum sentence. In 1999, 2002, and 2004, Downs petitioned the Oregon Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision (“Board”) to move up her parole eligibility date and release her before the minimum sentence is completed. The Board rejected each of Downs’s requests. Downs sought habeas relief in Oregon state courts, contending that the Board’s decisions violated her due process rights. Each of her state habeas petitions was dismissed on state law grounds. 1 In 2004, Downs filed a habeas petition in federal district court. The district court denied the petition, and this appeal followed.

Downs argues that the Board violated her due process rights by refusing her request for an early parole consideration hearing under Or.Rev.Stat. § 144.228(l)(c). We analyze the due process claim in two steps. “[T]he first asks whether there exists a liberty or property interest which has been interfered with by the State; the second…