HARRY DE LA ROCHE v. NEW JERSEY STATE PAROLE BOARD

 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-6024-04T56024-04T5

HARRY DE LA ROCHE,

Appellant,

v.

NEW JERSEY STATE PAROLE BOARD,

Respondent.

_______________________________________

 

Submitted April 25, 2006 - Decided May 12, 2006

Before Judges Axelrad and Sabatino.

On appeal from a Final Agency Decision of the New Jersey State Parole Board, #83628 SBI#696074A

Harry De La Roche, appellant pro se.

Zulima V. Farber, Attorney General, attorney for respondent (Patrick DeAlmeida, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel; Lisa A. Puglisi, Deputy Attorney General, on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Appellant Harry De La Roche, who is presently in State prison serving four concurrent life sentences for murdering four of his family members in 1976, returns to this court a third time, following the respondent State Parole Board's most recent denial of parole to him on June 8, 2005.

The relevant background is amply set forth in our prior opinions of March 19, 2003 (A-2138-01) and September 28, 2005 (A-6652-03). After returning home for Thanksgiving break from his freshman studies at the Citadel Military Academy in November 1976, appellant shot and killed his parents and his two younger brothers at the family residence. After confessing his commission of these brutal acts to the local police, appellant was convicted in 1978 of all four murders. He was sentenced under former Title 2A to four concurrent life sentences. Since his arrest in 1976, appellant has been continuously incarcerated for the past twenty-nine years. Throughout his incarceration, appellant has failed to acknowledge killing his parents and his younger brother, contending instead that all three had been shot by his other brother, who appellant claims to have shot in retaliation.

On appellant's first eligibility for release in May 2002, the Board denied him parole and imposed a ten-year future eligibility term (FET). In March 2003, in A-2138-01, we remanded that disposition to the Board. We did so because the Board had denied parole based upon appellant's continued failure to accept full responsibility for his family members' deaths, without the Board having competent expert proof demonstrating that appellant's lack of insight placed him at substantial risk for reoffense.

Accordingly, the Board arranged an evaluation of appellant by a clinical psychologist, Leland Mosby, Ed.D., which was conducted over four days in May and June 2003. Dr. Mosby concluded that appellant has never addressed the latent psychological problems of anger, rage, repression and denial connected to murdering his family. Dr. Mosby opined that appellant, if paroled, would be prone to commit further acts of violence if he were confronted with similar stressors. Based upon Dr. Mosby's negative assessment, the Board reaffirmed its prior denial of parole, and appellant sought further review from this court.

Meanwhile, as the result of earning certain credits on his ten-year FET for good behavior within the institution, appellant again became eligible for parole consideration in 2004. The board panel arranged another psychological evaluation of appellant, this time by Kevin Amory, Ph.D., in September 2004. Dr. Amory found that appellant's psychological problems identified by Dr. Mosby persist, opining that appellant, who continued to blame others for his misdeeds, had "a significant lack of insight into his behaviors and motivations," and was "under-reporting psychopathologies to an extreme degree." Dr. Amory concluded that appellant remained "a poor to below-average risk for parole," predicting that "unless [appellant] becomes willing to deal with the scope of his emotional problems, [he] may have a significantly difficult time with living independently." Following Dr. Amory's evaluation, two-member and three-member Board panels successively denied appellant parole, and imposed a new five-year FET. The full Board affirmed the five-year FET extension in June 2005, and appellant filed the present appeal concurrent with his still-pending appeal of the remanded ten-year FET from 2003.

On September 28, 2005, we affirmed in A-6652-03 the Board's post-remand decision from 2004, determining that Dr. Mosby's unfavorable 2003 psychological evaluation of appellant supplied the Board with an ample basis to deny parole and to reaffirm the ten-year FET. In our opinion, we emphasized the substantial expertise of the Board in parole decisions, see, e.g., In re Vey, 272 N.J. Super. 199, 205 (App. Div. 1993), aff'd., 135 N.J. 306 (1994).

Likewise, in this subsequent appeal, we defer to the Board's expertise, as informed by the still-adverse psychological findings resulting from Dr. Amory's 2004 evaluation of appellant. Despite appellant's ongoing general compliance with institutional rules within the prison, the Board has substantial reason to conclude that appellant continues to lack the psychological stability to be suitable for present release, and that he remains at significant risk of reoffense. The agency's findings are based upon credible evidence in the record, particularly the substantially-consistent evaluations of Dr. Mosby in 2003 and Dr. Amory in 2004, and we shall not disturb its highly "individualized discretionary appraisal[.]" Trantino v. N.J. State Parole Bd., 166 N.J. 113, 173 (2001) (quoting Beckworth v. N.J. State Parole Bd., 62 N.J. 348, 359 (1973)); see also Hare v. N.J. Parole Bd., 368 N.J. Super. 175, 179-80 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 180 N.J. 452 (2004) (applying an abuse-of-discretion standard for review).

In sum, the administrative record before us is not materially different than the record recently presented in appellant's last appeal which we disposed of only eight months ago. The Board's considered judgment to continue to deny appellant parole, while imposing a shorter FET extension of five years that implicitly recognizes the mitigating factors of appellant's age and positive disciplinary record, is well within the agency's reasonable exercise of its expertise and prerogatives.

Affirmed.

 

Because Dr. Amory's report is confidential, we do not discuss it here any further than is necessary to dispose of this appeal.

(continued)

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6

A-6024-04T5

RECORD IMPOUNDED

May 12, 2006