Nathaniel Brown v. Michael Randle

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

In 1994 Nathaniel Brown was convicted of four sex offenses and sentenced to prison in Illinois. His projected release date was July 10, 2009, after which his sentence required him to serve three years of “mandatory supervised release,” a status that officials in Illinois often call parole.

When July 10 arrived, however, the Illinois Department of Corrections did not release Brown. Instead it issued a “Parole Violation Report” reciting that Brown had committed two anticipatory violations of the terms of supervised release. First, he had refused to accept electronic…