Douglas Charles Dufresne v. Benjamin Baer, Chairman, U.S. Parole Commission

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

In these habeas corpus proceedings, the petitioner, a federal prisoner, alleges that the U.S. Parole Commission fixed his presumptive parole release date using guidelines that violated the ex post facto clause of article 1, section 9, of the Constitution. The district court denied relief. We affirm.

I

The petitioner, Douglas Dufresne, was a senior pilot for Pan American Airlines. During the late 1970’s he began trafficking in illicit drugs, at one point importing eight pounds of raw opium into the United States from Iran. In 1979 a federal grand jury in the Western…