Intriguing parole decision from the DC Circuit

Providing a rare outcome in a rare kind of case, the DC Circuit today in Singletary v. US Parole Commission, No. 04-7013 (DC Cir. July 7, 2006) (available here), ruled that a defendant was entitled to a new parole revocation hearing. Here is how the opinion starts:

Charles Singletary's parole was revoked in 1996 based on his alleged participation in a murder. The evidence tying Singletary to this offense — for which he has been imprisoned for the last ten years — consisted solely of hearsay testimony relayed by a prosecutor and an investigating detective.  The reliability of the hearsay, most of it multilayered, was never established, and its accuracy remains open to serious questions.  A parole revocation hearing is not a criminal trial, and the same standards of proof and admissibility of evidence do not apply.  Yet though the government is not required to carry a heavy burden in such proceedings, it cannot return a parolee to prison based on a record as shoddy as this one.  We therefore conclude that Singletary is entitled to a new parole revocation hearing.