The New Jersey Supreme Court concluded with the following in relevant part: Finally, under N.J.A.C. 10A:71-6.6(a), “the appropriate Board panel or the Board may modify or vacate a condition of parole at any time for cause.” The Court sees no reason why a modification of a condition cannot include an international change of residence to a country in which the parolee maintains citizenship. The Board has already promulgated regulations allowing for an offender to travel outside of the United States of America even though no affirmative statutory language grants it the authority to permit international travel. In sum, the Court rejects the assertion that Policy # 09.821 is invalid because it is inconsistent with the Board’s statutory authority.
Turning to the arguments advanced by J.K. challenging the Board’s denial of his application to relocate to Poland, the Court reviews cases on which J.K. relies in arguing that the Board’s decision here was arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable: Sanchez v. State Parole Board, 368 N.J. Super. 181 (App. Div. 2004), and J.S. v. State Parole Board, 3 452 N.J. Super. 1 (App. Div. 2017). This case is unlike Sanchez, which involved an actual transfer of supervision to another state jurisdiction. J.K. seeks to relocate to Poland where he would continue under the Board’s supervision, yet he refused to provide adequate and reliable information as to how the Board might satisfactorily perform its CSL supervision after such a relocation.
This matter is also distinguishable from J.S., in which the Appellate Division remanded for the Board to consider the supervision that it might be able to conduct, notwithstanding J.S.’s relocation to a foreign jurisdiction. Here, however, on remand, J.K. refused to provide for the Board’s consideration the requested information on that very point. The Board clearly advised J.K. that his petition was “devoid of any information on which to assess the supervising or monitoring of J.K.’s compliance with” CSL, and J.K. declined the opportunity to further support his application by providing the information sought by the Board. The Board deemed the record on which J.K.’s application was based to be inadequate, and the Court — limiting its review to the record created before the agency whose decision is on appeal in accordance with Rule 2:5-4(a) — readily concludes that that determination was not arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable. J.K.’s recourse is to apply to the Board under the new policy it has adopted for such purposes and to present the enhanced and updated information that he claims will support his request to relocate to Poland while allowing the Board to fulfill its CSL supervisory responsibilities appropriately and according to the needs of his case.
The Court’s analysis begs the question of why the applicant did not provide the requested information. He would likely cite to privacy concerns. Since it is unlikely that a parole officer would travel to Poland to check on him, a potential reason is that he could not get anyone to verify the details of his proposed move.
