Opinion ID: 392171
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the case against the united states

Text: 6 The appellant sued the United States for damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act (Act or FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 2671 et seq., which renders the United States liable for injuries caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the (United States) Government(.) 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b). The appellant argues that the Attorney General and the Director of the Bureau of Prisons were negligent in two respects: first, in failing to ensure that Murphy was committed to a reasonably safe institution, and second, in failing to adequately supervise Murphy once he was placed in Lorton Reformatory. 6 We find both arguments unpersuasive. 7
8 The appellant argues that the section of the Youth Corrections Act (YCA or FYCA) under which he was sentenced, 18 U.S.C. § 5010(b), 7 and 24 D.C.Code § 425 8 impose upon the Attorney General a statutory obligation to place offenders such as Murphy in an appropriate correctional facility, Brief for the Appellant at 12, and that the Attorney General violated this obligation by perfunctorily assigning Murphy to Lorton Youth Center. Id. at 15. Lorton, the appellant contends, was inappropriate because its inmates were not reasonably secure from harm one could reasonably expect that an armed and dangerous gang of inmates would ... be permitted to enter his room and brutally attack him. Id. at 12, 14. 9 The appellant first argues that under 18 U.S.C. §§ 5010-15 of the FYCA, the Attorney General was obligated to evaluate Murphy and commit him to the federal youth center best suited to his needs. 9 This duty, he contends, was violated by Murphy's perfunctory commitment to Lorton without a formal evaluation of his needs and the institution's ability to meet them. However, we agree with the trial judge: There is no (such) statutory responsibility (.) Tr. 5/9/79 at 439. Congress amended the YCA in 1967 to grant District officials comprehensive control over the maintenance, treatment, rehabilitation (and) supervision of District of Columbia Code offenders such as Murphy by authorizing the District to construct or contract for facilities in which to house them, and granting it complete authority over those offenders sentenced to such local facilities. 10 Although the judge still technically assigns District of Columbia Code offenders to the custody of the Attorney General when sentencing them pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 5010(b), 11 and the Attorney General in turn has the legal authority to designate as their place of confinement any appropriate facility, 12 local or otherwise, 18 U.S.C. § 5025 makes clear that Congress envisioned that the Attorney General would commit them to Lorton in the absence of unusual circumstances. 13 In practice, the sentencing judge recommends commitment of District of Columbia Code offenders to Lorton Youth Center, or asks the Bureau of Prisons to investigate alternative placements. In Murphy's case, no request for alternative placement was made and the sentencing judge committed him directly to Lorton Youth Center. 14 This commitment was consistent with the plain thrust of the statutory scheme of placing District youth offenders under the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia Department of Corrections unless the sentencing court requests otherwise. 15 10 But second, even if the Attorney General retains a general obligation under this statutory scheme to assign Murphy to an appropriate institution, 16 appellant failed to present sufficient evidence of the Attorney General's breach of this duty to warrant submission to the jury. Violence is unfortunately endemic to American prisons; the appellant could not and does not argue that the mere fact that some inmate assaults occur at Lorton Youth Center makes it an inappropriate institutional placement for Murphy. 17 Rather, he argues that the institution is inappropriate because the rate of violence is so high as to be unreasonable. 18 While in some cases the raw number of assaults may be sufficient evidence of unreasonableness, in this case the number of assaults that occurred in the Youth Center and in Dormitory # 3 where Murphy lived in the year of his attack was not so high as to strike this court as per se unreasonable. 19 Moreover, the appellant adduced no other evidence at trial tending to prove unreasonableness, e. g., that these numbers were outside the range of violence normally associated with this type of penal institution, 20 or that any subset of prisoners suffered from an unusual risk of attack. 21 Moreover, the appellant himself stipulated that he had not feared for his physical safety prior to the attack; 22 there was therefore insufficient evidence of an excessive level of inmate assaults for a jury to conclude that terror reign(ed) in the institution or even that there was a pervasive risk of harm to inmates like Murphy. 23 No reasonable juror could have concluded from this barren record that the rate of assaults at Lorton was so excessive that the Attorney General's placement of Murphy there violated any statutory obligation to place him in an appropriate institution. The question was therefore properly withheld from the jury. 11
12 Appellant's second theory of federal liability, i. e., that the Attorney General or Director had a duty to supervise his care after commitment to Lorton Youth Center, likewise fails because that alleged duty too no longer exists. It was eliminated by the 1967 amendments to the FYCA. According to appellant, the Director had an obligation under the FYCA to supervise youth offenders subsequent to their commitment and to insure that the objectives of the FYCA are met with regard to each youth offender. 24 Brief for the Appellant at 15. However, as we pointed out earlier, Congress in 1967 explicitly transferred responsibility for supervision of District Youth Center offenders, including maintenance, treatment (and) rehabilitation from federal to local authorities. It is hard to see how Congress could have made its intent to transfer day-to-day supervision over District of Columbia Code offenders in Lorton Youth Center any clearer. 25 13 The appellant also claims that the Director neglected his statutory duty under 18 U.S.C. § 5016 to periodically reexamine Murphy and report on his progress for purposes of granting a parole or transfer. Even a superficial reading of 18 U.S.C. § 5025, however, makes clear that the District now supervises the conditional release and discharge, as well as the treatment and rehabilitation, of District youth offenders committed to its facilities. 26 In fact, one of the stated purposes of the 1967 amendment was to transfer authority from the U. S. Bureau of Prisons and the Youth Corrections Division of the U. S. Board of Parole to the Commissioner of the District of Columbia in order to grant local authorities ... continuing jurisdiction over such offenders, permitting a continuity of treatment which should bring about more effective results. S.Rep.No.912, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. 24 (1967). The report notes that it changes the then-existing law under which 14 an offender sentenced under the provisions of the Federal Youth Corrections Act and committed to a District of Columbia institution is under the supervision of District authorities while in the institution but under the supervision of the Youth Corrections Division of the U.S. Board of Parole for purposes of conditional release. 15 Id. See also H.R.Rep.No.387, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. 31, 39 (1967). District parole authorities, rather than the United States Parole Commission, are therefore responsible for making and evaluating the progress reports on which the conditional release and discharge decisions are made. 27 16 The 1967 amendment thus eliminates the Federal Government's responsibility for those very duties whose breach, according to the appellants, constituted negligence. The trial judge correctly concluded that (a)ny attempt to read the District of Columbia Code in specific provisions with respect to the youth facilities here in the same fashion you read it with respect to the Youth Corrections Act nationally is incorrect.... There is no statutory responsibility(.) Tr. 5/9/79 at 439. His direction of a verdict in favor of the Federal Government on this or any theory of liability argued below was therefore not in error. 17