Opinion ID: 392171
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Attorney General's Duty to Supervise Murphy at Lorton

Text: 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