Opinion ID: 390354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Nebraska Procedures.

Text: 79 We turn now to the question of whether the Nebraska constitutional amendment constitutes an unreasonable and arbitrary denial of bail violating the excessive bail clause of the eighth amendment. We conclude that it does. 80 Under the challenged state procedures, bail must be denied to every person charged with sexual offenses involving penetration by force or against the will of the victim where the proof is evident or the presumption great. Once the charge is made and it is determined that the proof is evident, no other relevant factor is weighed and no standards relevant to the purpose of assuring the presence of the defendant are considered. No discretion is vested in any judicial officer to grant or to deny bail. The only circumstance where bail might possibly be granted is where the judicial officer determines the proof is not evident or the presumption is not great. 23 This criterion, however, bears little relevance to the factors ordinarily used to determine whether bail should be granted or denied in an individual case. As earlier indicated, the right to release before trial is traditionally based upon reasonable conditions to provide adequate assurance that the accused will stand trial and submit to sentence if found guilty. Release upon reasonable conditions of bail thus serves to preserve the presumption of innocence by preventing infliction of punishment before trial. Stack v. Boyle, 342 U.S. at 4-5, 72 S.Ct. at 3-4; Hudson v. Parker, 156 U.S. 277, 285, 15 S.Ct. 450, 453, 39 L.Ed. 424 (1895). The state does not contend that an absolute denial of bail to all persons charged with forcible rape is rationally related or necessary to assuring their appearance at trial. In noncapital cases there exists no empirical basis for an assumption that all persons charged will not appear for trial once appearance is conditioned upon reasonable bail. 81 The state urges, however, that it may permissibly view the crime of first degree sexual assault as a heinous crime distinct from other crimes and that the welfare of society demands that persons charged with this crime should not be afforded pretrial release. Cf. Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, 97 S.Ct. 2861, 53 L.Ed.2d 982 (1977). There is little need to demonstrate at length the seriousness of the crime of rape. No one can deny society's continuing concern for preventing the occurrence of such offenses and exercising every legitimate effort to punish those who commit the crime. But punishment for any crime before trial and proper conviction is alien to our legal system and constitutes a denial of due process. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). 24 Thus, it is plain that accused persons cannot be held with the intention of punishing them, and the state does not claim it has such a purpose. The only other purpose conceivably served is protecting society from these persons. This argument rests on the assumption that all persons accused of first degree sexual offenses in Nebraska, where there is a preliminary finding of evident proof of the offense, pose a danger to the community by inclination to commit similar offenses. 82 There has long been legal debate as to whether bail may be denied where the judicial officer finds that the individual poses a danger to the community. 25 Preventive detention is officially recognized in the federal system only in the District of Columbia. D.C.Code Ann. §§ 23-1321 to 23-1322. See Blunt v. United States, 322 A.2d 579 (D.C.App.1974). However, even under this legislation, an individual is afforded procedural safeguards and the government must prove that the individual's behavior presents a risk to the community. 83 The federal courts have traditionally held, consistent with Stack v. Boyle, that under the eighth amendment and the federal bail statute, the only relevant factor is the likelihood that the defendant will appear for trial. See note 15, supra. 26 Several courts have, however, indicated that danger to the community may be considered when setting bail. See Carlson v. Landon, 342 U.S. at 538, 72 S.Ct. at 533; Carbo v. United States, 82 S.Ct. 662, 666, 7 L.Ed.2d 769 (1962) (Douglas, Circuit J.); United States v. Wind, 527 F.2d 672 (6th Cir. 1975); United States ex rel. Covington v. Coparo, 297 F.Supp. 203, 207 (S.D.N.Y.1969); Wansley v. Wilkerson, 263 F.Supp. 54, 57 (W.D.Va.1967). But see United States v. Beaman, 631 F.2d 85, 87 (6th Cir. 1980); United States v. Bigelow, 544 F.2d 904 (6th Cir. 1976) (Wind restricted to threats to witnesses); United States v. Leathers, 412 F.2d 169, 171 (D.C.Cir.1969). There are also several cases suggesting that the court may deny bail in order to protect its own processes, such as in cases where an accused has threatened witnesses. Carbo v. United States, 82 S.Ct. at 668-69; United States v. Smith, 444 F.2d 61, 62 (8th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 977, 92 S.Ct. 1205, 31 L.Ed.2d 253 (1972). United States v. Bigelow, 544 F.2d at 907-08; Gavino v. MacMahon, 499 F.2d 1191, 1195 (2d Cir. 1974); Nail v. Slayton, 353 F.Supp. 1013, 1019-20 (W.D.Va.1972). Cf. Martin v. State, 517 P.2d 1389 (Alaska 1974); In re Underwood, 9 Cal.3d 345, 107 Cal.Rptr. 401, 508 P.2d 721 (1973); Commonwealth v. Truesdale, 449 Pa. 325, 296 A.2d 829 (1972) (courts holding that state constitutions guarantee bail and prevent pretrial detention based on dangerousness). 84 On the record before us, however, we need not decide whether discretionary pretrial release of an individual may be denied after a finding that release would create a danger to the community. It is sufficient to observe that the Nebraska procedures provide for no inquiry into the dangerousness of the individual, and no such finding appears in the record of this case. Instead, Nebraska has made a legislative determination that an entire class of accused persons is not entitled to bail. We are aware of no decision, with the exception of Parker v. Roth, including Carlson, that has sanctioned legislative denial of bail to all persons based solely on the noncapital offense charged. Instead, every determination involving bail in noncapital cases involves the balancing of particularized factors of the individual case. The factors to be weighed by a judicial officer include the nature and circumstances of the offense charged, the accused's family ties, employment, financial resources, character and mental condition, the length of the residence in the community, the record of prison convictions and the record of appearance at court proceedings or flight to avoid prosecution. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3146(b); 2A Neb.Rev.Stat. § 29-901.01. And assuming, arguendo, that the danger to the community is also a relevant factor, the individual factors just recited must be weighed along with the overall background and known propensities of the individual before it can be reasonably determined that such individual poses such a threat to the community that bail must be denied. A judicial officer who is legislatively denied discretion to consider these factors is required arbitrarily to deny every defendant the right to bail based solely on the particular crime charged. 85 We do not hold and need not decide that there is a constitutional right in every case to release on bail. As we have discussed, there exists a strong argument that bail may be properly denied without encroaching on constitutional concerns where a judicial officer weighs all the appropriate factors and makes a reasoned judgment that the defendant's past record demonstrates that bail will not reasonably assure his or her appearance or, arguendo, that he or she, because of the overall record and circumstances, poses a threat to the community. The fatal flaw in the Nebraska constitutional amendment is that the state has created an irrebuttable presumption that every individual charged with this particular offense is incapable of assuring his appearance by conditioning it upon reasonable bail or is too dangerous to be granted release. 27 The constitutional protections involved in the grant of pretrial release by bail are too fundamental to foreclose by arbitrary state decree. The state may be free to consider the nature of the charge and the degree of proof in granting or denying bail but it cannot give these factors conclusive force. Cf. L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 1095-96 (1978). 28 As Mr. Justice Murphy once wrote in another context: (T)o justify discriminatory action against the entire group is to deny that under our system of law individual guilt is the sole basis for the deprivation of rights. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 240, 65 S.Ct. 193, 205, 89 L.Ed. 194 (1944) (dissent). 86 We hold, therefore, that the portion of Article I, section 9 of the Nebraska Constitution denying bail to persons charged with certain sexual offenses violates the eighth amendment of the United States Constitution, as incorporated in the fourteenth amendment. Accordingly, we reverse the district court's dismissal of the complaint and remand for issuance of a declaratory judgment in accordance with this opinion. The plaintiff has also prayed for an injunction restraining future application of this portion of the Nebraska Constitution. We see no need for the issuance of an injunction. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 166, 93 S.Ct. 705, 733, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973). The appeal from the denial of the writ of habeas corpus is dismissed as moot. 87