Opinion ID: 1907719
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: the mandatory minimum sentencing issue

Text: The past is prologue. [E]very statute must be construed with reference to the original intent and meaning of the makers, which intent and meaning may be collected from the cause or necessity of the enactment, and the objects intended to be accomplished by it. Ex parte Redmond, 3 App.D.C. 317, 318 (1894). There is no better key to a difficult problem of statutory construction than the law from which the challenged statute emerged. Remedial laws are to be interpreted in the light of previous experience and prior enactments. United States v. Congress of Indus. Orgs., 335 U.S. 106, 112-13, 68 S.Ct. 1349, 1352-53, 92 L.Ed. 1849 (1948). Because this case turns on the Council's intent in enacting the MMSAA, a few words are in order regarding the circumstances which led to the passage of this legislation. In the autumn of 1982, the citizens of the District of Columbia were in an angry frame of mind towards drug dealers and armed criminals. Lemon v. United States, 564 A.2d 1368, 1379 (D.C.1989). On September 14 of that year, by a vote of 72% to 28%, they adopted an initiative providing, inter alia, for mandatory minimum penalties for defendants who distributed controlled substances or who possessed such substances with the intent to distribute them. See D.C.Law 4-166, §§ 9 & 10, 30 D.C.R. 1082 (Mar. 9, 1983), codified in D.C.Code § 33-541(e) (1993) (repealed by the MMSAA). The mandatory minimum sentencing scheme for which the voters cast their ballots was obviously designed to ensure that drug dealers would be severely punished. Judges were to be precluded from thwarting the popular will by exercising excessive leniency. It soon became apparent, however, that the new statute would not bring about the consistency and severity in sentencing that its proponents may have anticipated. Because a defendant had no incentive to plead guilty if his sentence was pre-ordained, prosecutors routinely sweetened the pie. They permitted many drug traffickers to plead guilty to attempted distribution, or even to attempted possession with intent to distribute, where the evidence showed that the attempt was actually a completed act. See, e.g., United States v. Rogers, 115 Daily Wash.L.Rptr. 221 (D.C.Super.Ct. Feb. 4, 1987). The mandatory sentences for which citizens had voted were not applicable to attempts, id., and many drug dealers thus continued to escape serving mandatory minimum time. One consequence of the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences was that the discretion in sentencing previously exercised by judges was now exercised by prosecutors in their charging and plea-bargaining decisions. Many drug dealers received sentences far less severe than the mandatory minimum because prosecutors simply charged them with, or permitted them to plead guilty to, less serious offenses. Those defendants who went to trial and were convicted, however, necessarily received mandatory minimum sentences, even where a particular defendant's role in the distribution scheme was relatively minor. In March 1994, Councilmembers William P. Lightfoot and Harry L. Thomas introduced Bill No. 10-617, in which they proposed, among other things, to repeal mandatory minimum sentences for unarmed drug offenders. The bill was referred to the Council's Committee on the Judiciary, which received testimony and other evidence from a substantial number of witnesses, most of whom focused on the injustices which were said to have characterized the eleven-year regime of mandatory minimum sentencing. The testimony of Mary Jane DeFrank, a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union, was evidently quite influential with the Council. [2] Ms. DeFrank testified that after mandatory minimum sentences became the weapon of choice in the war on drugs, justice became a casualty in the process. She quoted Chief Justice Rehnquist to the effect that federal mandatory minimum sentences impose unduly harsh punishment for first time offenders  particularly for `mules' who play only a minor role in drug distribution schemes. [3] Ms. DeFrank told of a number of specific cases, in the District and elsewhere, in which disproportionately harsh sentences had caused extreme hardship to individual defendants and their families. Other witnesses described in detail the effect of mandatory minimum sentences on women and children [4] and on racial and ethnic minorities. [5] Noting that the District has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the United States, the executive director of the D.C. Prisoners' Legal Services Project described the serious overcrowding of our prisons which has resulted from the influx of non-violent drug offenders. He especially emphasized the impact of mandatory minimum sentences on prisoners with medical problems. [6] Judge Henry F. Greene of the Superior Court testified that many individuals were effectively coerced into pleading guilty because only those defendants courageous  or foolhardy  enough to assert their constitutional right to a jury trial at the risk of receiving a mandatory minimum sentence of at least four years if convicted choose to reject a government plea offer.... The members of the Council were also aware that, if the MMSAA was enacted, those drug dealers who merited severe punishment would not escape it. As the Director of the PDS explained, the proposed legislation does not eliminate stiff mandatory sentences for crimes of violence, or even drug offenses committed while armed with a gun. [I]t does not prevent District of Columbia Superior Court judges from imposing long sentences for drug offenses inappropriate cases. Judges retain the power to impose sentences which require the defendant to serve as much time as the current mandatory minimum sentences, or even longer. If the proposed legislation were adopted, a judge could still sentence a person convicted of a felony drug offense to a maximum term of as much as thirty years. The problem, as perceived by a number of the witnesses before the Council, was that under then existing law, defendants whose role in the distribution of drugs was minimal were nevertheless subject to unreasonably harsh (for them) mandatory minimum penalties. United States Attorney (formerly Superior Court Judge) Eric H. Holder, Jr. testified that although he had previously expressed some reservations with regard to the wisdom of mandatory minimum sentences in drug cases for low-level street dealers, he had come to believe that the existence of such sentences forces defendants to consider seriously the possibility of early treatment as an alternative to trial. Judge Holder suggested that [i]f changes are to be made, we believe that only the length of those sentences should be examined. A representative of the Office of Corporation Counsel also opposed the wholesale elimination of all mandatory minimum penalties for drug dealing regardless of the seriousness of the offense.... On October 26, 1994, the Judiciary Committee issued its Report on the proposed legislation. Quoting extensively from the testimony of the ACLU representative, the Council stated that [t]hese [mandatory minimum] sentences take away the discretionary power of judges. Judges are thus forced to impose harsh mandatory sentences on undeserving individuals without the latitude to consider a defendant's background, individual culpability, or likelihood of recidivism  facts which could support a lesser sentence. Some judges have resorted to refusing to hear drug cases because they cannot conscionably sentence a first-time offender to a lengthy prison term. Another problem is the use of mandatory-minimum sentences as a threat by prosecutors to get defendants to plead to a lesser offense. A defendant charged with a non-violent drug offense who asserts his or her right to a jury trial does so at the risk of serving [a minimum of] four to ten years in jail if convicted. The discretion in sentencing rests with the prosecutor, not the judge. Additionally, mandatory-minimum sentences result in a large percentage of the District's youth being locked up for long periods of time at great expense to the District. COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY REPORT ON BILL No. 10-617 at 1 (Oct. 26, 1994) (emphasis added). Apparently in response to the views of the United States Attorney and the Corporation Counsel, the Judiciary Committee recommended that mandatory minimum sentences be shortened rather than eliminated. The Council, however, rejected this compromise, and voted instead to abolish such sentences altogether for unarmed drug offenders. As enacted, Section 3 of the MMSAA simply states that D.C.Code § 33-541(c), which prescribed mandatory minimum sentences, is repealed. Section 4 provides that the Act shall take effect following Congressional review and after publication in the District of Columbia Register. The MMSAA became effective on May 25, 1995. [7]
In the context of the history described above, I now turn to the decisive task before us, namely, to ascertain whether the Council intended, in enacting the MMSAA, to require judges to impose on the defendants in these cases the mandatory minimum sentences required by statutory provisions which it had evidently found to be unjust and discriminatory, and which it had therefore repealed. The paramount rule in construing statutes is to give effect to the intention of the [l]egislature. Janof v. Newsom, 60 App.D.C. 291, 293, 53 F.2d 149, 151 (1931). In ascertaining legislative intent, we must first look to the words which the Council used, for the proposition that plain statutory language generally trumps other considerations is hardly subject to challenge. Luck, supra, 617 A.2d at 512. The literal words of [the MMSAA] are to be read in the light of the purpose of the statute taken as a whole, and are to be given a sensible construction and one that would not work an obvious injustice. Metzler v. Edwards, 53 A.2d 42, 44 (D.C.1947) (footnotes omitted). Because the MMSAA states that its provisions shall become effective upon publication in the Register (which occurred on May 25, 1995), and because each of these defendants was sentenced after that date, the statutory language, read literally, supports the defense claim that the new sentencing options approved by the Council were available to each trial judge at the time of sentencing. [W]here an ameliorative statute takes the form of a reduction of punishment for a particular crime, the law is settled that the lesser penalty may be meted out in all cases decided after the effective date of the enactment, even though the underlying act may have been committed before that date. People v. Oliver, 1 N.Y.2d 152, 151 N.Y.S.2d 367, 373, 134 N.E.2d 197, 201 (1956) (Fuld, J.). There can be no doubt, in light of the statutory language and history which I have recited, that the MMSAA was ameliorative in character. Although, under the new statute, trial judges retained the authority to impose the harsh sentences previously mandated by law, the MMSAA provided them with alternative sentencing options for those defendants whose individual level of culpability and other circumstances, in the judge's view, made less severe punishment appropriate. The Council, in other words, found the indiscriminate imposition of mandatory minimum sentences for every defendant to be unjust, and it replaced mandatory sentencing with a more flexible approach under which the sentencing judge may exercise his or her discretion to impose a lesser penalty where an individual defendant deserves one. If the basic purpose of the MMSAA was ameliorative  and the majority does not contend otherwise  it strikes me as patently incongruous to suggest that the same Councilmembers who found the mandatory sentences unfair to some defendants nevertheless intended to require  not permit, but require  trial judges to continue to impose such sentences after the effective date of the Act, without permitting any inquiry into whether an individual defendant merited more lenient treatment. My colleagues, armed with what they regard as the dispositive general savings statutes, have barely paused to inquire why humane and fair-minded legislators, who had enacted an ameliorative law in order to do away with what they obviously perceived to be an unjust and discriminatory status quo, would nevertheless insist that potentially unfair sentences must continue to be imposed on persons in the position of these defendants, and also on similarly situated defendants who had AIDS, or whose families were in distress, or who would otherwise suffer undeserved hardship. [8] The majority's approach effectively rejects the validity of a common-sense proposition which distinguished judges in other jurisdictions have endorsed as obvious. As the Supreme Court of California explained in In re Estrada, 63 Cal.2d 740, 48 Cal.Rptr. 172, 408 P.2d 948 (1965), [w]hen the Legislature amends a statute so as to lessen the punishment it has obviously expressly determined that its former penalty was too severe and that a lighter punishment is proper as punishment for the commission of the prohibited act. It is an inevitable inference that the Legislature must have intended that the new statute imposing the new lighter penalty now deemed to be sufficient should apply to every case to which it constitutionally could apply. Id. at 175, 408 P.2d at 951 (emphasis added); accord, State v. Pardon, 272 N.C. 72, 157 S.E.2d 698, 702 (1967) (quoting Estrada ). The New York Court of Appeals has likewise found it safe to assume, as the modern rule does, that it was the legislative design that the lighter penalty should be imposed in all cases that subsequently reach the courts, regardless of when the underlying offense was committed. Oliver, supra, 151 N.Y.S.2d at 373, 134 N.E.2d at 202 (emphasis added); accord, Pardon, supra, 157 S.E.2d at 702 (quoting Oliver ). In the present case, the inference that the Council intended these defendants to enjoy the benefits of the MMSAA is just as obvious and inevitable as in Estrada and just as safe as in Oliver. See also State v. Macarelli, 118 R.I. 693, 375 A.2d 944, 947 (1977) (holding that refusal to apply ameliorative change to defendant whose case has not been reduced to final judgment would amount to nothing more than arbitrary retribution in contravention of the obvious legislative purpose behind the mitigation of the penalty ). (Emphasis added). A substantial number of the highest courts of other jurisdictions have adopted the views expressed in Estrada, Oliver, Pardon, and Macarelli, namely, that legislators who have enacted ameliorative changes in sentencing statutes intended these changes to apply, at least, to all defendants sentenced after the effective date of the new provisions. See, e.g., People v. Schultz, 435 Mich. 517, 460 N.W.2d 505, 511 (1990); People v. Behlog, 74 N.Y.2d 237, 544 N.Y.S.2d 804, 806-07, 543 N.E.2d 69, 71 (1989); State v. Cummings, 386 N.W.2d 468, 471-72 (N.D.1986); State v. Tapp, 26 Utah 2d 392, 490 P.2d 334, 335-36 (1971). [9] The basis for adopting that reasoning is obvious: the legislature is presumed to have acted rationally, and there is no legitimate reason for continuing to impose penalties which the legislature has rejected as excessive or unfair. As Judge Fuld stated for the court in Oliver, According to [modern] theories [of criminal justice], the punishment or treatment of criminal offenders is directed toward one or more of three ends: (1) to discourage and act as a deterrent upon future criminal activity, (2) to confine the offender so that he may not harm society and (3) to correct and rehabilitate the offender.... A legislative mitigation of the penalty for a particular crime represents a legislative judgment that the lesser penalty or the different treatment is sufficient to meet the legitimate ends of the criminal law. Nothing is to be gained by imposing the more severe penalty after such a pronouncement; the excess in punishment can, by hypothesis, serve no purpose other than to satisfy a desire for vengeance.[ [10] ] 151 N.Y.S.2d at 373, 134 N.E.2d at 201-02; accord, Macarelli, supra, 375 A.2d at 947 (quoting Oliver ); Estrada, supra, 48 Cal. Rptr. at 176, 408 P.2d at 952 (same). [11] Requiring trial judges in these cases to impose mandatory minimum sentences does not serve any of the purposes of the criminal law identified in Oliver. These sentences could not discourage or deter, for a wrongdoer who commits such an offense after the effective date of the Act can no longer receive a mandatory minimum term. Confinement to protect society is a valid penological goal, but the Council has rejected the notion that mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenders are necessary to achieve that purpose. Incarceration of a defendant for a period longer than the judge believes that the defendant deserves cannot reasonably be viewed as rehabilitative. Assuming, arguendo, that retribution is a legitimate consideration, it makes little sense to punish these defendants with inflexible severity, regardless of their individual circumstances, when the sentence for every offense committed after May 25, 1995 will depend on a judge's assessment of the facts of the particular defendant's case. It is noteworthy that Oliver and all of the other cases which I have discussed above involved savings statutes (or provisions similar to savings statutes), and that in each case, notwithstanding the existence of such a statute, the court applied an ameliorative sentencing provision to an offense committed prior to the effective date of the new enactment. The precise content of the particular statute varied from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the decisions of the highest state courts did not turn on these variations. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Michigan held that, in that jurisdiction, defendants were entitled to be sentenced under an ameliorative statute which was enacted subsequent to the dates of their offenses, but which became effective prior to sentencing, notwithstanding the existence of a Michigan general savings statute substantially identical, word for word, to the federal provision on which the government relies in the appeals now before the court. Schultz, supra, 460 N.W.2d at 509-12. My colleagues, however, reject these cases as erroneously decided. They insist instead that the federal and local general savings statutes control the proper disposition of these appeals, and that they trump all other considerations. I disagree.