Opinion ID: 346635
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statutory Changes Since Wilson and Mackin.

Text: 20 Since Wilson and Mackin, substantial changes in sentencing procedures and in the prison system have altered the impact of those decisions. These alterations either directly resulted from or were made possible by the development of a federal prison system. As an increasing percentage of federal prisoners were confined in federal, rather than state institutions, the two noncapital infamous punishments lost their character as punishments imposed by a sentencing court and became part of the disciplinary regimen and rehabilitative program established by the Attorney General and the newly created Bureau of Prisons. 21 Although the federal government operated penal institutions in the District of Columbia (Act of May 20, 1826, ch. 81, 4 Stat. 178; Act of March 3, 1829, ch. 65, 4 Stat. 365), in the territories (Act of Jan. 22, 1867, ch. 9, 14 Stat. 377; Act of Jan. 10, 1871, ch. 15, 16 Stat. 398), and for military prisoners (Act of March 3, 1873, ch. 249, 17 Stat. 582), Congress made no attempt to establish a federal prison system until 1891. 9 In that year the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Interior were authorized to purchase three sites and to build institutions for the confinement of all persons convicted of any (federal) crime whose term of imprisonment is one year or more at hard labor. (Act of March 3, 1891, ch. 529, § 1, 26 Stat. 839.) Delays in appropriating the funds and constructing the facilities postponed actual use of the federal prisons until after the turn of the century; but the three institutions authorized by Congress eventually became the penitentiaries of Leavenworth, Kansas; Atlanta, Georgia; and McNeil Island, Washington. 10 From this core group of three prisons, the federal system has grown to more than 35 institutions, including penitentiaries, correctional institutions, prison camps, reformatories, detention centers, and a medical center. (See Bureau of Prisons Policy Statement No. 7300.13E, Attachments A-LL, (June 16, 1975).) As new facilities were built and the old ones enlarged, the percentage of federal prisoners confined in state institutions declined. 11 22 While the federal prison system was developing, Congress was also overhauling sentencing and punishment. As part of its revision and recodification of the penal code in 1909, Congress eliminated hard labor from the punishment clause of each section. The Joint Committee on the Revision of the Laws explained the reason for removing hard labor from the statutory punishment options: 23 The provisions in various sections imposing hard labor as an added punishment to imprisonment have been found in actual practice to be difficult of application because of the fact that the United States Government has no adequate prisons under its own control for the incarceration of all prisoners under sentence, but is obliged to use for this purpose such prisons of the various States as may be designated by the Attorney General and permitted by the State authorities. The regulation of prison discipline in these various State institutions is necessarily under the direction and control of the respective States, and different regulations respecting hard labor exist in the different States. 24 We have therefore omitted from the penalties imposed in the various sections the distinction heretofore existing which in some cases added to imprisonment the condition of hard labor and in other instances made no such provision. 25 Under existing law a convict sentenced to be confined in a State institution is subject to the regulation of hard labor as therein imposed as a part of the prison discipline . . .; and inasmuch as all Federal prisons have this disciplinary provision, a convict wherever sent for imprisonment will, under the recommended change, be subject to hard labor as a part of the prison discipline instead of a part of the sentence. The same result is therefore obtained and the existing incongruity overcome. (S.Rep.No.10, Pt. I, 60th Cong., 1st Sess. 13 (1908).) 26 Despite the recognition that hard labor had become primarily a disciplinary measure used in nearly all institutions regardless of the sentence, instead of a punishment for specific crimes, Congress preserved the hard labor sentencing option: 27 The omission of the words 'hard labor' from the provisions prescribing the punishment in the various sections of this Act, shall not be construed as depriving the court of the power to impose hard labor as a part of the punishment, in any case where such power now exists. (Act of March 4, 1909, ch. 321, § 338, 35 Stat. 1088, 1153, codified in 18 U.S.C. § 572 (1940 ed.).) 28 The Committee Report clarified the import of the section: This section . . . is inserted so as to avoid a possible construction that the omission of the words 'hard labor' from the various sections of this act indicated an intention on the part of Congress that 'hard labor' should no longer form a part of the punishment which might be imposed. (S.Rep.No.10, Pt. I, 60th Cong., 1st Sess. 26 (1908).) 29 For nearly four decades, hard labor retained its status as an unstated, and seldom used, sentencing option. 12 In the 1948 revision and recodification of Title 18, however, the section was finally repealed. (Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 645, § 21, 62 Stat. 683, 862-63.) Although the Reviser's Notes do not directly discuss the repeal, the intended effect is evident in the discussion of new section 1, which classified crimes as felonies, misdemeanors, or petty offenses according to the penalty authorized. The prior formulation of the classification section had stipulated that petty offenses were those punishable by six months confinement without hard labor. (18 U.S.C. § 541 (1940 ed.).) Congress omitted the hard labor provision 30 to conform to policy followed by codifiers of 1909 Criminal Code, and because such a provision is obsolete in view of section 4082 of this title, authorizing commitment to the custody of the Attorney General and sections 4001 and 4121 et seq. of this title, making all Federal prisoners subject to whatever discipline may be prescribed in the prisons to which they are committed. 31 (H.R.Rep.No.304, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. A4 (1976).) 32 Similarly the words with or without hard labor were omitted from section 753c 13 of the 1940 Code because they were unnecessary in view of omission of 'hard labor' as part of the punishment. (Id. at A178.) 33 As explained in the Reviser's Notes, the elimination of hard labor as a form of punishment prescribed by the sentencing judge did not constitute a prohibition of its use in the federal penal system. The Attorney General could, in his discretion, use hard labor as a means of discipline or as a technique of rehabilitation. Under the current statutory structure, the Attorney General is empowered to provide for (the) proper government, discipline, treatment, care, rehabilitation, and reformation of federal prisoners (18 U.S.C. § 4001.) Moreover, Chapter 307 of Title 18 specifically authorizes the establishment of industries within federal institutions (18 U.S.C. §§ 4121-24, 4126-28), and grants the Attorney General power to make available . . . the services of United States prisoners . . . for constructing or repairing . . . public ways or works. (Id. § 4125.) 14 This power is not limited to specific institutions or institutional types. 34 The exposure of all federal prisoners, youth or adult, to the imposition of hard labor at the discretion of the Attorney General could, under Wilson and Moreland, be construed to require an indictment in every criminal case. 15 That the indictment cases seem to require this result illustrates the need for reconsideration of those cases. The indictment clause, as interpreted in Wilson, is directed to infamous punishments, yet since 1948, the district courts have not been permitted to impose the punishment of hard labor. Hard labor is not a sentencing option and is not associated with particular crimes; rather, it is available to prison administrators as one part of the individualized system of discipline, care, and treatment that Congress has sought to provide inmates in an integrated federal prison system. (18 U.S.C. § 4081.) Whether or not a convict is subjected to a regimen that could be classified as hard labor depends, not on the offense which gave rise to his conviction, but on the training, disciplinary, or control needs of the individual, the facilities available in the institution, and the requirements for maintenance of order within federal prisons. 35 Penitentiary confinement, the other non-capital infamous punishment, has undergone a transformation nearly identical to that of the hard labor penalty. Through a series of enactments spanning 50 years, Congress has shifted the power to determine the institution of confinement from the sentencing judge to the Attorney General. In the 1891 act authorizing the construction of national prisons, the Attorney General was granted authority to designate in which of the three proposed federal prisons a convict sentenced to penitentiary imprisonment should be confined. (Act of March 3, 1891, ch. 529, § 9, 26 Stat. 839, 840.) When Congress provided for the establishment of an industrial reformatory in 1925 for offenders under age 30 who were sentenced to imprisonment for more than one year, it stipulated that it was sufficient for the courts to sentence to imprisonment to a penitentiary without specifying the particular penitentiary or the reformatory. The Attorney General was to designate the specific institution. (Act of Jan. 7, 1925, ch. 32, § 1, 43 Stat. 724; see Act of May 12, 1930, ch. 237, 46 Stat. 265.) In 1930, this division of power as to institutional designation was clarified in the act creating the Bureau of Prisons: 36 Hereafter all persons convicted of an offense against the United States shall be committed, for such terms of imprisonment and to such types of institutions as the court may direct, to the custody of the Attorney General of the United States or his authorized representative, who shall designate the places of confinement where the sentences of all such persons shall be served. The Attorney General may designate any available, suitable, and appropriate institutions . . . . (Act of May 14, 1930, ch. 274, § 7, 46 Stat. 325, 326 (emphasis added).) 37 Thus, the sentencing court included the type of institution as part of the sentence, while the Attorney General determined which particular institution of that type should be used to carry out the sentence. 38 This arrangement survived for only a decade until Congress completely eliminated designation of an institution or institutional type from the sentencing procedure: 39 Hereafter all persons convicted of an offense against the United States shall be committed, for such terms of imprisonment as the court may direct, to the custody of the Attorney General of the United States or his authorized representative, who shall designate the places of confinement where the sentences of all such persons shall be served. (Act of June 14, 1941, ch. 204, 55 Stat. 252.) 40 As the only limitation on the Attorney General's discretion to determine the institution of incarceration, Congress incorporated the provision that a sentence of less than one year could not be served in a penitentiary except with the defendant's consent. (Id.) These provisions are now codified in 18 U.S.C. §§ 4082-83. 16 41 As in the case of hard labor, the removal of the sentencing judge's power to impose the infamous punishment of penitentiary confinement was not merely a change of form, but reflected Congress' view that the particular institution in which a convict was incarcerated was an important consideration in the rational administration of a federal penal system, rather than an element of punishment for the particular crime committed. The Senate Report on the 1941 act consists of a letter from then Attorney General Robert Jackson, which the Judiciary Committee states is expository of this proposed legislation: 42 The power to transfer prisoners from one institution to another is frequently exercised for a variety of reasons. Among the more important of these reasons is to assure defendant being confined in an institution of a type which is most suitable for his safe custody and rehabilitation. Another important reason is to prevent overcrowding of any one institution and to use the facilities of the entire Federal penal and correctional system to the best advantage. Such a course is in accord with the policy of the Congress, as declared in section 7 of the act of May 27, 1930 (46 Stat. 390; U.S.C., title 18, sec. 907).To enable the Attorney General to determine the type of institution to which the prisoner is to be confined in the first instance may save expense to the Government in subsequent transfers. (S.Rep.No.369, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. 1-2 (1941).) 43 The 1940 act to which Attorney General Jackson referred declared that it was the policy of Congress that federal institutions should be 44 so planned and limited in size as to facilitate the development of an integrated Federal penal and correctional system which will assure the proper classification and segregation of Federal prisoners according to their character, the nature of the crime they have committed, their mental condition, and such other factors as should be taken into consideration in providing an individualized system of discipline, care, and treatment of the persons committed to such institutions. 17 45 The congressional policy is, of course, that of classification, a technique used to provide individualized treatment and to reach the goal of rehabilitation. (See generally L. Orland, Justice, Punishment, Treatment, 218-40 (1973).) 46 Within an integrated Federal penal and correctional system, confinement in any particular type of institution, as ordered by the Attorney General, is less an element of punishment than a means of using the varied facilities of the system to meet the custody, disciplinary, and rehabilitative needs of individual prisoners. The nature of the crime is but one consideration among the many that are relevant to institutional assignment. 18 Penitentiary confinement, controlled by the Attorney General and used in conjunction with a system of classification, has lost its character of infamous punishment and has been integrated into the rehabilitative and disciplinary programs of the federal prisons. 47 The changes in the manner and purposes for which hard labor and penitentiary confinement are now imposed on federal convicts raise the difficult question of whether the indictment cases are applicable to the present-day federal prison system in general and to confinement under the YCA in particular. Because our decision is grounded on the length of confinement, we do not decide this question. Until overruled or modified by the Supreme Court, the two infamous punishments recognized in Wilson, Mackin, and Moreland continue to determine the application of the indictment clause. Nevertheless, the growth of a federal prison system and the means by which the place and conditions of confinement are administratively determined highlight the importance of the length of confinement in judicial sentencing procedures. 48