Court Opinion

ID: 9459781
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:31:53.333268+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:20.380428
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
While I do not differ in substantial degree from the majority with regard to the rules of law governing the decision of this case, I would reach a different result on the facts. Of course, I would not release defendant on his own recognizance, or on a nominal bond; even defendant has not made that request. But I think that defendant’s presence at trial would be reasonably assured if he were released on a bond in the range of $25,000 to $50,000, with corporate surety, on conditions that he (a) remain within the Southern District of Florida, except for necessary court appearances in the District of Maryland, (b) periodically verify his presence to a probation officer within the Southern District of Florida, and (c) surrender his passport. Certainly, I think that bail of $250,000 under the facts of this case, is so excessive as to violate the Eighth Amendment and to make a shambles of the Bail Reform Act. For that reason, I would re*1071verse and remand the case with instructions to the district court.
Defendant is married, lives with and supports his wife and three children in an apartment in Miami, Florida. Defendant, who is 30, has lived there all of his life. His occupation is that of an over-the-road truck driver, and he earns an average of $200 per week. He usually trucks loads of fruit and ladies’ apparel between Miami and New York in trucks which he arranges to rent or which are furnished by the shipper. His only visible assets are an equity in an automobile and small savings accounts in his name and those of his children. He has no record of prior convictions or even of prior arrests.
Defendant is accused of serious crimes and the amount of cocaine seized when defendant was apprehended had substantial value. Defendant’s name appeared on written instructions to the customs’ broker authorizing the broker to effect customs clearance of the bananas in which the cocaine was concealed. Defendant’s counsel claims that, he possesses competent evidence to establish that the purported signature is a forgery. But, even if the claim of forgery is rejected, it taxes my credulity to think that defendant’s participation in the illegal enterprise, if established by competent proof at trial, was more than that of a simple courier. Whether he was an unknowing courier may be litigated at trial; but even if he possessed knowledge of what he was to carry, there is utterly lacking any evidence, in the nature of defendant’s life style, his known possessions, the circumstances of his arrest, or his suspected participation in the crimes, even to generate a strong suspicion that he was a principal in the illegal importation of cocaine. He, thus, cannot be supposed to have the same incentive and the same resources for flight of one who was a principal in an illegal importation of this magnitude. His state of residence should not be a factor requiring bail in a greater amount than if he lived elsewhere. National and international means of transportation are available to anyone in the United States, irrespective of his residence.
To repeat, at best (or at worst), I see defendant as a mere courier, one who has substantial family ties, who has lived a life of considerable stability and who has no previous criminal record. I see no more than the ordinary risks of flight that can be minimized by reasonable bail and reasonable restrictions. To my mind, it follows that bail of $250,000 was excessive, especially in view of defendant’s manifest inability to raise that amount.