Court Opinion

ID: 9468966
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:28:15.023937+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:08.539242
License: Public Domain

BARTELS, District Judge
(concurring and dissenting):
I concur in the affirmance of the conviction. However, with all due respect, I must dissent to the process employed by the trial judge in imposing sentence.
The majority asserts that the trial judge “did not view rehabilitation as a substantial factor” but the trial judge went much fur*291ther and his remarks supplied the appellant with his principal argument for remand. Indeed, the trial judge in imposing sentence stated: “I think you will have an appeal on the basis of this sentence.” The offense committed by Dazzo was particularly egregious, and the murder of a witness in his co-defendant’s trial demonstrated the character and background of his associates. The trial judge was righteously indignant and outraged. Such reaction, however, does not eliminate the necessity to individualize the sentence or to consider the rehabilitation of the defendant in imposing sentence.
As a general proposition, the appellate court has no power to change or reduce a sentence which falls within the requisite legislative limits on the ground that the sentence is too severe, Townsend v. Burke, 334 U.S. 736, 68 S.Ct. 1252, 92 L.Ed. 1690 (1948), unless the trial court abused its discretion or failed to exercise any discretion at all. Dorszynski v. United States, 418 U.S. 424, 443, 94 S.Ct. 3042, 3052, 41 L.Ed.2d 855 (1974); Yates v. United States, 356 U.S. 363, 366-67, 78 S.Ct. 766, 768-69, 2 L.Ed.2d 837 (1958). The criteria which a court relies upon in imposing sentence are not insulated from appellate review. In United States v. Hartford, 489 F.2d 652, 654 (5th Cir. 1974), the court said:
Appellate modification of a statutorily-authorized sentence ... is an entirely different matter than the careful scrutiny of the judicial process by which the particular punishment was determined. Rather than an unjustified incursion into the province of the sentencing judge, this latter responsibility is, on the contrary, a necessary incident of what has always been appropriate appellate review of criminal cases.
It is that process with which we are here concerned.
The criteria relied upon by Judge Weinstein appear from the following statements made at the sentencing:
The gang murdered a witness during the course of the trial. [Dazzo] has to take the risk of joining a gang of murderers and .. . will be sentenced as member of a gang with international drug smugglers and murderers ...
[He will be sentenced] as a member of that gang in order to deter future defendants in this court from directly or indirectly interfering with our witnesses.
He also remarked:
I’m sure he didn’t understand that he was getting involved with murder when he became a member of the gang. But, nevertheless, that’s^ the risk you take when you become involved in a crime . . .
I am assuming that this defendant did not know that the man was going to be murdered, did not approve of it, and would not have approved of it if he had been consulted. I don’t think he wasn’t aware of the fact that other witnesses were being threatened.
Finally he stated:
Don’t talk about rehabilitation, because I have no intention of rehabilitating him. I’m not going to sentence him for rehabilitation purposes. He’s going to be sentenced for deterrence, solely.
It is apparent that one of the reasons for the sentence was that a witness against a co-defendant was murdered after the conspiracy, although Dazzo had no knowledge that the witness was about to be murdered, did not approve of it and would not have approved of it had he been consulted. In fact, the judge denied that Dazzo was in any way guilty of the murder, although he associated Dazzo with that guilt as a member of the gang which ultimately murdered the witness. Obviously, one of the elements of this sentence was retaliation predicated upon the outrage that a proposed witness at the trial was murdered. The judge hoped to “deter future defendants in this court from directly or indirectly interfering with our witnesses.”
As was aptly stated in United States v. Wardlaw, 576 F.2d 932, 939 (1st Cir. 1978):
[W]hile sentencing judges have considerable discretion in sentencing, they may not relentlessly pursue at a defendant’s cost a single, questionable theory while simply brushing aside all the other criteria com*292monly weighed by the vast majority of sentencing courts. Defendants were entitled to have their sentences set primarily in terms of the seriousness of their own crimes and associated individual factors. They were not to be viewed chiefly as instruments of retaliation against other different criminals. The sentences must accordingly be vacated and the cases remanded for resentencing of both defendants.
See also United States v. Grayson, 438 U.S. 41, 98 S.Ct. 2610, 57 L.Ed.2d 582 (1978); Roberts v. United States, 449 U.S. 821, 101 S.Ct. 79, 66 L.Ed.2d 23 (1980). Dazzo was sentenced also because of his membership in “a gang of murderers.”
Another disturbing element in the sentencing process appeared when the judge stated that he would not sentence Dazzo for any rehabilitation purposes. Rehabilitation is a factor to be considered by every district judge in imposing sentence and cannot be brushed aside solely for deterrence. Mr. Chief Justice Burger in United States v. Grayson, supra, 438 U.S. at 46, 98 S.Ct. at 2613, explained:
Approximately a century ago, a reform movement asserting that the purpose of incarceration, and therefore the guiding consideration in sentencing, should be the rehabilitation of the offender, dramatically altered the approach to sentencing. A fundamental proposal of this movement was a flexible sentencing system permitting judges and correctional personnel, particularly the latter, to set the release date of prisoners according to informed judgments concerning their potential for, or actual, rehabilitation and their likely recidivism. (Footnote omitted.)
Accordingly, as early as 1949, Mr. Justice Black in Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 247, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 1083, 93 L.Ed. 1337 (1949), stated that the
prevalent modern philosophy of penology [is] that the punishment should fit the offender and not merely the crime... .
and that sentences should be determined with an eye toward the “[Reformation and rehabilitation of offenders”. Id., at 248, 69 S.Ct. at 1083. See also United States v. Cavazos, 530 F.2d 4 (5th Cir. 1976).
Dazzo was sentenced to three consecutive five-year terms, a $45,000 fine, and a lifetime special parole. He was only 26 years old, a high school dropout, without a criminal record, and with a wife and child. It is impossible for one to say that he cannot be rehabilitated if he so desires. It is true that there is no constitutional principle that prefers rehabilitation over deterrence, but it is also true that there is no constitutional principle that prefers deterrence over rehabilitation. There is no inconsistency between the two and both must be weighed before imposing sentence.
Since I believe the trial judge did not consider the proper criteria in imposing sentence, it is my conclusion that the sentence should be vacated and the case remanded for resentencing.