Court Opinion

ID: 9483638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:27:19.42819+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:45.011162
License: Public Domain

KEARSE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
In order to seek a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment for defendant Kevin White, the government was required by 21 U.S.C. § 851 (1988) tó file a special information “before trial.” I agree with the majority that the district court' erred in ruling that trial commenced within the meaning of § 851 only when the jury was sworn, not when voir dire began. But I cannot agree that there is a question as to whether the § 851 information was actually filed prior to the commencement of voir dire (it was not) or whether the clerk of the court had the authority at the time in question (he did) to refuse to file it for lack of compliance with the district court’s local rules. And as I am unable to conjure up a reason why, especially when six years of imprisonment is at stake, Assistant United States Attorneys in Connecticut, like all other attorneys practicing in the federal court in that state, should not be required to be familiar with court rules and to comply with them, I would vacate the judgment of the district court and remand for resen-tencing.
A. The Address Requirement
An affidavit submitted by the government in the district court concedes that the following occurred. The New Haven office of the United States Attorney for the District- of Connecticut mailed the § 851 information on November 29, 1990, to the federal courthouse in Bridgeport. On December 4, 1990, the New Haven office of the United States Attorney received the information back in the mail, along with a notice from the Bridgeport clerk’s office stating that the information had been returned because there was no address listed for the Assistant United States Attorney who had signed it. An address was then added to the information and it was mailed back to the court, where it apparently was received and filed on December 5. In its brief on this appeal, the government acknowledges that voir dire for jury selection in this case began on December 3, 1990, and that the information was filed in the clerk’s office on December 5.
Although the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not apply to a criminal proceeding of their own force, there is no jurisprudential reason why a promulgating body cannot adopt some of those rules for application to criminal proceedings. Rule 49(d) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, for example, does precisely that, stating that “[pjapers shall be filed in the manner provided in civil actions.”
The Rules of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (“Local Rules”) in 1990 provided that certain of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure applied to criminal proceedings. In particular, Local Criminal Rule 1 incorporated Local Civil Rule 6, which dealt with preparation of “pleadings” and provided that “[a]ll pleadings must be prepared in conformity with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure required that all pleadings bear, inter alia, the pleading party’s attorney’s address.
An -information, under the terms of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, is a pleading. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(a) (“[pjleadings in criminal proceedings” in-*846elude “the indictment and the information”). There is no provision in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure requiring that indictments or informations include the prosecuting attorney’s address; but since there is also no provision stating that an address is not required, a local rule requirement of an address is not inconsistent with the national rules. The district court is therefore authorized to adopt a rule that requires an address. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 57 (district courts expressly empowered to adopt local rules imposing additional procedural requirements for criminal proceedings so long as they are “not inconsistent” with the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure); see also Fed.R.Civ.P. 83 (similar power with respect to rules for civil proceedings). Thus, the Connecticut district court’s local rule’s address requirement permissibly applied to the § 851 information.
At the time in question, Local Civil Rule 6 also stated that “[p]leadings that do not conform to the foregoing requirements will not be accepted by the Clerk.” Though this rule has been changed in order to avoid inconsistency with a recent amendment to the national rules, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 5(e) (effective December 1, 1991, “[t]he clerk shall not refuse to accept for filing any paper presented for that purpose solely because it is not presented in proper form as required by these rules or any local rules or practices”), there was no such national rule provision in December 1990 when the events at issue here occurred.
Notwithstanding the majority’s parade of hypothetical horribles that could result from incorporation of substantive aspects of Fed.R.Civ.P. 11, the present case involves only the nonsubstantive requirement that an attorney list his address on a pleading. The government’s first § 851 information did not bear the Assistant United States Attorney’s address. Following the above local rules, therefore, the clerk did not accept it for filing. Far from performing an act that was ultra vires, the clerk of the district court applied the authorized rules of the district court.
B. The Government’s Harmless-Error Contention
The government, far from denying that the § 851 information was not in fact filed prior to the commencement of voir dire, has urged, both here and in the district court, that the clerk’s rejection was based on a hypertechnicality, and that if filing before voir dire was required, its untimeliness should be excused as harmless. In making this argument, the .government relies on United States v. Duhart, 269 F.2d 113 (2d Cir.1959), in which we held that the government’s failure to timely file an information under a predecessor to § 851 was harmless error. The government’s reliance is misplaced, however, because § 851 is significantly different from its predecessor.
The predecessor section, 26 U.S.C. § 7237 (Supp. IV 1956), provided that if the defendant had prior convictions for specified narcotics offenses, then “[ajfter conviction (but before pronouncement of sentence) ... the court shall be [so] advised,’.’ and “the United States attorney shall file an information setting forth the prior convictions.” 26 U.S.C. § 7237(c)(2). We noted that this section “was intended to protect a defendant from the effect of prior offenses incorrectly charged.” 269 F.2d at 116 (applying section in effect at time of decision, which was substantively identical to section in effect at time of sentencing). Section 7237 was silent, however, as to the consequences of nonfiling of the information prior to imposition of sentence, and we ruled that since Duhart and his attorney had admitted several times during trial that he had such prior convictions, the government’s failure to file the § 7237 information prior to his initial sentencing was harmless error. We also noted that, if that failure were not to be considered harmless, the district court had the power to vacate the original sentence and reimpose the same enhanced sentence following a filing of the required § 7237 information.
Section 851 is different in two material respects. First, its requirement that the enhanced penalty information be filed prior to, rather than after, trial gives the defendant more options than merely contesting *847the existence of prior convictions. For example, after the stakes have been raised by the timely filing of a § 851 information, the defendant could decide to plead guilty prior to the empaneling of the jury and perhaps thereby improve his chance of receiving a reduction in sentence for acceptance of responsibility. See Guidelines § 3E1.1 Application Notes 2, 3 (eff. Nov. 1, 1990) (such a reduction more likely to be available to defendant who pleads guilty prior to the commencement of trial). Section 7237, requiring only a posttrial filing, allowed the defendant only to contest the accuracy of the prior-convictions allegation. Second, unlike § 7237, § 851 specifies the consequences of a failure to effect a timely filing, stating that “[n]o person who stands convicted of an offense under this part shall be sentenced to increased punishment [on account of prior convictions] unless ” the information is filed before trial or before a plea of guilty. 21 U.S.C. § 851(a) (emphasis added). The language of § 851 is thus absolute in terms of the consequences of failure to file the information before trial. Further, the strictness of Congress’s focus on the start of trial as the time for filing the § 851 information is reinforced by the provision in that section for leeway if the government is unable with due diligence to marshall the facts regarding prior convictions before trial: in such circumstances, § 851 provides that the court may briefly “postpone the trial,” not that it may deem tardiness harmless.
In imposing sentence in the present case, the district court stated that but for the § 851 information, it would have sentenced White to a prison term of 14 years. In light of the fact that the § 851 information was not timely filed, I would vacate the 20-year sentence actually imposed and remand to the district court for resentencing.