Court Opinion

ID: 9464401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:31:59.738927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:36.094323
License: Public Domain

MacKINNON, Circuit Judge
concurring specially, in which ROBB, Circuit Judge joins:
I concur in the foregoing opinion except to the extent that it conflicts with the following. It is not my view that Dorszyn-ski v. United States, 418 U.S. 424, 94 S.Ct. 3042, 41 L.Ed.2d 855 (1974) requires an explicit finding of “no benefit” in all instances. In Dorszynski, the Chief Justice remarked that:
An explicit finding that petitioner would not have benefited from treatment under the Act would have removed all doubt concerning whether the enlarged discretion Congress provided to sentencing courts was indeed exercised.
418 U.S. at 444, 94 S.Ct. at 3053 (emphasis added). What evoked this observation was that the sentencing proceeding in Dorszyn-ski presented a record in which it was unclear whether
the options of the Act were considered and rejected [or] whether . . . the court believed petitioner to be legally ineligible for treatment under the Act— which would be error — or whether, realizing he was eligible, nevertheless deliberately opted to sentence him as an adult.
*507418 U.S. at 444, 94 S.Ct. at 3053. It was in such circumstances that Dorszynski pointed out that an explicit finding of “no benefit” would have resolved that ambiguity in the record.
Elsewhere in the opinion it is stated: Once it is made clear that the sentencing judge has considered the option of treatment under the Act and rejected it, however, no appellate review is warranted.1
The question whether the finding of “no benefit” must be explicit or whether it may be implicit in the record of a particular case is answered by the manifest desire of Congress to assure that treatment under the Act be considered by the court as one option whenever the youth offender is eligible for it. If the finding may be implied from the record, appellate courts must go on to determine what constitutes a sufficient showing of the requisite implication. To hold that a “no benefit” finding is implicit each time a sentence under the Act is not chosen would render § 5010(d) nugatory; to hold that something more is necessary to support the inference that must be found in the record would create an ad hoc rule. Appellate courts should not be subject to the burden of ease-by-case examination of the record to make sure that the sentencing judge considered the treatment option made available by the Act.2 Literal compliance with the Act can be satisfied by any expression that makes clear the sentencing judge considered the alternative of sentencing under the Act and decided that the youth offender would not derive benefit from treatment under the Act.
418 U.S. at 443-44, 94 S.Ct. at 3053 (emphasis added).
The Supreme Court thus states that literal compliance with the Act is satisfied if the trial court at the time of sentencing indicates by “any expression” that it: (1) considered the alternative of sentencing under the Act and (2) decided that the youth offender would not derive benefit from treatment under the Act. Therefore, when the sentencing judge in this case said:
[OJbviously this is not a case for the Youth Corrections Act, both because of the nature of the offense and the nature of the prior records of these defendants.
it is clear that he did consider “the alternative of sentencing under the Act.” 418 U.S. at 444, 94 S.Ct. at 3053. It is also clear that when the sentencing judge stated:
[Brackett] needs incarceration in a maximum security institution (emphasis added)
he was stating as clearly as one could state without echoing the exact “no benefit” language of the statute, that the court concluded Brackett would not derive benefit from treatment under the Act.
It is thus my opinion that the sentence imposed satisfied the Youth Act requirements and was not in conflict with the requirements of Dorszynski. There was nothing ambiguous in the sentencing by Judge Holtzoff, like the ambiguity in Dorszynski, that created any doubt that “the sentencing judge considered the treatment option made available by the Act” and that such “options of the Act were considered and rejected.” Nor is there anything in Brackett’s sentencing that creates any doubt that the sentencing judge had considered whether the defendant was “legally [eligible] for treatment under the Act.”
The majority opinion does not disagree with this characterization of the trial judge’s sentencing. The majority grants that (1) the trial judge made “comments” and “extensive references”, and (2) that those statements made clear that “appellant would not respond to YCA treatment.” (Maj. op. at-of 185 U.S.App.D.C., at 504 of 567 F.2d & n. 2). Dorszynski requires no more.
This is not to say that an incantation of the “no benefit” finding would not more *508clearly have satisfied the statute. However, to my mind the judge was telling Brackett that he would not derive benefit from treatment under the Act when he told him he “need[ed] incarceration in a maximum security institution.” The sentencing proceedings thus did not involve any indication that the probation officer or court were uncertain as to the eligibility of the defendant for a Youth Act sentence, such as was present in Dorszynski. In my view the sentencing proceeding satisfies all the requirements that Dorszynski outlines for a legal sentence, and thus it is not necessary for us to consider whether Dorszynski is retroactive.
As I read Dorszynski an implicit finding of “no benefit” satisfies the statute unless the basis for reaching the implication is ambiguous. There is no latent ambiguity in the instant sentencing proceeding.

. In my view that is the factual situation here.

. It is clear here that the sentencing judge did consider the sentencing options.