Court Opinion

ID: 9482184
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:42:49.668909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:49.232406
License: Public Domain

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The Court ably states the reasons for its conclusion that the sentence was not “mechanical,” as that term is used in Woosley v. United States, 478 F.2d 139 (8th Cir.1973) (en banc). I agree with this holding. I also agree with the Court’s conclusion that Island’s self-incrimination argument comes too late.
I would remand for resentencing, however, because of another circumstance which seems to me compelling. It is obvious from the transcript that the Court’s imposition of the fifteen-year maximum sentence was directly tied to Island’s failure to reveal his sources. On the record as it comes to us, the reason for this failure is clear; someone had threatened to hurt Island’s children if Island were to tell who his sources were. As the Court notes, the District Court appeared to believe Island’s statement to this effect, and to proceed on the assumption that it was true. Ante at 1337. The Court nevertheless based its sentence on Island’s failure to reveal this very information. The Court said: “Your children and your family could be protected; you have to put some trust and confidence in those people who can protect them.” See ibid.
In my view, this reasoning is arbitrary. It is true (pre-Guidelines) that sentences are rarely reviewable. If, however, a sentencing judge gives on the record a clearly inadmissible reason for his action, the Court of Appeals has power to take appropriate action. Suppose, for example, that the judge said that a defendant was being given six years, instead of five, because the sentencing took place on a Tuesday. Assume further that the sentence is within statutory limits. No one would contend, I assume, that such a sentence could stand. Here, the defendant was given a clear choice: he could either name his sources, thus exposing his children to physical danger, or he could go to jail for the maximum period allowed. It is not a sufficient an*1340swer to say that the children could be protected. The reference, apparently, is to the Witness Protection Program of the Department of Justice. If we assume that the Department would have made this kind of protection available, the point made by defendant on this particular record is still not answered. His children were not living with him. They were living with his former wife and, presumably, were in her legal custody. The choice whether to place them in the Witness Protection Program would, therefore, not be that of the defendant himself. The choice would belong to the custodial parent. There is no evidence in this record that she would have acceded to any such proposition, thus consigning not only her children but also herself to an extreme disruption in their personal lives. At the very least, I submit, the District Court should have made further inquiry. It could, for example, have required testimony from the former wife, or could have explored on the record what sorts of protection could, as a practical matter, be afforded.
A general policy of severe sentences in the absence of cooperation by defendants is not at all objectionable. Indeed, there is a great deal to be said for it, and I might well adopt such a policy if I were a trial judge. Here, however, the record raises serious and unanswered questions about the operation of such a policy under the particular circumstances of this case. I would vacate this sentence and remand for resentencing in light of the views expressed in this opinion.