Court Opinion

ID: 9800984
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 08:44:37.714401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:50:16.360917
License: Public Domain

Reiber, C.J.,
¶ 25. concurring. I write separately today, not because I disagree with the outcome in this particular case, but rather to express my concern that the direction taken by our recent decisions in violation-of-probation (VOP) cases hampers trial judges’ discretion in constructing appropriate probation conditions and determining when those conditions have been violated. This Court has necessarily focused on the due process rights of the defendant and the specificity of the probation conditions imposed at sentencing. While our decisions are meant to ensure that notice of prohibited conduct is communicated to defendants, the trend of those decisions in insisting on more detailed conditions has created an incentive for prosecutors and the Department of Corrections (DOC) to craft increasingly specific and lengthy lists of conditions in an effort to address every contingency to deflect later challenges by defendants at VOP hearings. Concurrently, defense attorneys are not disposed to argue about conditions at sentencing for fear that they might compromise their position for lesser or no jail time. As a result, our decisions on appeals from VOP proceedings focus on parsing the language of the sentencing conditions imposed. This, in turn, results in decreased discretion in the trial court, both at sentencing and at violation, and presents a separation-of-powers problem. Indeed, *355over time, our decisions have inadvertently eroded the authority of the trial courts to use their discretion and apply common sense and judgment at sentencing, effectively transferring that discretion to the executive branch.
¶ 26. Our jurisprudence concerning the terms of probation conditions has elevated the need for courts to “fashion [conditions] in a precise manner.” State v. Rivers, 2005 VT 65, ¶ 19, 178 Vt. 180, 878 A.2d 1070. “In light of what is at stake for the probationer — loss of liberty for a violation — it is vital that the probationer have a clear and certain understanding of the obligations assumed.” State v. Hemingway, 2014 VT 48, ¶ 16, 196 Vt. 441, 97 A.3d 465. We recognized in Rivers that “[probation conditions must retain some degree of flexibility, and probation officers may be granted a limited amount of discretion in implementing conditions — especially conditions designed to address situations that the court cannot anticipate.” 2005 VT 65, ¶ 15. However, we also highlighted that “ ‘the conditions must be sufficiently precise so that probation officers do not in fact establish them.’ ” Id. (quoting American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice 2d § 18-2.3(c)(ii)). This specificity requirement has constitutional dimensions because “[d]ue process requires that the defendant receive fair notice as to what acts may constitute a violation of his probation, thereby subjecting him to loss of liberty.” State v. Gleason, 154 Vt. 205, 216, 576 A.2d 1246, 1252 (1990) (quotation omitted). Further, we have couched this principle of specificity in the trial court’s statutory authority to impose conditions under 28 V.S.A. § 252, and the consequent impermissibility of delegation of this authority to probation officers. See Hemingway, 2014 VT 48, ¶ 15 (“The wording of § 252(c) shows that the Legislature intended that defendant receive in writing the exact wording of the conditions by its requirement that the certificate ‘explicitly set[] forth the conditions upon which he or she is being released’ ”); State v. Moses, 159 Vt. 294, 300-01, 618 A.2d 478, 482 (1992) (stating that “[i]t is improper for the court to delegate the power to impose probation conditions to a probation officer,” and noting that Legislature “placed the power to impose probation conditions on the court, and not on the corrections department and its employees”).
¶ 27. It is important to keep in mind that requiring courts to impose specific probation conditions is also intended to preserve the integrity of the judicial branch, including its authority over *356probationary sentences. Although sentencing is not “solely a judicial function derived from constitutional mandates,” State v. Saari, 152 Vt. 510, 518, 568 A.2d 344, 350 (1989), and judicial discretion may be curbed in certain instances, see id. at 519, 568 A.2d at 350, the Legislature has specifically authorized the courts to impose probationary sentences and provided guidance for the imposition of those sentences. See 28 V.S.A. § 252; see also Rivers, 2005 VT 65, ¶ 19 (reversing trial court’s finding of probation violation because probation officer crossed line between enforcement and modification of probation, and authority to craft conditions was thus impermissibly delegated to probation officer).
¶28. Despite the importance of these goals — due process notice requirements, the fulfillment of statutory objectives, and separation of powers — they may not always be furthered by the chosen means — precision and specificity in the articulation of conditions at sentencing. Indeed, if taken too strictly, the means employed may actually undermine these ends. The primary benefit of a more flexible interpretative scheme is that it allows the trial court, on a petition claiming that a respondent violated a probation condition, to apply the condition to novel situations that-were unforeseen, even unforeseeable, at the time the condition was imposed. See Rivers, 2005 VT 65, ¶ 15. Such indeterminacy is an inherent part of complex human social life, and cannot be avoided by mandating that courts and corrections officers anticipate every possible behavior or the shifting social, political, or economic contexts that may affect those behaviors. For this reason, in overturning the probation violation in State v. Austin, we did not mean to “cast doubt upon the trial court’s role in evaluating a probationer’s” compliance with the condition at issue, but rather “adhere[d] to our belief that a probation agreement is not to be treated as a strait-jacket that defies common sense.” 165 Vt. 389, 400, 685 A.2d 1076, 1083 (1996) (quotations omitted).
¶29. A rule that calls for an overly literal interpretation of probation conditions, and that leaves little room for discretion by probation officers and the trial court for interpreting and applying those conditions, creates an incentive for prosecutors and probation officers at the outset to fashion wordy, complex, and specific conditions that regulate ever-broader aspects of defendants’ lives in ever-more stringent ways. These conditions may be designed not merely to reasonably assure “that the offender will lead a law-abiding life,” as required by 28 V.S.A. § 252, but also to limit *357later challenges by defendants claiming that they did not violate the precise language of the condition. That this incentive is already in play is evidenced by the expansion of conditions in Vermont in recent years, in terms of their increasing number, complexity, and the use of specialized conditions for particular offenses.
¶ 30. This trend is problematic. First, though the due process notice requirement is often seen as procedural — without consideration of the substance of the offense or violation charged — procedural due process is fundamentally rooted in substantive rights, including a respect for liberty and a suspicion of arbitrary government power. Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 331 (1986) (“[B]y barring certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them, . . . [the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause] serves to prevent governmental power from being used for purposes of oppression.” (quotation omitted)); Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 527 (1884) (explaining that Due Process Clause was “intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government” (quotation omitted)). Where applications of procedural due process contribute to the proliferation of substantive restrictions by the other branches of government to evade these procedural protections, its use has strayed from its underlying purpose.
¶ 31. Second, although the majority here, in line with our prior cases, grounds application of the specificity requirement in the trial court’s authority to establish conditions, the effect of its decision may, ironically, be just the opposite. DOC employees author many if not most of the probation conditions, usually by suggesting a laundry list of standard conditions that apply to all offenders and then adding a second list of specialized, offense-specific conditions. In the vast majority of cases, these conditions are accepted by defendants and incorporated in a signed plea agreement — a contract between the State and the defendant — before they are reviewed by a judge. Alternatively, they may be imposed by a judge in the first instance as part of a suspended sentence. 28 V.S.A. § 205(a)(1).
¶ 32. At sentencing, the court’s role is to ensure that the conditions are applicable to the particular defendant, tailoring the conditions to the defendant’s situation. 28 V.S.A. § 252(b)(18) (“The Court shall not impose a condition prohibiting the offender from engaging in any legal behavior unless the condition is reasonably *358related to the offender’s rehabilitation or necessary to reduce risk to public safety.”); see also State v. Whitchurch, 155 Vt. 134, 137, 577 A.2d 690, 692 (1990) (quoting American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice 2d § 18-2.3(e) for proposition that “conditions imposed by the court should be reasonably related to the purposes of sentencing, including the goal of rehabilitation, and should not be unduly restrictive of the probationer’s liberty or autonomy”). But there are practical limitations on the court’s ability to do so. The court has limited information, and relies heavily on the recommendations and expertise of the prosecutor and the probation officer. It is unlikely that the probation conditions will be rigorously tested through the adversarial process at the sentencing stage, because defense' attorneys often, as a tactical matter, focus on arguing for a suspended sentence for their client instead of jail time. Moreover, in cases where defendants have signed a plea agreement, the court is more likely to abide by the voluntary contract between the State and defendant than to hold an evidentiary hearing.6 This confluence of factors has resulted in a situation where at sentencing the adversarial process is at its nadir. Thus the courts’ duties are greatest at the time when they are most difficult to fulfill.
¶ 33. In this case, while acknowledging defendant’s efforts to find housing and the difficulties he faced, the VOP court addressed the problem in a practical, common-sense manner, basing its conclusion on a balancing of factors with concern for public safety. Although ultimately we conclude that the court’s finding of a violation was not justified by the plain language of the conditions, the court’s thoughtful, discretionary approach is one that we should encourage.
¶ 34. The majority recognizes the practicality of the court’s approach, stating that “[t]he trial court’s preferred interpretation may be a more accurate representation of what commonly hap*359pens to probationers with residence restrictions,” but holds that this is “not what defendant’s probation condition says.” Ante, ¶ 21. According to the majority, the requirement to “ ‘[r]eside where your Supervising Officer directs’ does not support a probation officer imposing requirements of either housing search call frequency or a final, hard deadline for finding permanent housing, punishable by probation revocation.” Ante, ¶ 21. While it is true that the condition does not itself impose the requirements used by the probation officer, I am concerned that our holding will lead to more specific conditions as to these requirements — the number and frequency of calls or a hard deadline for housing. Such specificity reduces discretion at sentencing and transfers greater authority to DOC.
¶ 35. Just as specificity can protect defendants if they do not technically violate the condition’s plain language, it can be equally unforgiving if they do. Our holding that probation officers cannot cross the fine between implementing and modifying conditions, see Rivers, 2005 VT 65, ¶ 19, should not be construed to require courts to abandon common sense when interpreting probationary agreements. Austin, 165 Vt. at 400, 685 A.2d at 1083 (stating that probation agreement is “not to be treated as a strait-jacket that defies common sense” (quotations omitted)).
¶ 36. The challenge here is to refrain from elevating procedure over substance. The understandable desire to bring uniformity, determinacy, and predictability to probationary sentences must not take precedence over the duty of judges to use their common sense and judgment to do justice in individual cases. The alternative, a rigidly determinate sentencing scheme, has superficial appeal but ultimately creates the risk of ceding the trial judges’ authority, even if inadvertently, to the executive branch charged with enforcement.7 For these reasons, I encourage trial courts to use their discretion in imposing probation conditions or finding *360violations and urge this Court to avoid, if possible, micromanaging the articulation of those conditions.
¶ 37. I am authorized to state that Justice Crawford joins this concurrence.

 These difficulties are further compounded by our holding in Austin that defendants may only bring facial challenges to conditions at sentencing or on direct appeal, and may not raise such challenges for the first time during a VOP hearing. 165 Vt. at 402, 685 A.2d at 1084. As the majority notes, practically the same condition at issue in this case was struck down by this Court in Moses, 159 Vt. at 300-01, 618 A.2d at 482, and again in State v. Freeman, 2013 VT 25, ¶¶ 16-17, 193 Vt. 454, 70 A.3d 1008. Yet DOC still proposed, and defendant is bound by, the condition because he did not previously challenge it. Under Austin, courts do not have the authority during a VOP hearing to correct errors, even constitutional ones, in the conditions that were imposed at sentencing.

 There are parallels with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which were originally enacted to impose greater uniformity and certainty in sentencing in response to the perception that unlimited judicial discretion was contributing to unfairness in sentencing. See generally S. Breyer, The Federal Sentencing Guidelines and the Key Compromises upon Which They Rest, 17 Hofstra L. Rev. 1, 4-5 (1988) (explaining rationales of “honesty in sentencing” and uniformity in Federal Sentencing Guidelines); see also United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 253 (2005) (“Congress’ basic goal in passing the Sentencing Act was to move the sentencing system in the direction of increased uniformity.”). The Guidelines may have produced greater uniformity and certainty in sentencing, but with a commensurate *360reduction in judicial discretion at sentencing. Because the Guidelines are complex, rigid, and heavily fact-dependent, they had the unintended consequence of encouraging prosecutors to be more proactive in adjusting the charges to the desired sentence, thereby significantly controlling sentencing determinations before the case would ever be heard before a judge. This led to a shift in sentencing power from the judicial to the executive branch. F. Bowman, III, The Failure of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: A Structural Analysis, 105 Colum. L. Rev. 1315, 1340 (2005).
In Booker, the U.S. Supreme Court encouraged greater judicial discretion in sentencing by making the Guidelines advisory — thereby permitting the sentencing judge to tailor the sentence in light of other statutory factors — and by providing a more deferential standard of review in case of departure from the applicable Guideline range. 543 U.S. at 248-49. Commentators have opined that the ultimate effect of making the Guidelines advisory and providing for more discretionary appellate review of sentences was to “br[ing] to a halt the drive to shift the power to punish away from the judiciary and put it in the hands of federal prosecutors.” S. Klein & S. Thompson, DOJ’s Attack on Federal Judicial “Leniency,” the Supreme Court’s Response, and the Future of Criminal Sentencing, 44 Tulsa L. Rev. 519, 542 (2009). This Court should take heed regarding the imposition and interpretation of probation conditions. The price of certainty at the outset may be limitations on the judge’s discretion and consequent ability to do justice in particular cases later on.