Court Opinion

ID: 9478631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:53:31.421823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:31.656863
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The superseded panel opinion in this case reversed the district court’s detention order “as fatally flawed by the failure to hold a timely detention hearing.” United States v. Clark, No. 88-5079, slip op. at 4 (4th Cir. June 30, 1988) [850 F.2d 690 (table)]. Because I continue to believe that decision was correct, I respectfully dissent.
I
The en banc court holds that the detention hearing and time requirements provided in the Bail Reform Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3142(f), are waivable “rights.” The court reasons that if basic constitutional rights can be waived, then statutory rights such as these can also. If what is involved here were nothing more than the exercise of individual rights, I would have to agree. But I do not think that the provisions of § 3142(f) are properly understood as mere conferrals of individual rights. They speak directly to the power of federal courts and should be read as limitations on the power —the “subject matter jurisdiction” — of those courts. As such, these limitations cannot be “waived” by parties.
I realize that subject matter jurisdictional limitations are most directly and firmly expressed in terms of “subject matter” categories, and that one must be cautious in treating more incidental limitations on judicial power as going to jurisdiction itself. Nevertheless, it is clear that limitations of the more incidental variety may have that significance. Ultimately, of course, it is a matter of congressional intent, and certainly Congress has the power to limit jurisdic*1439tion in any number of ways — wholesale by categories or by less sweeping means.
The controlling principles are clear and fundamental.
Limitations on a court's power to act in particular ways or under any but particular conditions are limitations on the court’s subject matter jurisdiction. Palmore v. United States, 411 U.S. 389, 401, 93 S.Ct. 1670, 1678, 36 L.Ed.2d 342 (1973). Such limitations “must be neither disregarded nor evaded.” Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U.S. 365, 374, 98 S.Ct. 2396, 2403, 57 L.Ed.2d 274 (1978), and federal courts must “ ‘scrupulously confine their own jurisdiction to the precise limits which [a federal] statute has defined.’” Victory Carriers, Inc. v. Law, 404 U.S. 202, 212, 92 S.Ct. 418, 425, 30 L.Ed.2d 383 (1971) (quoting Healy v. Ratta, 292 U.S. 263, 270, 54 S.Ct. 700, 703, 78 L.Ed. 1248 (1934)). Statutes limiting judicial power must be construed “ ‘with precision and with fidelity to the terms by which Congress has expressed its wishes’....” Palmore, 411 U.S. at 396, 93 S.Ct. at 1675 (quoting Cheng Fan Kwok v. INS, 392 U.S. 206, 212, 88 S.Ct. 1970, 1974, 20 L.Ed.2d 1037 (1968)).
Drawing on these basic principles, I would find in the time limit provisions of the Bail Reform Act an expression of congressional intent to limit the subject matter jurisdiction of federal courts in ordering pretrial detention. Section 3142(f) of the Act requires that a detention hearing
be held immediately upon the person’s first appearance before the judicial officer unless that person, or the attorney for the Government, seeks a continuance. Except for good cause, a continuance on motion of the person may not exceed five days and a continuance on motion of the attorney for the Government may not exceed three days.
18 U.S.C. § 3142(f). As I construe this language, Congress intended it to have jurisdictional significance. It speaks directly to action by the courts; not to party conduct. In speaking directly to the exercise of judicial power, its language smacks of a power limitation, not a mere precatory guide. It has been interpreted by other courts to have this character. See United States v. Hurtado, 779 F.2d 1467, 1474 (11th Cir.1985) (“The language of subsection (f) is unambiguous and admits of no exception.”); United States v. Al-Azzawy, 768 F.2d 1141, 1145 (9th Cir.1985) (“the procedures under section 3142 must be strictly followed as a precondition to detention under subsection (e)”); United States v. O’Shaughnessy, 764 F.2d 1035, 1038 (5th Cir.1985) (requiring the first appearance language to be applied strictly).
In contrast, the majority here holds that the detention hearing and time requirements may be waived, because § 3142 must be applied with “ ‘common sense,’” ante at 1436 (quoting United States v. Malekzadeh, 789 F.2d 850, 852 (11th Cir.1986)), and strict application of these requirements would “‘exalt form over substance,’” ante at 1436 (quoting United States v. Coonan, 826 F.2d 1180, 1182 (2d Cir.1987)).
But judicial “common sense” has little if anything to do with judicial applications of congressional limitations on judicial power. “Strict construction” is the watchword where questions of the limited judicial power of federal courts are involved. See, e.g., Califano v. Sanders, 430 U.S. 99, 97 S.Ct. 980, 51 L.Ed.2d 192 (1977) (no jurisdiction under Administrative Procedure Act to review decision of Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare not to reopen adjudicated claim for social security benefits); Abercrombie v. Office of Comptroller, 833 F.2d 672 (7th Cir.1987) (no jurisdiction under 12 U.S.C. § 1818 to enjoin Office of Comptroller from imposing civil money penalties); Kielwien v. United States, 540 F.2d 676 (4th Cir.1976) (filing of administrative claim is jurisdictional requirement under Federal Tort Claims Act).
Further, requiring rigorous adherence to the procedure commanded by § 3142(f) by treating it as jurisdictional is not an exaltation of “form” over “substance.” Instead, it deals with “substance” — by furthering specific substantive ends of the Bail Reform Act. Indeed it is the only sure way to implement those ends.
*1440As the Supreme Court has recognized, the Act fundamentally altered the longstanding traditional presumption of pretrial release on bail by weakening its historic force through adoption of the “future dangerousness” concept. The resulting constitutional issue was a serious one; a divided Court upheld the Act’s constitutionality in part at least because of what it considered sufficiently powerful procedural protections that accompanied the weakening of the “norm” of pretrial release on bail. As the Court put it:
In our society liberty is the norm, and detention prior to trial or without trial is the carefully limited exception. We hold that the provisions for pretrial detention in the Bail Reform Act of 1984 fall within that carefully limited exception. The Act authorizes the detention prior to trial of arrestees charged with serious felonies who are found after an adversary hearing to pose a threat to the safety of individuals or to the community which no condition of release can dispel. The numerous procedural safeguards ... [in the Act] must attend this adversary hearing.
United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 2105, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987).
This concern for stringent procedural safeguards is evident both in the language of § 3142(f) and throughout the legislative history of the Bail Reform Act. The language mandating that the detention hearing “shall be held immediately upon the person’s first appearance before the judicial officer ...” replaced the less stringent terms of former § 3146(a), which stated:
Any person charged with an offense, other than an offense punishable by death, shall, at his appearance before a judicial officer, be ordered released pending trial ... unless the officer determines, in the exercise of his discretion, that such a release will not reasonably assure the appearance of the person as required.
18 U.S.C. § 3146(a) (quoted in H.R.Rep. No. 1121, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 38-39 (1984)).
Timeliness of the detention determination — to avoid prolonged detention even before its justification could be determined— was thus made a critical component of the procedural safeguards that Congress and the Supreme Court obviously considered vital.
As for the legislative history, in its report on the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, of which the Bail Reform Act is a part, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary recognized that
a pretrial detention statute may ... be constitutionally defective if it fails to provide adequate procedural safeguards or if it does not limit pretrial detention to cases in which it is necessary to serve the societal interests it is designed to protect. The pretrial detention provisions of this section have been carefully drafted with these concerns in mind.
Senate Comm, on the Judiciary, Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, S.Rep. No. 225, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 8, reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 3182, 3191. “The decision to provide for pretrial detention,” the Committee said, “is in no way a derogation of the importance of the defendant’s interest in remaining at liberty prior to trial.” S.Rep. No. 98-225 at 7, reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News at 3189.1
*1441Congressional intention that the detention hearing and its critical time requirements be rigorously construed and applied is therefore commanded not only by the statute’s literal, obligatory language but, as the legislative history reveals, by the substantive ends of the Act. Accord Hurtado, 779 F.2d at 1484 (the procedural safeguards of the Act are necessary to guarantee fairness for those faced with the “severe deprivation” of liberty caused by pretrial detention; the language of § 3142(f) “admits of no exception,” id. at 1474); Al-Azzawy, 768 F.2d at 1145 (same); O’Shaughnessy, 764 F.2d at 1038 (same). As both a formal and substantive matter, it would be a “contravention of common sense,” Malekzadeh, 789 F.2d at 852, rather than a failure of common sense to apply the requirements of § 3142(f) in anything less than a strict and rigorous manner — as other than jurisdictional. I am satisfied that if they are not given this effect, they will over time be given little practical effect, as party “waivers” inevitably will be urged and found in a multitude of ambiguous circumstances.
II
If — as I would hold — the detention hearing and time requirements of § 3142(f) are jurisdictional, they of course cannot be waived. The controlling principle here is, of course, elementary. “[N]o action of the parties can confer subject-matter jurisdiction upon a federal court.” Insurance Corp. v. Compagnie des Bauxites, 456 U.S. 694, 702, 102 S.Ct. 2099, 2104, 72 L.Ed.2d 492 (1982). Parties cannot consent to non-conferred jurisdiction or waive jurisdictional requirements, because these are limitations imposed on the courts, not on the parties. To permit parties to consent to jurisdiction would “work a wrongful extension of federal jurisdiction and give [federal] courts power the Congress has denied them.” American Fire & Cas. Co. v. Finn, 341 U.S. 6, 18, 71 S.Ct. 534, 542, 95 L.Ed. 702 (1951). If the parties do not raise the issue of jurisdiction, then the court must on its own motion. Compagnie des Bauxites, 456 U.S. at 702, 102 S.Ct. at 2104.
Where, therefore, as here, a timely detention hearing has not been held in accordance with the jurisdictional time limits, the courts thereafter have no power to order pre-trial detention.
Ill
The specters raised by the majority do not militate against the conclusion that Congress intended a jurisdictional effect for the requirements of § 3142(f). The majority expresses the fear that strict enforcement of the detention hearing time requirements “ ‘would convert the time requirements of the act into a potential trap, available to defendants, that would undermine the functioning of the act, and would also require meaningless, ritualistic hearings in situations where no one wants them.’” Ante at 1437 (quoting Coonan, 826 F.2d at 1184).
Two responses may be made to this. The first is that it is not for the courts to decide whether a hearing required by Congress is meaningless or ritualistic for any particular defendant. The second is that as a practical matter the detention hearing requirements do not create a “potential trap” and that Congress surely knew that they need not, and assumed that they would not. The statutory requirements arp plain, explicit, and easy to follow by anyonfe minded to do so — as surely federal prosecutors and judicial officers must be presumed to be. All that has to be done is to hold a hearing “immediately upon the person’s first appearance before the judicial officer unless [either party] seeks a continuance.” Aside from the simple day-counting problem that this eminently simple directive *1442poses, the only possible problem that it could create for prosecutors and judges is whether what might be thought to be a “hearing” is indeed a “hearing,” or possibly whether it is the “first” hearing. The simple practical solution in either case is to assume that a hearing is required and to act accordingly.
It is of course obvious that if prosecutors and judges fail to follow the simple detention hearing requirements of § 3142 there could be unfortunate consequences in particular cases (although the release that must then result can yet be subjected to quite stringent conditions).2 But there appears no reason why these quite clear requirements cannot easily be followed in practice and such consequences avoided. It must certainly be the case that, as Congress undoubtedly intended and expected, prosecutors and judges are daily applying them with no practical problems.
IV
As an apparent alternative to its basic waiver position, the government suggests that defendants’ intimation of a need for “protective custody” here should be construed as a motion for a “good cause” continuance under § 3142(f). This reflects the same failure to distinguish between waivable individual rights and non-waivable limits on judicial power that underlies the government’s basic position. The statute’s provision for continuances at the behest of either the defendant or the government is properly read as an integral feature of the statutory limitation on judicial power. As such it should be applied with the same stringency appropriate in application of the basic time limitation. Thus, a request for continuance to accommodate a defendant’s lawyer’s schedule rather than to aid the defendant’s preparation may not be considered one for “good cause” warranting postponement of the mandatory hearing. See Hurtado, 779 F.2d at 1475, 1476; Al-Azzawy, 768 F.2d at 1146.
Similarly, to construe an intimation of desire for “protective custody” as a request for open-ended postponement of the detention hearing would completely misconstrue the legislative purpose for the detention hearing. The statute requires a timely determination of whether involuntary preventive detention is warranted. This can obviously proceed, and should proceed, without regard to whether the defendant may then or later desire or need “protective custody” with its quite different legal incidents for both custodian and inmate. If preventive detention is properly ordered, the matter of “protective custody” as a necessary incident of that detention is resolved. Only if detention for preventive purposes is found unwarranted in a timely detention hearing could there be any need to consider the quite different problem of whether “voluntary” custody should nevertheless be continued for protective purposes. The only proper response by a first-hearing judicial officer to any suggestion of a desire for protective custody is, therefore, that it must await the outcome of the detention hearing. It may not be treated as a “good cause” request for indefinite postponement of that hearing.
V
Even were I to assume arguendo that we are concerned here only with individual rights to a timely detention hearing which, like other such rights, may be waived, I would hold that the conditions for a valid waiver of such a right were not established in the proceedings before the magistrate.
It is important, in assessing the way in which the ultimate right here in issue may —if waivable — be waived, to recognize its nature. At root, it is the constitutional right, protected in the eighth amendment’s Excessive Bail Clause, not to be deprived of liberty before trial and conviction, except *1443(as now provided by statute) on the basis of a determination of risk of flight and dangerousness timely made. See Salerno, 107 S.Ct. at 2105. This is a right comparable, e.g., to the constitutional rights to counsel, see Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975), and to trial itself, see Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970), that can only be waived personally by a defendant. In this it is unlike rights which, though also of fundamental importance, have by necessity born of litigation exigencies to be given over — within bounds —to counsel for primary assertion or “waiver,” by “procedural default.” See Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 92, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 2509, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977) (Burger, C.J., concurring) (distinguishing Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963) and Sykes “rights” and “waivers” on this basis).
Waiver of such a right “must not only be voluntary, but must also constitute a knowing and intelligent relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege....” Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 482, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1884, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981) (waiver of counsel). See also McFadden v. Garraghty, 820 F.2d 654, 661 (4th Cir.1987). To make a binding waiver of this type, a defendant must be shown to have “sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances” surrounding the waiver and of its “likely consequences.” Brady, 397 U.S. at 748, 90 S.Ct. at 1468. This means that such a waiver cannot be implied by the courts from a defendant’s mere silence or seeming acquiescence, but must be “clearly determined,” Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 465, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938), from a record which establishes that the defendant “ ‘knows what he is doing and his choice is made with his eyes wide open.’” Faretta, 422 U.S. at 835, 95 S.Ct. at 2541 (quoting Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 279, 63 S.Ct. 236, 241, 87 L.Ed. 268 (1942)); see also Hunt v. Warden, Maryland Penitentiary, 335 F.2d 936, 944 (4th Cir.1964) (no waiver “when acting under a misapprehension as to what [one’s] rights are”). To ensure that such a waiver meets this stringent standard, a court must make direct inquiry of the defendant; it may not rely simply on statements or choices made by counsel. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(c), (d) (procedure for accepting waiver of trial by guilty plea).
None of these criteria was satisfied in the hearing before the magistrate. The magistrate offered the defendants no explanation of the consequences of a waiver and did not inquire directly of them in any form whether their supposed waiver of the detention hearing requirements and of release was knowing and intelligent. When the subject of waiver was discussed, the magistrate’s only conversation was with counsel. See Appellee’s Memorandum Opposing Pretrial Release, Attachment C at 22-23 (transcript of hearing February 2, 1988).
Even if an attorney could, under the proper circumstances, waive the detention hearing for his or her client, those circumstances would not be satisfied here. At the defendants’ appearance before the magistrate, the government attorney ácknowl-edged that because the defendants’ attorney was not sufficiently familiar with requisite criminal procedure, he had to outline for this defense attorney “the various hearings and rights his clients would have in connection with the pending charges.” Id. at Attachment A (Shanahan affidavit). The defense attorney may not have known, therefore, that a detention hearing was required on first appearance of defendants, and he may not have realized the implications of any “waiver” supposedly agreed to during the detention hearing. See id. at Attachment C 22-23 (transcript of hearing). Because the defendants’ attorney could not have properly informed his clients of the meaning and consequences of a waiver, there could have been no knowing and intelligent waiver.
VI
Section 3142 of the Bail Reform Act dictates that the detention hearing and time requirements be treated as jurisdictional. These conditions were not satisfied, nor were the conditions for waiver, were waiver possible. Appellants should not have *1444been detained but released on appropriately stringent conditions.
Circuit Judge MURNAGHAN and Circuit Judge ERVIN join in this separate opinion.

. During congressional hearings, the Department of Justice issued a similar statement:
Because of the importance of the defendant’s interest which is at stake when pretrial detention is considered, the authority to deny release should be available only in limited types of cases, only after a hearing incorporating significant procedural safeguards, and only when the findings on which the detention order is based are supported by clear and convincing evidence.
Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1983: Hearings on S. 829 Before the Subcomm. on Criminal Law of the Senate Comm, on the Judiciary, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 116, 121 (formal statement of the Department of Justice). An official of the Justice Department emphasized that "a detention hearing is an absolute prerequisite for pre-trial confinement.” J. Knapp, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, The Bail Reform Act of 1984: Our First Year 5 (speech before the National Conference of the National Association of Pretrial Service Agencies, Lexington, Kentucky, Oct. 7, 1985).
See also the statement of Edwin L. Miller, Jr., President-Elect of the National District Attorneys Association: "I find the provisions calling *1441for detention to be well thought out, well drafted and designed to protect the civil liberties of the accused while protecting the safety of the community.” Hearings on S. 829 at 296, 305.
Finally, note the prepared statement on behalf of the American Bar Association by William W. Greenhalgh, Chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section, stating that when factors are alleged that lead to a pretrial detention hearing, "our standard requires that a formal pretrial detention hearing be convened.” Id. at 736, 738.

. The jurisdictional limitation must be interpreted to run only to the power to detain; power to impose conditions upon a release compelled by failure to hold a timely detention hearing remains. See 18 U.S.C. § 3142; O’Shaughnessy, 764 F.2d at 1039 (“The Government may still request imposition of substantial conditions for release under 18 U.S.C. § 3142(c)_"); Al-Azzawy, 768 F.2d at 1148 (Farris, J., concurring) (‘‘[T]he district court remains free to impose appropriate substantial conditions for release under 18 U.S.C. § 3142(c)....”).