Court Opinion

ID: 9474869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:11:18.944021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:23.244267
License: Public Domain

MESKILL, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the majority’s rejection of Berrios’ constitutional challenges to the pretrial detention statute and its affirmance of the district court’s admission of electronic surveillance evidence. I dissent from the majority’s decision to remand this case for further proceedings, however, because it represents a departure from precedent and calls for a determination that the experienced district judge has already made.
Prior to our recent decision in United States v. Melendez-Carrion, 790 F.2d 984 (2d Cir.1986), a case involving Berrios’ co-defendants, it was settled in this Circuit that a district court’s findings with respect either to a pretrial detainee’s risk of flight or to the detainee’s dangerousness would not be disturbed unless clearly erroneous. Id. at 994 (citing United States v. Martir, 782 F.2d 1141, 1146 (2d Cir.1986); United States v. Colombo, 777 F.2d 96, 100 (2d Cir.1985); United States v. Chimurenga, 760 F.2d 400, 405 (2d Cir.1985)). In Melendez-Carrion, we noted that because dangerousness “is not as clear a concept as risk of flight and has not been fully developed as a basis for pretrial detention,” it may require a broader scope of review than risk of flight entailing both factual determinations and legal interpretation. 790 F.2d at 994. On the other hand, we said, not only does the clearly erroneous standard apply to “the ascertainment of historical facts underlying the conclusion that the defendant is a risk to flee” but also “[t]he ultimate determination of risk of flight would normally seem to be as subject to the ‘clearly erroneous’ standard of review as the underlying historical facts.” Id. (emphasis added); see also id. at 995, 1004-05 (affirming detention orders based on findings of risk of flight which were “adequately supported by the evidence”).
The “ultimate determination” of risk of flight in a pretrial detention case necessarily and logically includes the subsidiary, essentially factual question of whether the various possible conditions of release are likely to assure the appearance of the defendant at trial. In this case, Judge Clarie reviewed the conflicting evidence regarding Berrios and then made the explicit factual determination “that she represented such a high risk of flight that no conditions of release under bond would adequately assure her appearance at trial.” J.App. at 122. Less than a month after Melendez-Carrion, the majority treats that ultimate determination as a mixed question of law and fact, subject to a less deferential standard of review. So much for stare decisis.
There certainly was evidence from which Judge Clarie could have found that Berrios had fled to Mexico in the face of imminent arrest, that she had the means and inclination to do so again, and that various proposed conditions of release would not prevent her from fleeing. There was also evidence to the contrary. However, *255“[w]here there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985); see also United States v. $10,000 in United States Currency, 780 F.2d 213, 220 (2d Cir.1986).
Because Judge Clarie has already determined that no conditions of release will reasonably assure Berrios’ presence at trial, I do not join the majority in directing him to make this determination again. Nor do I presume, as the majority seems to do, that Judge Clarie was unaware of the important liberty interests that were at stake when he made the determination. Because Judge Clarie’s ultimate finding with regard to Berrios’ risk of flight was not clearly erroneous, I would affirm.