Court Opinion

ID: 9469505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:42:00.115533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:25.007411
License: Public Domain

FERGUSON, Circuit Judge, with whom BOOCHEVER, Circuit Judge,
joins, dissenting:
Congress has told federal judges that youths who are entitled to probation under the Youth Corrections Act may not be put in jail as a condition precedent to receiving probation. I therefore dissent.
The majority holds that “split sentences, as authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 3651, are permissible under the YCA.” This conclusion follows from the premise that “courts sentencing youth offenders are meant to enjoy whatever powers are conferred by section 3651 as amended since 1950.”
It must be assumed that the majority’s abstraction, “courts are meant to enjoy,” is a reference to a legislative act of Congress — that Congress granted the undefined and potentially limitless sentencing power referred to, when it enacted the YCA in 1950. Thus stated, the proposition is wrong.
The majority holds that Congress wrote a blank check in 1950 that would allow expansion of sentencing options under the YCA independently of the policies, or indeed the express limitations, of the YCA, by future amendments to a different statute. That different statute is the general probation statute, which did not provide for split sentences until 1958. Indeed, the majority concludes that, in 1950, Congress intended that the YCA would henceforth include “whatever powers are conferred by section 3651 as amended since 1950.” However, the majority abandons this premise when it states, correctly, that youth offenders who *1243are given split sentences must be segregated from other classes of prisoners (section 3651 contains no such limitation). If the premise is not sound enough to support non-segregated confinement, it is not sound enough to support split sentencing.
If the majority were correct that Congress wrote a blank check in 1950, then the YCA’s sentencing provision would automatically incorporate additions to the general probation statute, even when those additions could not be envisioned in 1950 because they did not exist, and even when those additions controverted the spirit and purpose of the YCA. Thus, the majority holds, while simultaneously admitting that the YCA and Probation Act do not “mesh nicely,” that if Congress in the future includes options under the general adult probation statute, such options must become part of the judge’s sentencing powers under the YCA.
The unfortunate consequence is not a chimeric parade of horribles, for the jail sentences are very real to the defendants in these consolidated cases. One district court ordered that Arthur, age 19 at the time of sentencing, be jailed for thirty days for stealing two bicycles.1 Another district court ordered that Smith, age 20 at the time of sentencing, be jailed thirty days. Commitment ordered in conjunction with probation under the YCA runs counter to the rehabilitative purpose of the Act. Congress has mandated that youths granted probation cannot be committed. 18 U.S.C. § 5010(a) (1976).
I.
Two leading cases on the YCA do not support the position taken by the majority. Indeed, the majority mischaracterizes the holding of Durst v. United States, 434 U.S. 542, 98 S.Ct. 849, 55 L.Ed.2d 14 (1977), and its efforts to distinguish Dorszynski v. United States, 418 U.S. 424, 94 S.Ct. 3042, 41 L.Ed.2d 855 (1974), from the case before us are inadequate.
A.
The majority selectively quotes the language in Durst which states that 18 U.S.C. § 5023(a) (1976) “incorporates by reference the authority conferred under the general probation statute [18 U.S.C. § 3651].” Taken in isolation, these words do indeed suggest that section 5023(a) “engrafts the split sentence provision of section 3651 onto the YCA.” That misleading impression, however, is dispelled when the words are read in context: “The language of § 5010(a) neither grants nor withholds the authority to impose fines or orders of restitution. Another provision of the YCA, however, § 5023(a), incorporates by reference the authority conferred under the general probation statute to permit such exactions.” Durst, supra, 434 U.S. at 549, 98 S.Ct. at 853 (emphasis added). The authority referred to in Durst was not any and all authority conferred in the future by the general probation statute; instead, it was an authority limited to imposing fines or orders of restitution.2
*1244That narrowly limited authority to impose fines or orders of restitution existed under the general probation statute that was enacted in 1948, Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 842 (amended 1958, 1970, 1972,1978, current version 18 U.S.C. § 3651 (1976 & Supp. Ill 1979). Furthermore, that general probation statute, which provided for fines and restitution, was based on an earlier statute, Act of Mar. 4, 1925, ch. 521, § 1, 43 Stat. 1259. The earlier statute dating from 1925 also provided for fines and restitution. Congress did not enact the YCA until 1950, at which time it specified that nothing in the Act was to be construed in any wise to amend, repeal, or affect the provisions of the probation statutes. Act of Sept. 30, 1950, ch. 1115, § 2, 64 Stat. 1089 (amended 1952, current version 18 U.S.C. § 5023(a) (1976)).
It is against that background that we must read the holding of Durst: “Congress’ purpose in adopting § 5023(a), was to assure that a sentence under § 5010(a) would not displace the authority conferred by § 3651 to impose fines and orders of restitution as conditions of probation.” Id., 434 U.S. at 553, 98 S.Ct. at 855. Durst holds that the YCA, enacted in 1950, did not displace an authority conferred by the probation statutes in 1948, and existing since 1925, to impose fines and orders of restitution along with probation.
Durst concerned itself only with the authority to impose fines and restitution. The petitioners in Durst recognized that § 5023(a) made § 3651 applicable to a § 5010(a) sentence and conceded that restitution is a permissible condition of a probationary sentence under § 5010(a), because § 3651 directly authorizes restitution without resort to any other penalty provision. However, the Durst petitioners argued that a fine was not permissible in conjunction with a § 5010(a) sentence because a fine requires resort to the offense penalty provision under which the youth is convicted. Thus, petitioners understood probation to be an alternative to the imposition of a fine under § 5010(a). However, petitioners’ argument was refuted by the legislative history of the Act, which clearly revealed that Congress intended to preserve to sentencing judges their powers under the general probation statute. Durst, supra, 434 U.S. at 542, 98 S.Ct. at 849.
The Supreme Court in Durst also rejected the argument that fines are punitive and their imposition therefore inconsistent with the rehabilitative goals of the YCA. First, the Court rejected this argument because “Congress expressed its judgment to the contrary in preserving the authority of sentencing judges to impose them [fines] as a condition of probation.” However, the eighty-first Congress (1950) did not and could not express its judgment to preserve the authority of the sentencing judge to impose a split sentence, because such authority did not exist under the general probation statute in 1950.
Second, in Durst, the Court was not persuaded that fines should necessarily be regarded as other than rehabilitative when *1245imposed as a condition of probation. The Court found “much force in the observation of the District Court” that:
“[A] fine could be consistent . .. with the rehabilitative intent of the Act. By employing this alternative [a fine and probation], the sentencing judge could assure that the youthful offender would not receive the harsh treatment of incarceration, while assuring that the offender accepts responsibility for his transgression.”
Durst, supra, 434 U.S. at 553-54, 98 S.Ct. at 855 (emphasis added). In the instant case, the majority acts precisely to assure that youthful offenders will receive the harsh treatment of incarceration even when a sentencing judge decides that a youth is entitled to probation. The majority’s decision to permit the jailing of youthful offenders as a condition of probation is not consistent with the rehabilitative goal of the YCA.
B.
In addition to adopting a strained reading of Durst, the majority cannot adequately distinguish Dorszynski v. United States, 418 U.S. 424, 94 S.Ct. 3042, 41 L.Ed.2d 855 (1974), from the instant case.
In Dorszynski, 418 U.S. 424, 94 S.Ct. 3042, 41 L.Ed.2d 855 (1974), petitioner’s counsel requested that the district court place petitioner on probation under the YCA. “Petitioner then received a split sentence which remitted him to the custody of the Attorney General for one year, to serve 90 days’ confinement in a jail-type or treatment institution ...; the execution of the remainder of the sentence was suspended and petitioner was placed on probation for two years upon release from custody.” Id. at 429, 94 S.Ct. at 3046. Petitioner sought post-conviction relief from the district court on the ground that, inter alia, the court was without jurisdiction to impose the sentence given because the court failed to make a finding that petitioner would not derive benefit from treatment under § 5010(b) or (c), as assertedly required by § 5010(d). Id. at 430, 94 S.Ct. at 3046.
The District Court stated at the post-conviction hearing that the Act did not require an affirmative finding that petitioner would not benefit from treatment thereunder before the court could sentence him under other applicable penalty provisions; the court concluded that in committing petitioner for one year under a split sentence, “the [District] Court impliedly [held] the Youth Corrections Act not applicable.”
Id. at 430-31, 94 S.Ct. at 3046-47 (citation omitted). The Supreme Court rejected the position of the district court. The Court held that § 5010(d) of the YCA requires the district court, in sentencing a youth offender under other applicable penal statutes, to make a finding that the offender would not benefit from treatment under § 5010(b) or § 5010(c) of § 5010. Id. at 425, 94 S.Ct. at 3044.
Dorszynski requires that if, pursuant to § 5010(d), a judge sentences a youth offender to jail, then the judge must find that the youth would not benefit from treatment under the Act. The need for a finding of “no benefit” is manifest, because the YCA exists to promote the rehabilitation of the young. Before a court may impose a split sentence on a youth offender, it must first find that the offender will not benefit from treatment under the YCA.
The sentences of Smith and Arthur are not distinguishable in any significant respect from the sentence of Dorszynski. Like Dorszynski, Smith and Arthur received determinate split sentences.3 Furthermore, the five-year sentence of Smith and the three-year sentence of Arthur, like the one-year sentence of Dorszynski, were made with respect to penalty provisions outside the YCA.4 Thus, Smith and Arthur, like Dorszynski, received punitive sentences out*1246side the YCA, without any finding that they would not benefit from the rehabilitative provisions of the YCA.
The majority attempts to distinguish the Dorszynski-type situation, where a youth receives a split sentence as an adult pursuant to § 5010(d), from a situation where a youth receives a split sentence pursuant to § 3651, but is sentenced as a youth offender. In the first situation, the youth will have a criminal conviction on his record; in the second situation, the youth will have a chance to have his or her conviction set aside under § 5021(b) upon discharge from probation. The majority correctly observes that “[ljosing the possibility of setting aside the conviction can seriously thwart the goal of rehabilitation central to the YCA.” Maj. op. at n.15. Surely, however, no one can seriously believe that a jail sentence is, presto chango, transformed into a rehabilitative experience consistent with the purpose of YCA probation merely because the conviction may one day be set aside.5
II.
From the legislative history of the YCA, the majority takes examples showing that § 5023(a), which specifies the relationship between the YCA and the general probation statute, was intended to “preserve” in the YCA proceedings the authority that sentencing judges had in 1950 under the general probation statute. The majority has not exhausted the evidence. Other examples also demonstrate the point that the YCA was intended to preserve the options existing in the general probation statute.
The Supreme Court observed in Durst: Judge Phillips, Chairman of the Subcommittee responsible for drafting model youth correction legislation to be sponsored by the Judicial Conference, emphasized that “[i]t leaves [the probation system] absolutely undisturbed,” for the intent of the Judicial Conference in sponsoring the bill was to retain existing options with respect to probation and adult punishment, while simply adding a new option of commitment for treatment. See 1943 House Hearings 34-37.
Durst, supra, 434 U.S. at 551-52, 98 S.Ct. at 854.6
In 1952, the eighty-second Congress amended the Act of Sept. 30, 1950, today *1247codified as 18 U.S.C. § 5023(a) (1976), to provide that the YCA would not affect District of Columbia Code provisions relative to probation. “[B]oth the laws of the United States and the laws of the United States applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia,” explained the House Report, “are expressly retained.” H.R.No.1629, 82nd Cong., 2d Sess. (1952), reprinted in [1952] U.S.Code Cong. Service 1379, 1381. This committee report, which represents the will of Congress, and the amendment of § 5023(a), may be weighed in construing the meaning of the earlier enactment. See Southeastern Community College v. Davis, 442 U.S. 397, 412 n.11, 99 S.Ct. 2361, 2370 n.11, 60 L.Ed.2d 980. Between the passage of the YCA in 1950 and the 1952 amendment, Congress made no changes whatsoever in the general probation statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3651, or the sentencing powers under the YCA, 18 U.S.C. § 5010. Thus, the probation laws that Congress understood as being expressly retained in 1952 were exactly the same laws that existed in 1950 and that were not disturbed by the creation of the YCA.
The majority says that the YCA was not a statute of specific reference such that the YCA would have incorporated the Probation Act as it existed in 1950 and without later amendments. Because § 5023 says only that the Probation Act powers were not amended, limited, or disturbed by the YCA, the majority is probably correct that § 5023 does not incorporate the Probation Act into the YCA. This leaves the question, however, whether the intent of § 5023 was to allow YCA judges the powers under all later amendments to the Probation Act, or only to make clear that the YCA did not disturb the probation power as it existed at passage of the YCA. There is nothing in the language of § 5023 to suggest that Congress contemplated that the intricate structure of the YCA would necessarily be qualified by all later amendments to the Probation Act whether or not those amendments were consistent with the purposes of the YCA. As the majority recognizes by quoting United States v. McDonald, 611 F.2d 1291, 1295 (9th Cir. 1980), “the Youth Corrections Act does not mesh nicely with the Probation Act.” Unfortunately, the majority failed to heed the admonition of McDonald: “Frequently an interpretive gloss can eliminate or reduce these imperfections but that is not possible here.” Id.
The history of the YCA indicates that Congress intended to leave undisturbed the power to grant straight probation which existed in 1950, not to limit the YCA by unknown future amendments in the probation statutes. In House Report No. 2979, the Committee on the Judiciary reported in part:
Under [the YCA] provisions, if the court finds that a youth offender does not need treatment, it may suspend the imposition or execution of sentence and place the youth offender on probation. Thus, the power of the court to grant probation is left undisturbed by the bill.
If the court finds that a convicted person is a youth offender and the offense is punishable by imprisonment, it may, in lieu of the penalty of imprisonment otherwise provided by law, sentence the youth offender for treatment and supervision until discharged by the Division as provided in section 5017(c) of the bill.
H.R.Rep.No.2979, 81st Cong. 2nd Sess., reprinted in [1950] U.S.Code Cong. & Ad. News 3983, 3985. The Committee Report indicates that § 5023 was designed to leave the option of full probation available to a sentencing judge who feels that no treatment is needed, not to allow split sentences as a form of treatment under probation. The report describes the purpose of the YCA to reduce recidivism “by permitting the substitution of correctional rehabilitation for retributive punishment.” Id. at 3983. Its description of “treatment” makes it clear that the drafters did not think of confinement per se as rehabilitative, but rather sought to avoid the anticipated “hardening” effect of ordinary imprison-*1248merit by allowing the judge to substitute commitment with treatment if the offender could benefit from it. Id. at 3983, 3993. Although the Supreme Court has said that the purpose of the YCA was to enlarge, not restrict, a sentencing judge’s options, Dorszynski, supra, 418 U.S. at 424, 94 S.Ct. at 3042, it did so by two very specific sentencing options: (1) custody and treatment under § 5010(b) and (c); and (2) probation under § 5010(a). Id. at 433, 94 S.Ct. at 3048. See also Ralston v. Robinson, 454 U.S. 201, 102 S.Ct. 233, 237, 70 L.Ed.2d 345 (1981). The meaning of “probation” at the passage of the YCA did not include jail time, and there is no indication in the legislative history that probation under § 5010(a) was to mean whatever the concept of probation in the general statute governing adult probation might develop into in the future.
A statute is to be construed according to its purposes. Chapman v. Houston Welfare Rights Organization, 441 U.S. 600, 608, 99 S.Ct. 1905, 1911, 60 L.Ed.2d 508 (1979). Because the purpose of the YCA was to create new sentencing options that would remove youth offenders from ordinary imprisonment unless the sentencing judge finds that they would not benefit from treatment, it would be inappropriate to read the later addition to the Probation Act allowing imprisonment to accompany probation into § 5010(a) by virtue of § 5023’s statement that the Probation Act powers which existed in 1950 were “undisturbed” by the YCA.
In enacting the YCA, the eighty-first Congress (1950) intended to preserve the probation power, as it existed in 1950, leaving unaffected the existing provisions of § 3651 for the use of judges who sentenced under the YCA. “There is no corresponding legislative history indicating an intent to allow split sentences under the YCA,” the majority candidly admits. Actually, this admission is somewhat disingenuous. Of course there could be no such legislative intent to allow split sentences in 1950, since split sentences were not included under the general probation statute until 1958.
The majority believes that there are “more persuasive reasons” indicating an intent that post-1950 amendments to the probation statute should apply to YCA sentencing. Those “persuasive reasons” turn out to be policy considerations.
III.
The majority believes that permitting split sentencing under the YCA will advance the Act’s policy of flexibility. However, the YCA does not give the judge unfettered discretion; it only endorses “the discretionary power of a judge to choose among available options,” Ralston, supra, 102 S.Ct. at 237 (emphasis added). If the sentencing judge could devise any punishment he thought appropriate, then there would be little need for the carefully drafted sentencing provisions in the YCA.
Ralston, supra, derived the principle that the YCA endorses the discretionary power of the sentencing judge from the exhaustive analysis in Dorszynski, supra, of the history, structure, and underlying policies of the YCA. In Dorszynski, the Court did not endorse discretionary power to impose a split sentence under the YCA; rather, the Court decided that it was within the discretionary power of the sentencing judge to sentence a youth to a split sentence outside the YCA upon a showing that the youth would not benefit from the YCA.
It must be remembered that sentencing options created by the YCA in 1950 represented a substantial innovation at the time. “The objective of these options represented a departure from traditional sentencing, and focused primarily on correction and rehabilitation.” Dorszynski, supra, 418 U.S. at 433, 94 S.Ct. at 3048. Treatment, supervision, and probation were intended to serve as viable substitutes for adult jail sentences. It is, of course, no secret that there has been some shifting in penological philosophy, away from a medical model that prevailed at the time the YCA was passed, and toward a theory that deterrence and retribution are the most important purposes of confinement. See Watts v. Hadden, 651 F.2d 1354, 1360 (10th Cir. 1981). Congress’s *1249views, however, were informed by the medical and rehabilitative model, which gave meaning and purpose to the legislation that Congress enacted.
The history of the YCA illuminates Congress’s innovative efforts to depart from traditional retributive approaches to punishment:
The Federal Youth Corrections Act has been accurately described as the most comprehensive federal statute concerned with sentencing.... The Act is in substantial part an outgrowth of recommendations made by the Judicial Conference of the United States more than 30 years ago. The principles and procedures contained in the Conference recommendations were in turn largely based on those developed since 1894 for a system of treatment of young offenders in England, known as the Borstal system.... Statistics available at the time of the Conference study revealed the two principal motivating factors behind the enactment of the Act: first, the period of life between 16 and 22 years of age was found to be the time when special factors operated to produce habitual criminals. Second, then-existing methods of treating criminally inclined youths were found inadequate in avoiding recidivism.... The Act was thus designed to provide a better method for treating young offenders convicted in federal courts in that vulnerable age bracket, to rehabilitate them and restore normal behavior patterns....
To accomplish this objective,- federal district judges were given two new alternatives to add to the array of sentencing options previously available to them, ...; first, they were enabled to commit an eligible offender to the custody of the Attorney General for treatment under the Act. 18 U.S.C. §§ 5010(b) and (c). Second, if they believed an offender did not need commitment, they were authorized to place him on probation under the Act. 18 U.S.C. § 5010(a). If the sentencing court chose the first alternative, the offender would be committed to the program of treatment created by the Act.
Dorszynski, supra, 418 U.S. at 432-33, 94 S.Ct. at 3047-48. Finally, § 5010(d) of the YCA preserved the power of trial judges to sentence youth offenders under “any other applicable penalty provision.”
Thus, the YCA creates three sentencing options: (1) probation, (2) treatment and supervision, (3) sentencing under “any other applicable penalty provision.” In addition, it leaves undisturbed the sentencing options available under the general probation statute in 1950, at the time of the passage of the YCA. Although the sentencing judge has discretion to choose among these options, he cannot choose outside them or mix them up.
In the present case, the sentencing judges chose outside their available options. First, the federal district judges below could not sentence under the probation option in § 5010(a), which provides:
If the court is of the opinion that the youth offender does not need commitment, it may suspend the imposition or execution of sentence and place the youth offender on probation.
Both the language and the legislative history of this option indicate that commitment and probation, like oil and water, do not mix under the YCA. 18 U.S.C. § 5010(a); H.R.Rep.No. 2979, 81st Cong. 2nd Sess. reprinted in [1950] U.S.Code Cong. & Ad. News, 3983-3993.
Second, in lieu of the penalty of imprisonment otherwise provided by law, the court did not sentence the youth offender to treatment and supervision.7 In neither *1250Smith’s nor Arthur’s “Judgment and Probation/Commitment Order” is there so much as one word about § 5010(b), 5010(c), or supervision and treatment in jail.
Third, the courts did not properly sentence the youth offenders “under any other applicable penal provisions.” The courts imposed split terms on the youth offenders under other applicable penal provisions, 18 U.S.C. § 661 (1976) and 18 U.S.C. § 651 (1976), and these sentences are not distinguishable in any significant way from the § 5010(d) sentences handed out in Dorszynski.8 Such a split sentence requires a finding that the youth offender will not benefit by the YCA. “This finding requirement was adapted from the similar Borstal provision which disallows a sentencing court to ‘impose imprisonment on a person under twenty-one years of age unless ... no other [Borstal] method of dealing with him is appropriateDorszynski, supra, 418 U.S. at 447, 94 S.Ct. at 3054 (Marshall, J., concurring) (footnotes omitted). Here the youths were sentenced to imprisonment without such a finding.
Finally, the district court did not exercise options available under the general probation statute in 1950, since a split sentencing option was not then a part of § 3651. At this late date, the application to youth offenders of a split sentencing option under the general probation statute will write § 5010(a) out of the YCA by making irrelevant the condition that “[i]f the court is of the opinion that the youth offender does not need commitment,” then the court may place the youth on probation.
The sentences imposed in the two cases before us were not within the authority that Congress has granted. Therefore, I dissent.

. It is not certain that Arthur, age 19 at the time of sentencing, should have even been tried and sentenced under the YCA. He should have been sentenced under the provisions of the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act if he had not attained his eighteenth birthday when he committed the crime. 18 U.S.C. § 5031 et seq. (1976). The record before this court does not disclose whether Arthur was seventeen or eighteen years old when he committed his crime on June 30, 1979.

. The majority does not believe that in Durst the Court literally meant that 5023(a) “adopts” or “incorporates” a pre-existing statute. However, the use of the word “incorporates” does not appear to be an inadvertent mischaracterization by the Supreme Court. More recently the Court has stated, “By virtue of § 5023(a), the YCA incorporates 18 U.S.C. § 3653.” Ralston v. Robinson, 454 U.S. 201, 102 S.Ct. 233, 242 n.8, 70 L.Ed.2d 345 (1981). Section 3653, “Report of probation officer and arrest of probationer,” was enacted in 1948, two years before the passage of the YCA, and remains unchanged to this day. The effect of the YCA’s preserving to sentencing judges the probationary powers that they had in 1950 in § 3651 and § 3653 is exactly the same as if the YCA “incorporated” in 1950 the probationary powers existing in 1950.
The majority, see Majority Opinion, ante, at note 13, relies on a Southern District of New York case, Monarch Life Ins. Co. v. Loyal Pro*1244tective Life Ins. Co., 217 F.Supp. 210 (S.D.N.Y. 1963), to support Its proposition that “whatever powers the probation statute grants — including powers added by subsequent amendments —should be available in the YCA context as well.” The majority relies on the Monarch holding that the plaintiffs could not recover treble damages under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Monarch was reversed by the Second Circuit on a related issue — the availability of treble-damages under the Clayton Act. Moreover, the statutory scheme in Monarch is not parallel to the one here. The majority argues that the YCA grants sentencing authority, and that that grant of authority is enlarged by inclusion of the powers of the general probation statute. The statute at issue in Monarch was not a grant of enforcement power at all, but an exemption from such power. Canons governing the interpretation of statutory exemptions from judicial power should not blithely be employed to interpret statutory grants of judicial power.
Both the YCA and the general probation statute provide the court with sentencing options. In 1950, Congress believed that options in the general probation statute were consistent with the sentencing scheme of the YCA. It is too much to assume that Congress expected that whatever options would be added to the general probation statute would mesh with the YCA sentencing provisions and remain consistent with the goals of the YCA.

. The Government concedes that it was error to impose determinate sentences under the YCA. See Majority Opinion, ante, at note 3. This concession is further evidence that the sentencing judges fabricated an option outside the YCA without a finding that defendants would not benefit from the Act.

. In Dorszynski, petitioner and his codefendant were charged with a misdemeanor offense under 18 U.S.C. § 2 and 21 U.S.C. § 844(a). “The *1246Government informed the court that the maximum sentence petitioner and his codefendant, who were first offenders under § 844(a), could receive was one year in prison. ...” 418 U.S. at 427, 94 S.Ct. at 3045. Dorszynski’s split sentence remanded him to the custody of the Attorney General for one year.
The split sentences of Smith and Arthur were also imposed, without the necessary “no benefit” finding, under other applicable penalty provisions. Arthur was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 661, which provides for up to five years of imprisonment. Arthur’s split sentence committed him to the custody of the Attorney General for imprisonment for a period of three years, to serve 30 days’ confinement. Smith was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 656, which carries a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment. Her split sentence committed her for a period of five years, to serve 45 days’ confinement, the execution of the remainder of the sentence being suspended. The sentencing judge labelled this as a § 5010(a) sentence, but in substance it was really a § 5010(d) sentence, without the no-benefit finding.

. Nor is United States v. Oliver, 546 F.2d 1096 (4th Cir. 1976), to the contrary. ’ Oliver holds that a fine may be imposed as a condition of probation, but recognizes that the harsher sanction of imprisonment is inconsistent with the purposes of the Youth Corrections Act: “We begin with the observation, as did the court in Cramer v. Wise, 501 F.2d 959 (5th Cir.) .. . that the Youth Corrections Act, by its terms, does not prohibit the imposition of monetary fines, but only precludes the imposition of a prison sentence.” Id. at 1098.

. During the House hearings on H.R. 210, 78th Cong., 1st Sess. (1943), “a bill whose youth corrections provisions were nearly identical to those of S. 4609 introduced in 1949,” Durst, supra, 434 U.S. at 551, 98 S.Ct. at 854, Judge Phillips said the following about the bill’s effect on the probation system:
Mr. Cravens. Does this bill in any way affect the so-called probation system?
Judge Phillips. Not at all.
Mr. Cravens. There is no attempt to disturb that?
Judge Phillips. No sir; we found it was working well and concluded it ought not to be disturbed.
Mr. Cravens. And this bill was drafted with that in mind?
Judge Phillips. Yes, sir. It leaves it absolutely undisturbed.
Id. at n.13. Thus, the YCA was intended to leave undisturbed a real, existing probation *1247system. There is no hint whatsoever that it was intended to include whatever options Congress devised in the future under the general probation statute.

. Sections 5010(b) and (c), the treatment and supervision sections, provide for indeterminate sentences; the Government concedes the error of the courts below in giving determinate sentences. See note 3, ante.
The majority believes that “in the split sentence context confinement is imposed pursuant to § 5010(b) or (c), and § 5010(a) does not become operative until the youth offender has been discharged from confinement.” See Majority Opinion at note 11, ante.
In 1950, however, Congress did not intend that probation, pursuant to § 5010(a), would become operative following a § 5010(b) or a § 5010(c) sentence. Instead, as the terms of §§ 5010(b) and (c) provide, a person sentenced *1250under § 5010(b) was to be discharged under § 5017(c), and a person sentenced under § 5010(c) was to be discharged under § 5017(d).

. See note 4, supra.