Court Opinion

ID: 9473657
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:35:37.150916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:39.464332
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Since our country’s inception, liberty has held a preeminent place in our pantheon of values. Our founding fathers took care to preserve it through a wealth of carefully crafted constitutional safeguards. Among them are the eighth amendment’s proscription of excessive bail, the due process clause, and the ex post facto clause. In my view, the court has trivialized each of these safeguards in sustaining the constitutionality of the bail pending appeal provisions of the Bail Reform Act of 1984, and in approving the application of these provisions to defendants who were convicted of crimes committed before the Act’s passage.
I believe that this is, in large measure, a consequence of the court’s preoccupation with attempting to ameliorate the harsh effects of these provisions. Had the court held fast to the actual intent of Congress, the constitutional infirmity of the statute would have been readily apparent.
When the standard for release of a convicted person pending appeal under 18 U.S.C. § 3143 was first considered by trial courts and by a panel of this court, they all concluded that Congress did indeed mean what it said — bail should be denied unless the trial court finds:
that the appeal is not for purpose of delay and raises a substantial question of law or fact likely to result in reversal or an order for a new trial.
18 U.S.C. § 3143(b).
These early decisions took the statute to mean that for all practical purposes Congress intended to eliminate bail pending appeal in all but the most extraordinary cases. Subsequently, the Third Circuit fabricated from rules of judicial construction an intent that gives the appearance of significantly ameliorating the harshness of *955the provision — even though there is no evidence that Congress had such a construction in mind. United States v. Miller, 753 F.2d 19 (3rd Cir.1985). Other circuits quickly fell in line. United States v. Handy, 761 F.2d 1279 (9th Cir.1985) (per curiam); United States v. Giancola, 754 F.2d 898 (11th Cir.1985); see also United States v. Polin, Nos. 85-5009, 85-5010, slip op. at 2 (4th Cir. March 4, 1985) (opinion of Murnaghan, C.J., as a single circuit judge).
In this case the majority, adopting the reasoning of both the Third and Eleventh Circuits, rewrites the statutory provision to read that bail may be granted by the trial court if:
1. the appeal raises a substantial question of law or fact; and
2. if that substantial question is determined favorably to the defendant on appeal, the decision is likely to result in reversal or an order for a new trial on all counts for which imprisonment has been imposed.
Thus, under the majority’s attempted emasculation of the provisions of the Act, no determination need be made whether the substantial question is likely to be determined favorably upon appeal; it need only be decided whether that substantial question would likely result in reversal if it is so resolved on appeal.
In my view, it is regrettable that the courts have not held fast to the actual intent of Congress. This supposed amelioration will likely prove to be no amelioration at all. I am fully satisfied that the result will be essentially the same as it would were the statute interpreted literally — the denial of bail to the overwhelming majority of persons who previously would have received bail pending appeal. Such exceptions as may exist under the newly established standards will be at best quixotic.1
More important, in sorting through the theoretical niceties of supposedly ameliorative standards the courts have lost sight of the fact that the statute both as written by Congress and as rewritten by them allows for the punishment of a substantial class of individuals who have not yet been finally adjudicated guilty. I am convinced that denying bail under the test set forth in the panel’s opinion is contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS ON APPEAL
Until recently, it might have been argued that the constitutional rights that normally would attend preconviction proceedings do not accompany the appellate process. See Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U.S. 600, 94 S.Ct. 2437, 41 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974). However, the recent Supreme Court case of Evitts v. Lu-cey, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 830, 83 L.Ed.2d 821 (1985), has drastically changed this analysis. In Evitts the Court found that, where a state provides for an appeal as a matter of right, “the procedures used in deciding appeals must comport with the demands of the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Constitution.” — U.S. at -, 105 S.Ct. at 834. In holding that a defendant has a due process right to effective assistance of counsel on appeal, the Court stated that “in establishing a system of appeal as of right, the state had implicitly determined that it was unwilling to curtail drastically a defendant’s liberty unless a second judicial decision-maker, the appellate court, was convinced that the conviction was in accord with law.” — U.S. at -, 105 S.Ct. at 840. The state was thus found to have “made the appeal the final step in the adjudication of guilt or innocence of the individual.”2 Id. *956Accordingly, in a system where a defendant has an appeal as of right, his guilt or innocence is not finally determined until the conclusion of his appeal. Under this rationale, all rights that apply to protect a defendant at the trial stage also apply at the appellate level, provided the appeal is a matter of right.
As the Supreme Court has stated, “[present federal law has made an appeal from a district court’s judgment of conviction in a criminal case what is, in effect, a matter of right.” Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 441, 82 S.Ct. 917, 918, 8 L.Ed.2d 21 (1962) (citing 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291, 1294; Fed.R.Crim.P. 37(a)). The federal courts have, therefore, made the appeal “the final step in the adjudication of guilt or innocence” and, under Evitts, the full panoply of constitutional rights applies until the conclusion of the appeal.
THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT
The traditional purpose of bail has been to ensure the presence of the defendant at trial. Higher bail than that amount reasonably calculated to fulfill this purpose is “excessive” in violation of the eighth amendment. Stack v. Boyle, 342 U.S. 1, 5, 72 S.Ct. 1, 3, 96 L.Ed. 1 (1951). It remains an open question, however, whether the eighth amendment provides a right to bail in cases where the defendant is not likely to flee. Compare Escandar v. Ferguson, 441 F.Supp. 53, 58 (S.D.Fla.1977) (finding that likelihood of flight is the only constitutionally permissible justification for denial of bail) with United States v. Edwards, 430 A.2d 1321 (D.C.App.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 1022, 102 S.Ct. 1721, 72 L.Ed.2d 141 (1982) (upholding the denial of bail for the purpose of protecting the community).3 The Supreme Court has expressly reserved the question. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 534 n. 15, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1871 n. 15, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979) (refusing to decide whether any objective other than ensuring the defendant’s presence at trial may constitutionally justify pretrial detention).
I would resolve the question left open in Wolfish by finding that prevention of flight is the only constitutionally permissible justification for the denial of bail. In my view, to say that the eighth amendment does not prevent Congress from defining classes of cases in which bail shall not be allowed but only provides that bail shall not be excessive in those cases where it is allowed “is a classic ease of the cart pulling the horse since the Congress could abrogate the right to bail altogether, making the eighth amendment absolutely meaningless.” Edwards, 430 A.2d at 1365 (Mack, J., dissenting). See also Carlson v. Landon, 342 U.S. 524, 556, 72 S.Ct. 525, 542, 96 L.Ed. 547 (1951) (Black, J., dissenting). Regardless of whether the English provision that provided the basis for the eighth amendment was more narrowly structured,4 the Bill of Rights “was written and adopted to guarantee Americans greater freedom than had been enjoyed by their ancestors who had been driven from Europe by persecution.” Edwards, 430 A.2d at 1366 (Mack, J., dissenting) (quoting Carlson v. Landon, 342 U.S. 524, 556, 72 S.Ct. 525, 542, 96 L.Ed. 547 reh. denied, 343 U.S. 988, 72 S.Ct. 1069, 96 L.Ed. 1375 (1952)). See also Foote, The Coming Constitutional Crisis in Bail, 113 U.Pa.L.Rev. 959, 1125 (1965).
Although there have been hints to the contrary in recent Supreme Court opinions, see Carlson, 342 U.S. at 545-46, 72 S.Ct. at *957536-37, and Schall v. Martin, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 2403, 2410, 81 L.Ed.2d 207 (1984), it would be a travesty if we glibly abandoned the observations of the Supreme Court in Stack v. Boyle, 342 U.S. 1, 4, 72 S.Ct. 1, 3, 96 L.Ed. 1 (1951):
From the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 73, 91, to the present Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 46(a)(1), federal law has unequivocally provided that a person arrested for a non-capital offense shall be admitted to bail. This traditional right to freedom before conviction permits the unhampered preparation of a defense, and serves to prevent the infliction of punishment prior to conviction. See Hudson v. Parker, 156 U.S. 277, 285, 15 S.Ct. 450, 453, 39 L.Ed. 424 (1895). Unless this right to bail before trial is preserved, the presumption of innocence, secured only after centuries of struggle, would lose its meaning.
Thus, in my view, the Bail Reform Act violates the eighth amendment by allowing the denial of bail on grounds unrelated to the defendant’s likelihood of flight.
Even if Congress is free to define non-bailable offenses, certainly the allowable justifications are limited. Justice Black, sitting as a Circuit Justice, stated that “the command of the eighth amendment that ‘excessive bail shall not be required * * * ’ at the very least obligates judges passing upon the right to bail to deny such relief only for the strongest of reasons.” Sellers v. United States, — U.S.-, 89 S.Ct. 36, 38, 21 L.Ed.2d 64 (1968). See also Truong Dinh Hung v. United States, 439 U.S. 1326, 99 S.Ct. 16, 58 L.Ed.2d 33 (Brennan, Circuit Justice 1978); Harris v. United States, 404 U.S. 1232, 92 S.Ct. 10, 30 L.Ed.2d 25 (1971) (Douglas, Circuit Justice). At a minimum, the eighth amendment must prohibit unreasonable denial of bail. Carlson, 342 U.S. at 569, 72 S.Ct. at 548 (Burton, J., dissenting). See also Hunt v. Roth, 648 F.2d 1148, 1161 (8th Cir.1981), vacated as moot in Murphy v. Hunt, 455 U.S. 478, 102 S.Ct. 1181, 71 L.Ed.2d 353 (1982) (“... Congress and the states may reasonably legislate as to the right to bail for certain offenses provided the power is exercised rationally, reasonably, and without discrimination.”) Surely we cannot condone the position that bail may be denied for the primary purpose of punishing a defendant prior to the final determination of his guilt, as defined in Evitts.
The government has a compelling interest in safeguarding the integrity of the judicial system. Denial of bail on the ground that the defendant is likely to flee furthers this interest by ensuring the defendant’s presence at trial. Certainly, from the perspective of the individual denied bail on this ground, the bars are just as cold and the cell is just as bleak as if he were being punished. Whatever penal aspects are attendant to such incarceration, however, are incidental to the achievement of the state’s principle purpose — the protection of the integrity of the judicial system.
This justification is, however, inapplicable in the cases before us, since the district court found on a sufficient record that bail would ensure the presence of the defendants and that neither defendant is a danger to the community requiring immediate isolation. Thus, the only possible purpose for detaining them before the guilt determination is complete, as defined by Evitts, is punitive. While this conclusion is not difficult to divine from the face of the statute, Congress has made our analytic task even easier by explicitly stating the intent of the statutory provisions governing bail pending appeal to be punitive. The legislative history accompanying the Act indicates that Congress believed swifter punishment is a greater deterrent to criminal conduct: “release of a criminal defendant into the community after conviction may undermine the deterrent effect of the criminal law, especially in those situations where the appeal of the conviction may drag on for many months or even years.” Senate Report No. 98-225 at 26, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. (1984), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1984, p. 3209; Senate Report No. 98-147 at 562, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. (1983); Senate Report No. 97-317 at 15-56, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. (1982). As the court noted in its memoran*958dum opinion and order in United States v. Cirrincione, 600 F.Supp. 1436, 1443 (N.D.Ill.1985):
By viewing the restrictions on release pending appeal to be a deterrent to crime, Congress must have concluded that a sentence that commences immediately upon conviction is somehow more severe than a sentence which commences only after appeal. Certainly a sentence which commences before, rather than after, appeal, is more certain to be served.
Indeed, in the approximately ten percent of all criminal cases in which the appellate courts revérse convictions,5 there is a substantial likelihood that persons will serve time in prison who would not otherwise have served at all, since some of these reversals will result in dismissals and even retrial will not necessarily result in conviction.
Denial of bail for the primary purpose of punishing the defendant is unreasonable, and therefore a violation of the eighth amendment. Accordingly, I can only conclude that, because under the statute as written by Congress and as rewritten by our court and others the denial of post-conviction bail is principally a punitive act, the statute is unconstitutional under the eighth amendment. In addition, the punitive nature of the statute leads me to conclude that the statute also violates the due process clause and the ex post facto clause.
THE DUE PROCESS CLAUSE
The liberty protected by the fifth amendment includes freedom from punishment. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535 n. 17, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1871, n. 17, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1978). Thus, under the due process clause, a person may not be punished prior to an adjudication of guilt in accordance with due process of law. Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 535, 99 S.Ct. at 1871. Since a defendant is not finally adjudicated guilty until after the conclusion of his appeal, Evitts, — U.S. at-, 105 S.Ct. 831, the prohibition against punishment is still applicable while the defendant is awaiting his appeal.
The Supreme Court “has recognized a distinction between punitive measures that may not constitutionally be imposed prior to a determination of guilt and regulatory measures that may.” Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 537, 99 S.Ct. at 1873. Thus, in analyzing the denial of bail, “the court must decide whether the disability is imposed for the purpose of punishment or whether it is but an incident of some other legitimate governmental purpose.” Id. at 538, 99 S.Ct. at 1873. As discussed, the legislative history makes clear that the statutory restrictions on bail pending appeal were “imposed for the purpose of punishment.” Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 538, 99 S.Ct. at 1873. The statute thus violates the due process clause by imposing punishment prior to a final adjudication of guilt.
The infirmity of the new statute has another dimension under the due process clause as well — one which stems from the critically overburdened state of our docket. In my view, the risk of erroneous deprivation of liberty under the new provisions will be great, for I am persuaded that in practice the substance of the legal issues raised in the petitions for bail pending appeal will receive only slight consideration.
While I have been unable to make a precise calculation, such figures as are available suggest that approximately sixty-three percent of all direct criminal appeals to this circuit involve persons who have been granted bail pending appeal. Because of the Bail Reform Act, we have pending a large number of petitions to this court to grant bail pending appeal after denial by the trial court. It is quite possible that we. would have little difficulty continuing to work into our calendar an examination of cases where the only test for denial of bail is frivolity. But the test that the majority imposes ensures, as night to day, that if we take our duties under Rule 9 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure seriously, we have *959just added a mini-appeal in a large percentage of direct criminal appeals to our already unmanageable docket. Even the majority admits that “[i]n the final analysis, we cannot define blanket categories for what will constitute ‘substantial’ questions under § 3143(b)(2).” Op. at p. 952. The court’s self-injunction that such issues must be determined on a “case-by-case basis” is the administrative equivalent of handing a rock to a drowning man. Even in the cases in which we ultimately determine that the question is not “substantial,” the effort required to give conscientious judicial scrutiny to the determination of that issue will be substantial.
Notwithstanding the fact that the trial court makes the initial determination, the substantiality of an issue of law is one that this court must determine and no presumption can properly be given to the trial court’s predetermination of that issue. Once a question is found to be substantial, the court must also make a determination tantamount to a harmless error determination. At this point the mini-appeal is no longer a mini-appeal. We have a duty to find harmlessness only in light of the entire record. One need say no more in order to suggest the damage we have done to our dockets, and the risk that in our overburdened state the bail decisions will not be adequately reviewed. In addition, the process impinges on the fundamental fairness of the review of the merits of each criminal appeal, for our final determination on the merits will inevitably be affected by the fact that we have already found that the legal issues raised lack substantiality. By this I do not intend even remotely to impugn either the ability or intent of the judges. The problems are simply the inevitable product of the pressures of our dockets and the nature of the human mind.
EX POST FACTO
The ex post facto clause was adopted, in part, to protect an individual’s right to fair notice when the government “increases punishment beyond what was prescribed when the crime was consummated.” Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 30, 101 S.Ct. 960, 965, 67 L.Ed.2d 17 (1981). In Weaver the Court noted that two elements must be present for a criminal law to be held ex post facto: it must apply to acts occurring before its enactment into law, and it must function to the disadvantage of the offender affected by it. The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, however, that a purely procedural change in the law is not ex post facto, even if a defendant is disadvantaged thereby. See, e.g., Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d 344 (1977), reh. denied, 434 U.S. 882, 98 S.Ct. 246, 54 L.Ed.2d 166 (1977); Beazell v. Ohio, 269 U.S. 167, 46 S.Ct. 68, 70 L.Ed. 216 (1925); Hopt v. Utah, 110 U.S. 574, 4 S.Ct. 202, 28 L.Ed. 262 (1884). In other cases, however, the Court has noted that a procedural change may so affect substantial rights as to fall within the ex post facto prohibition. See, e.g., Kring v. Missouri, 107 U.S. 221, 2 S.Ct. 443, 27 L.Ed. 506 (1883); Thompson v. Utah, 170 U.S. 343, 18 S.Ct. 620, 42 L.Ed. 1061 (1898). I need not linger long over the body of law addressed to the fine distinctions between those procedural changes that do affect substantial rights and those that do not, however, in light of the legislative history indicating that Congress intended the provision to be punitive. As the Court noted in Deveau v. Braisted, 363 U.S. 144, 160, 80 S.Ct. 1146, 1154, 4 L.Ed.2d 1109, reh. denied, 364 U.S. 856, 81 S.Ct. 30, 5 L.Ed.2d 80 (1960):
The mark of an ex post facto law is the imposition of what can fairly be designated as punishment for past acts. The question in each case where unpleasant consequences are brought to bear upon an individual for prior conduct, is whether the legislative aim was to punish that individual for past activity, or whether the restriction comes about as a relevant incident to a regulation of a present situ-ation____
As the court found in Cirrincione, “the post-conviction bail restrictions are not unrelated to punishment nor merely incidental to regulation of a present situation.” 600 F.Supp. at 1443. Rather, the provisions *960impose on defendants what Congress viewed as the harsher punishment of a sentence that must be served immediately rather than after the conclusion of the appeal. Indeed, for those defendants whose convictions are reversed and who are not thereafter reconvicted, the statute imposes the punishment of imprisonment on those who would not otherwise be forced to bear it. To fall into the “procedure” versus “substance” trap is intolerable under the circumstances and trivializes the seriousness of incarceration. Because the provisions are principally and fundamentally penal, they are irreconcilable with the notion that a person may be punished only to the extent that the law allowed at the time he committed the crime.
PRE-TRIAL DETENTION
Finally, I address the issue that alarms me most of all about the court’s opinion— the implications for the concept of pretrial bail inherent in the method by which the court has reached its result. I think it likely that the trivialization of premature incarceration of convicted persons prior to appeal as merely procedural will result in the same trivialization of premature incarceration of accused persons prior to trial. I hold with Justice Jackson who, sitting as a circuit justice, said:
It is difficult to reconcile with traditional American law the jailing of persons by the courts because of anticipated but as yet uncommitted crimes. Imprisonment to protect society from predicted but unconsummated offenses is so unprecedented in this country and so fraught with danger of excesses that I am loath to resort to it, even as a discretionary judicial technique____
Williams v. United States, 184 F.2d 280, 282-83 (2d Cir.1950). Professor Tribe has noted that this approach bears a striking similarity to the exchange in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass:
The Queen observes that the King’s Messenger is “in prison now, being punished; and the trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday; and of course the crime comes last of all.” Perplexed, Alice asks, “Suppose he never commits the crime?” “That will be all the better, wouldn’t it?” the Queen replies.
Tribe, An Ounce of Detention: Preventive Justice in the World of John Mitchell, 56 Va.L.Rev. 371, 374 (1970) (quoted in Edwards, 430 A.2d at 1368 (Mack, J., dissenting)).
What one thinks of the role of the eighth amendment and the due process clause in restraining unjustified detention prior to trial or pending appeal undoubtedly depends on one’s experience. From our privileged position it would be quite normal for us to assume that the spectre of unjustified detention looms only in such countries as Poland or South Africa. Perhaps we would be more mindful of the past failings of our own country in this regard, and more inclined to bolster the safeguards against future lapses, if we were of Japanese origins. See Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 65 S.Ct. 193, 89 L.Ed. 194 (1944), reh. denied, 324 U.S. 885, 65 S.Ct. 674, 89 L.Ed. 1435 (1945). Our sensitivity to the dangers of unjustified or discriminatory detention might be similarly heightened if we were black or poor. See Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), reh. denied, 409 U.S. 902, 93 S.Ct. 89, 34 L.Ed.2d 163 (1972) (Douglas, J., concurring) (in which the Supreme Court chronicled our history of racial and economic disparity in the execution of accused persons).
Crime is indeed one of the most serious of the problems that threaten our society, and the goal of enhancing the security of our citizenry is an important one. We should not seek to achieve it through the circumvention of constitutional safeguards, however. To fall into the “procedure” versus “substance” trap is intolerable when human liberty hangs in the balance. To punish an individual before he has been finally adjudicated guilty or to retroactively enhance the punishment for a crime is a perversion of our system of justice. In the end it will not bring either credit or *961enhanced effectiveness to the criminal justice system.
I would grant both petitions to admit to bail pending appeal.

. By my calculation, sixty-three percent of direct appeals handled by this court in the most recent reporting period involved persons who were free on bail pending appeal. The new standards will not only eliminate bail in the overwhelming majority of those cases, but I am satisfied that it will be accident rather than design if even a substantial majority of those cases that we reverse coincide with the cases in which bail pending appeal is granted.

. Justice Rehnquist, writing in dissent, vehemently objected to this characterization as "inconsistent with the general view of state appellate review expressed ... in Ross v. Moffitt, supra, at 610-11 [, 94 S.Ct. at 2443-44].” — *956U.S. at -, 105 S.Ct. at 844. Ross can be distinguished, however, on the ground that the appeal involved in that case was discretionary rather than as of right.

. The denial of bail has historically been allowed in all capital cases, but this exception falls within the traditional justification of prevention of flight. United States v. Kennedy, 618 F.2d 557, 559 (9th Cir.1980) ("It has been thought that most defendants facing a possible death penalty would likely flee regardless of what bail was set, but those facing only a possible prison sentence would not if bail were sufficiently high.”)

‘ See Duker, The Right to Bail: An Historical Inquiry, 42 Alb.L.Rev. 33, 58-66 (1977) (finding that the English provision did not limit Parliament's ability to define offenses as nonbaila-ble).

. Annual Report of the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Table B-l, p. 228 (1984).