Court Opinion

ID: 9470478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:07:19.936151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:55.574705
License: Public Domain

ROSENN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority reverses the district court, holding that the United States Parole Commission acted lawfully in deciding to continue Campbell’s incarceration six years beyond the guideline period because of the murder committed by Campbell’s confederates preceding the bank robbery. The Federal Parole Commission took this action notwithstanding the Virginia authorities’ considered decision to dismiss on motion of the Commonwealth the state murder charge against Campbell, and even though Campbell may yet serve lengthy state sentences for his role in the bank robbery and the abduction of the taxi cab driver. I am constrained to disagree with the majority’s approval of the Commission’s disposition on two accounts. In my opinion, by punishing1 Campbell for the crime of murder which the Commonwealth of Virginia declined to prosecute, the Federal Parole *115Commission has both deprived Campbell of his sixth and fourteenth amendment rights,2 and invaded a prosecutorial arena traditionally reserved to the states, thereby deliberately disregarding the spirit of Our Federalism.
I believe that in the instant case the Parole Commission erred by considering the murder, a factor which in all fairness it had no right to consider. The state of Virginia did not convict or even prosecute Campbell for the murder; it nolle prossed the charge. It restricted its prosecution to the bank robbery and kidnapping charges. In a letter to Campbell dated September 29, 1980, the Commonwealth’s attorney wrote that the State had dismissed the murder charge on its own motion because Campbell had not carried a gun, had not participated in the actual murder, claimed that he did not know that there would be a murder, and because Campbell had cooperated with the Commonwealth by testifying against his confederates.
By imposing upon Campbell a term of incarceration for a crime for which he was never prosecuted, the federal parole commission has acted in a fundamentally unfair manner inconsistent with our system of criminal justice. In an indirect but highly effective fashion, it has stripped Campbell of his sixth amendment right to a fair trial on the murder charge, a right made obligatory upon the states by the fourteenth amendment. There is nothing in the record to indicate that Campbell pled guilty to the charge or made any agreement with the Virginia prosecutor. On the contrary, the record indicates that the Commonwealth dismissed the murder charge of its own accord. Campbell did not know what had become of the murder charge, and had to write to the prosecutor’s office in order to find out. Presumably, if Campbell’s attorney had entered .into a formal plea bargain with the Commonwealth’s attorney, Campbell would have been asked to plead guilty to some charge and would have been consulted concerning the waiver of his constitutional right to defend himself at trial.3 But Campbell was never consulted.
If Campbell had been tried for the murder and acquitted, the Federal Parole Commission would of course have been prohibited from considering the murder in connection with Campbell’s parole hearing. See Department of Justice Regulations, 28 C.F.R. § 2.19(c). Under the circumstances it seems particularly unfair and ironic that the Parole Commission should be allowed to hold Campbell responsible for the murder precisely because the Virginia authorities, perhaps believing that the murder charge would be too difficult to prosecute, or for some other good reason, decided not to pursue it.
The instant case is clearly distinguishable from those federal cases in which a criminal -defendant, pursuant to a plea bargain, pleaded guilty to a charge that did not reflect the true gravity of his offense and subsequently was denied early parole because his parole board considered the actual facts of his crime. See Arias v. United States Parole Commission, 648 F.2d 196 (3d Cir.1981); United States ex rel. Goldberg v. Warden, Allenwood Federal Prison Camp, 622 F.2d 60 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. *116871, 101 S.Ct. 210, 66 L.Ed.2d 91 (1980). In such plea bargain cases, an accused consciously decides that the risk of conviction for the most serious crime with which he is charged is sufficiently great to justify renunciation of his sixth amendment rights— and any possibility that he will be found innocent — in exchange for the certainty of a conviction on a lesser charge. In the instant situation, Campbell made no conscious choice. Had Campbell known that he was to be punished for murder, he could have exercised his sixth amendment right to trial by jury. Thus, the Parole Commission has essentially made a factual determination of guilt for a state crime, effectively denying Campbell his right to present his case to a jury. The requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and the usual trial safeguards have been arbitrarily discarded by bureaucratic fiat. See generally Alschuler, Sentencing Reform and Parole Release Guidelines, 51 U.Colo.L.Rev. 237, 242 (1980).
This brings me to my second concern. I believe that the Federal Parole Commission was without authority to punish Campbell for the murder after Virginia had declined to do so. In deliberately disregarding the State’s action with respect to the murder charge, the Federal Parole Commission", concerned as it is with the federal offense of bank robbery, has intruded into a matter that is the specific concern of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The United States Supreme Court has long recognized the rights of the states to administer their own laws — and particularly their criminal laws — without undue federal intrusion. For the most part, the Supreme Court has held that federal authorities should interfere with state administration of justice only to the extent such interference is constitutionally mandated. As the Court admonished in O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 94 S.Ct. 669, 38 L.Ed.2d 674 (1973), we must always be mindful to sustain the “ ‘special delicacy of the adjustment to be preserved between federal equitable power and State administration of its own law.’ ” Id. at 500, 94 S.Ct. at 678 (quoting Stefanelli v. Minard, 342 U.S. 117, 120, 72 S.Ct. 118, 120, 96 L.Ed. 138 (1951)). More specifically, in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), the Supreme Court held that the federal courts should not, absent exceptional circumstances, enjoin a criminal proceeding in state court. The Younger holding is grounded not only in fundamental doctrines of equity jurisprudence, but also in a concept which the Court characterized as “Our Federalism.” As Justice Black, writing for the Younger Court, observed:
[The] underlying reason for restraining courts of equity from interfering with criminal prosecutions is reinforced by an even more vital consideration, the notion of “comity,” that is, a proper respect for state functions, a recognition of the fact that the entire country is made up of a Union of separate state governments, and a continuance of the belief that the National Government will fare best if the States and their institutions are left free to perform their separate functions in their separate ways. This, perhaps for lack of a better and clearer way to describe it, is referred to by many as “Our Federalism,” and one familiar with the profound debates that ushered our Federal Constitution into existence is bound to respect those who remain loyal to the ideals and dreams of “Our Federalism.” ... It should never be forgotten that this slogan, “Our Federalism,” born in the early struggling days of our Union of States, occupies a highly important place in our Nation’s history and its future.
Id. at 44-45, 91 S.Ct. at 750-751.
If “Our Federalism” prohibits the federal courts from interfering with the administration of state justice by enjoining prosecutions in state courts, surely federal parole commissions have no greater claim to absolution from this doctrine. I believe that indiscriminate intrusions by a federal administrative agency into the exercise of state prosecutorial discretion are precluded by the policy of federalism. Such intrusions can be humiliating to the state, disruptive of its prosecutorial plan and obligations, and heedless of the historic belief that *117our national interests are best served if the States are permitted to perform their governmental functions in accordance with their distinctive requirements. Federal officials should not be allowed to interfere arbitrarily with a state’s administration of justice by affirmatively mandating the enforcement of a state criminal statute. But this is essentially what the Parole Commission has done by withholding Campbell’s parole because of a crime for which the Virginia authorities declined to prosecute him.
In closing, I note that it makes no difference here whether a federal action complained of runs directly against the state courts or whether it runs against some other unit of state or local government such as the office of the Commonwealth’s prosecuting attorney. In Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362, 96 S.Ct. 598, 46 L.Ed.2d 561 (1975), the Supreme Court applied the doctrine of Younger v. Harris to prevent federal interference with the Philadelphia police department. In so doing the Court observed that the federal courts were not free to limit the department’s freedom to conduct its own affairs. Id. at 379, 96 S.Ct. at 608. Under the rationale of Rizzo v. Goode, the Parole Commission’s intrusion upon the exercise of discretion by Virginia to administer its laws is also contrary to the spirit of “Our Federalism.”
In summary, I dissent because I believe the United States Parole Commission deprived Campbell of his sixth and fourteenth amendment rights and impermissibly trespassed upon the prerogative of the Commonwealth of Virginia to nolle prosse the murder charge. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.

. The Federal Parole Commission’s decision to impose upon Campbell a substantial additional period of incarceration on account of the murder may properly be described as a decision to “punish” Campbell for the murder. I would reject any suggestion that the decision to continue Campbell’s incarceration reflects nothing more than the Parole Commission’s professional judgment that Campbell has not yet been fully rehabilitated. Rehabilitative or reformative theories of incarceration, so popular a decade or two ago, have come under widespread attack. See Alschuler, Sentencing Reform and Prosecutorial Power: A Critique of Recent Proposals for "Fixed” and "Presumptive” Sentencing, 126 U.Pa.L.Rev. 550, 552 (1978). The United States Parole Board itself has explicitly acknowledged that it cannot divine the “magic moment” at which an offender has “reformed” and schedule his release accordingly. See Alschuler, Sentencing Reform and Parole Release Guidelines, 51 U.Colo.L.Rev. 237, 238 (1980) (citing Coffee, The Repressed Issues of Sentencing: Accountability, Predictability, and Equality in the Era of the Sentencing Commission, 66 Geo.L.J. 975, 990 (1978)). Its regulations now cite retribution as a factor to be considered in the parole decision making process. 18 U.S.C. § 4206(a). See Note, The Parole Commission and Reorganization Act: The Impact of Parole Guidelines on the Federal Youth Corrections Program and Indeterminate Sentencing, 37 Rutgers L.Rev. 491, 491 (1982). The Parole Commission’s statement in its letter to Campbell to the effect that Campbell would not be paroled now because that would depreciate the seriousness of his offense, supports the contention that Campbell’s incarceration was extended substantially for retributive purposes.

. This is not a procedural due process matter, but rather a case involving questions of substantive due process and federalism. Therefore, the Supreme Court’s opinion in Greenholtz v. Inmates of Nebraska Penal & Correctional Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979), describing the procedural protections due to persons seeking parole release, does not apply here. As this court observed in Block v. Potter, 631 F.2d 233 (3d Cir.1980), Greenholtz does not authorize a governmental entity (in that case a state) which has established a parole program to operate that system in an arbitrary and capricious fashion. Quoting from Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 597, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 2697, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972), Block held that “ ‘even though a person has no “right” to a valuable governmental benefit and even though the government may deny him the benefit for any number of reasons, there are some reasons upon which the government may not rely.’ ” 631 F.2d at 235-36.

. The decision to plead “guilty” or “not guilty” is a decision reserved solely for the accused based on his intelligent and voluntary choice. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969).