Court Opinion

ID: 9490534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:46:08.012663+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:09.136132
License: Public Domain

DAVID A. NELSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Under the United States Constitution — the fundamental charter of government that all federal judges bind themselves to support— the legislative powers granted in the Constitution are vested not in the courts, but in Congress. U.S. Const., art. I, § 1. Laws made by Congress in pursuance of the Constitution, along with the Constitution itself, constitute the supreme law of the land.
In 18 U.S.C. § 3143(b)(2), as amended, Congress has declared that any person who has been found guilty of a crime of violence, among other things, “shall” be detained pending appeal. There are exceptions to this statutory mandate, but the exceptions are narrow — and in no event, Congress has decided, may a person who is subject to detention under § 3143(b)(2) be released pending appeal unless “it is clearly shown that there are exceptional reasons why such person’s detention would not be appropriate.” See 18 U.S.C. § 3145(c).
The felonies of which defendant Lanier was convicted were crimes of violence, as the district court correctly held in denying two post-conviction motions for release pending appeal. Lanier may ultimately be able to persuade a majority of the judges of this court that the conduct on which his felony convictions were based had not been made a crime under federal law, but the point is by no means free from doubt, to say the least, and the district court certainly did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Lanier had *643not shown exceptional reasons why his detention would be inappropriate.1
The existence of a colorable argument that his convictions ought to be reversed does not, in my judgment, qualify as a reason for allowing defendant Lanier to remain at liberty while his appeal is being decided. Congress has determined that a person in this defendant’s situation must be detained unless it is “clearly” shown that there are “exceptional” reasons why detention would be inappropriate. The district court did not think that Lanier had made such a showing, and I do not think so either.
As citizens, we may question the wisdom of the rule which Congress has told us to apply in eases such as this. As judges, however, we are bound to do what Congress has directed us to do.

. In United States v. DiSomma, 951 F.2d 494 (2d Cir.1991), a decision cited in a paragraph added to Judge Merritt’s dissent after this concurrence was first circulated, the Second Circuit held that a district judge did not abuse her discretion in finding exceptional reasons to allow the release of an appellant who had been convicted of conspiracy to commit robbery and whose appeal raised a substantial issue as to the element of violence. I do not read the Second Circuit opinion as expressing any view as to whether the district judge would have abused her discretion had she denied the motion for release pending appeal.