Court Opinion

ID: 9472532
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:03:19.871347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:59.842385
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge,
with
whom HEANEY, Circuit Judge, joins, concurring in the result and dissenting.
I agree with the result reached by the Court today, but I respectfully dissent from its action in overruling United States v. William Anderson Co., 698 F.2d 911 (8th Cir.1982).
The Court recognizes that probation is entirely a creature of statute. The Court acknowledges the broad language of 18 U.S.C. § 3651 that a defendant may be placed on probation “upon such terms and conditions as the court deems best” and the further enumeration that “among the conditions thereof, the defendant may be required to pay a fine” and “may be required to make restitution or reparation to aggrieved parties” and “may be required to provide for support of any persons.” ■ It further clearly recognizes that the statute does not expressly forbid the imposition of other kinds of monetary payments. It then rests its conclusion on a general principle of statutory construction and several decisions from other circuits, looking primarily to the ultimate conclusions in those cases.
The Court relies on the principle, the specific language governs the general, but it is in reality invoking the maxim, expres-sio unius est exclusio alterius. The rule is essentially one of negative implication, and the Court errs in resting so significant *1552a decision on such insubstantial underpinning. The weakness is pointed out in R. Dickerson, The Interpretation and Application of Statutes 47 (1975), by the following statement: “Sometimes the maxim applies and sometimes it does not, and whether it does or does not depends largely on context.”1 The non-uniform application of expressio unius is illustrated forcefully in 2A Sutherland Statutory Construction §§ 47.23-.25 (4th ed. 1973 & Supp.1984), where, after explanation of the principle, the cases applying and the cases refusing to apply the maxim are set out in nearly equal measure.
When we look at the context of 18 U.S.C. § 3651 as Professor Dickerson suggests, and as a careful interpretation requires, with or without principles and maxims, we are met by broad and inclusive language rather than the narrow and abstemious approach taken by the Court. The court is given the broad power to place the defendant on probation “upon such terms and conditions as the court deems best.” When the Court looks specifically to the language in which it finds restriction, it must grapple with an enumeration that is introduced by the inclusive phrase “among the conditions thereof” and three specific phrases, each commencing with “may be required.” The inclusive word “among” is followed by three permissive phrases. To find limitation in the three phrases flies in the face of their nonrestrictive nature. It simply does not follow that the specific but permissive phrases must constrict the inclusive “among.”
Because the Court’s opinion today rests so substantially on a rule of construction, this discussion of the maxims ejusdem gen-eris and expressio unius is of particular significance.
Some rules of statutory construction come down to us from sources that were hostile toward the legislative process itself and thought it generally wise to restrict the operation of an act to its narrowest permissible compass. However well these rules may serve at times to aid in deciphering legislative intent, they long have been subordinated to the doctrine that courts will construe the details of an act in conformity with its dominating general purpose, will read text in the light of context and will interpret the text so far as the meaning of the words fairly permits so as to carry out in particular cases the generally expressed legislative policy.
Sec. & Exch. Comm’n v. Joiner Leasing Corp., 320 U.S. 344, 350-51, 64 S.Ct. 120, 123, 88 L.Ed. 88 (1943) (footnotes omitted). The legislative history of 18 U.S.C. § 3651 sheds no light on the concerns raised by Mr. Justice Jackson in the above quotation. The passage of this statute in 1925 concerned itself with establishing probation for individuals and did not mention the corporate offender. When we examine the overall purposes of the statute, it is evident that a punishment that brings home to the offender the seriousness of the offense and which facilitates the personal service of an individual placed on probation, the point and purpose of the similar payments in Anderson are within the purview of the statute. Beyond this consideration, we are left with the context that we have examined above.
The Court’s reliance on other cases citing this maxim find support in the results *1553alone. In United States v. Prescon Corp., 695 F.2d 1236, 1242-43 (10th Cir.1982), the Tenth Circuit cites the maxim but also states: “We do not suggest that listing of the four specific conditions of probation ‘closes the door’ to other conditions.” It cites its earlier decision, Porth v. Templar, 453 F.2d 330 (10th Cir. 1971), that “[t]he only limitation is that the conditions have a reasonable relationship to the treatment of the accused and the protection of the public.” 695 F.2d at 1242 (quoting Porth, 453 F.2d at 333).
Similarly, United States v. Wright Contracting Co., 728 F.2d 648, 651 (4th Cir. 1984), citing its earlier decision in United States v. Bishop, 537 F.2d 1184 (4th Cir. 1976), cert, denied, 429 U.S. 1093, 97 S.Ct. 1105, 51 L.Ed.2d 539 (1977), also recognized that the enumeration in the statute was not exclusive. Wright Contracting stated that its decision was severely limited by three earlier Fourth Circuit cases, baggage which we do not carry. In Wright Contracting the court ultimately concluded that policy considerations impose a more restricted range of discretion when ordering payment of funds, and that ordering the payment of money to a selected charitable organization is qualitatively different from the symbolic penance exacted from individual defendants in providing cost-free personal service to such charitable organizations. 728 F.2d at 653.
This final observation of Wright Contracting demonstrates the weakness in the Court’s opinion today as well as the inapplicability of both Wright Contracting and Prescon, supra. Wright Contracting and Prescon involved only the payment of money to charitable organizations. While our decision in Anderson, supra, did not make it abundantly clear, it was evident that the contributions in Anderson by the corporation went to the charitable projects in which its corporate officers were to perform their personal service. The district court there stated that “causing a corporation to put money into a project in which one or more of its decision makers [i.e., the individual defendants] has a stake in a direct interest assists the corporation’s attitude.”
It is significant that in this case, as in Anderson, no objection was raised that a condition of probation requiring individual defendants to render personal services to charitable organizations is contrary to 18 U.S.C. § 3651. Numerous cases have approved such sentences. E.g., United States v. Arthur, 602 F.2d 660 (4th Cir.), cert, denied, 444 U.S. 992, 100 S.Ct. 524, 62 L.Ed.2d 422 (1979). The Court today gives no hint that such terms of probation are not proper as its entire focus is upon the payment of money. The reality is that the personal service to be rendered by an individual defendant may require funding. This was exactly the point recognized by the district court in Anderson. The Anderson district court opinion recognized that the penance of the individuals and the corporations in programs in which the one works and the other cannot work but can only fund may go hand in hand. The contribution of the corporation can and should be used to fund the public service activities of the individual defendants who are officers in that corporation. To conclude that such use of probation is prohibited by rules of construction based on a negative implication is simply to overlook both the purpose and broad language of section 3651.
The eases relied on by the Court today, Wright Contracting, Prescon, and United States v. Clovis Retail Liquor Dealers Trade Ass’n, 540 F.2d 1389 (10th Cir.1976), do not involve the same issue raised in Anderson, namely the use of the corporate funds to finance the public service of the individual defendants. In Wright Contracting, Prescon, and Clovis Retail Liquor Dealers, the payments were simply made to designated charities that had no particular tie to the case or to the conditions of probation of individual defendants. This distinction is most significant because it ties the' condition of probation imposed upon the corporate defendant not only to the conditions of probation of the individual defendants, its own corporate officers, but also to the general purposes expressed in section 3651 which, as we have observed, *1554have not been contested with respect to the individual defendants.
As recognized in United States v. Mitsubishi Inter. Corp., 677 F.2d 785 (9th Cir. 1982), the punishment of a corporation poses particular problems. A corporation cannot be sentenced to the penitentiary. The payment of money seems to be the most obvious penalty available. In Mitsubishi, supra, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the corporate defendant’s conditions of probation which included loaning a company executive and contributing $90,000.00 to an ex-offender program, explaining that “probation conditions must be tailored to meet the special problems of a [corporate criminal] defendant.” 677 F.2d at 788. It is the conditions of probation which present the most likely avenue for bringing about corporate changes of behavior. In addition to imposing particular procedural and structural requirements on a corporation as terms of probation,2 the Anderson approach has the practical effect of tying together the probation of the individual and corporate defendants with at least as great a possibility of achieving the desired goals of probation as it is possible to reach in any case where probation is utilized.
Contrary to the point of view of the Court today, the broad discretion placed in district courts to tailor probation to the particular circumstances in each case was recognized in Burns v. United States, 287 U.S. 216, 220, 53 S.Ct. 154, 155, 77 L.Ed. 266 (1932). Other courts have held that the conditions enumerated in section 3651 are not exclusive but are simply “among the conditions” which may be imposed, United States v. Vaughn, 636 F.2d 921, 923 (4th Cir.1980); United States v. Tonry, 605 F.2d 144, 147 (5th Cir.1979); United States v. Fultz, 482 F.2d 1, 4 (8th Cir.1973); and, as explained in Comment, Criminal Law — The Application of the Federal Probation Act to the Corporate Entity, 3 U.Balt.L.Rev. 294, 296-97 (1974), the legislative history of the act supports the reading that it is not exclusive but provides only general guidelines.
As the Court reasoned in Anderson and as developed in the Yale Law Journal Comment cited above, corporations play a predominate role in our society, and their essence is far more than the legal fiction giving rise to their existence. Their management and functioning are intrinsically that of the individuals managing and controlling the organization. Insofar as the conditions of probation in Anderson affect the managers and decisionmakers and recognize the interrelationship between those Individuals and the corporation, the Anderson conditions are in full accord with the purposes and goals of section 3651.
The shortcoming of the probation imposed on Missouri Valley is that it has none of the limitations recognized in Anderson. Specifically, there is no connection between the payment of money and programs in which individual corporate officers will be involved as a part of their probation. What we have in Missouri Valley is simply the payment of money to a designated charity, without any tie to the probation of the individuals, precisely the type of payment condemned in Prescon and Wright Contracting. It is for this limited reason that I agree that the Court has reached the right conclusion with respect to Missouri Valley. In doing so, however, I believe that the Court makes a great mistake in failing to distinguish the limited situation in Anderson, and in discarding the valuable role that it can play in corporate probation.
The sentence in Missouri Valley illustrates the particular abuse that is possible when a district court orders payment of funds to an entity other than the governmental institution or the party directly damaged. The record is plain that the Chairman of the Board of Peter Kiewit Sons’, Inc., the corporate parent of Missouri Valley, has close ties with the University *1555of Nebraska. The Chairman serves on several boards or committees of the University of Nebraska Foundation. The University of Nebraska was proposed by Missouri Valley as the beneficiary of these payments. I have no difficulty in concluding that there was an abuse of discretion in allowing the corporate defendant to choose a favorite beneficiary for the receipt of these funds. The selection in this manner runs contrary to the purpose of imposing punishment on the defendant.
For these reasons I agree with the holding of the Court today. My dissent is limited to the overruling of Anderson.
ROSS, Circuit Judge, took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

. Dickerson gives this further pointed criticism:
Several Latin maxims masquerade as rules of interpretation while doing nothing more than describing results reached by other means. The best example is probably expres-sio unius est exclusio alterius, which is a rather elaborate, mysterious sounding, and anachronistic way of describing the negative implication. Far from being a rule, it is not even lexicographically accurate, because it is simply not true, generally, that the mere express conferral of a right or privilege in one kind of situation implies the denial of the equivalent right or privilege in other kinds. Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not, and whether it does or does not depends on the particular circumstances of context. Without contextual support, therefore, there is not even a mild presumption here. Accordingly, this maxim is at best a description, after the fact, of what the court has discovered from context.
The Interpretation and Application of Statutes at 234 (footnotes omitted).

. See Structural Crime and Institutional Rehabilitation: A New Approach to Corporate Sentencing, 89 Yale L.J. 353 (1979).