Court Opinion

ID: 9459672
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:28:01.154506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:16.629869
License: Public Domain

WRIGHT, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
In United States v. Reed and Hoston, 155 U.S.App.D.C. 198, 476 F.2d 1145 (1973), this court en banc articulated the appellate test for the sufficiency of the reasons given for denying Youth Corrections Act treatment. The court stated that “[a]n appellate court can only be concerned with the rationality of those [reasons] in relation to the Congressional objectives. Where that rationality is present and visible, its function is at an end.” 155 U.S.App.D.C. at 203, 476 F.2d at 1150. Here the decision of the District Court1 and the recommendation in the Section 5010(e) report were significantly influenced by. the overcrowding at the Lorton YCA facility. Overcrowding at the Lorton YCA facility is an irrational reason for not imposing a YCA sentence, particularly since other YCA facilities available to the Attorney Gen*1133eral are hardly more than half populated.2 In any event, now that the overcrowding at the Lorton facility is apparently ended, I agree that this case should be remanded for reconsideration of the sentence in the light of a current Section 5010(e) report.

. On May 5, 1973, we remanded this case “to afford the District Court an opportunity to reconsider its sentence, if it is so disposed,” noting the overcrowded condition of the Lorton YCA facility and the fact that “[w]e are now advised by Government counsel that an expanded youth facility serving the District of Columbia will shortly become available, and that this information was not before the District Court at the time sentence was imposed.” On remand the sentencing judge refused to amend the sentence, stating, inter alia, “that additional facilities at the Lorton Youth Center will not be available for several months at the earliest.”

. See note 18 in Judge Bazelon’s opinion. At the time of the sentence and the remand in this case, District of Columbia Code YCA offenders, because of overcrowded conditions at the Lorton YCA facility, were being sent to federal YCA facilities in other areas pursuant to an agreement between the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the District Court.