Court Opinion

ID: 9454277
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:41:57.135964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:03.231691
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
In my opinion, the decision of this court should not rest upon our 1969 assumption of what we think the various members (over 600) of Congress assumed “incorrectly” in 1960 when they amended § 3568 (Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 645, § 3568, 62 Stat. 683, 838). The proper function of the courts is to apply the law as enacted — not rewrite it. The statute could not be worded more clearly: “The sentence of imprisonment of any person convicted of an offense in a court of the United States shall commence to run from the date on which such person is received at the penitentiary, reformatory, or jail for service of said sentence.” Nothing is said about any credit for presentence incarceration, although such a qualification could have presented no difficulties in draftsmanship.
“Wherever it is possible, as a matter of mechanical calculation, that credit could have been given, we will conclusively presume it was given. The problems and expenditure of resources which would be caused by allowing each prisoner to attempt to demonstrate that in his particular ease credit was not given, we feel, outweigh any possible unfairness. Since here the defendants were sentenced to the maximum allowable term of imprisonment, the length of sentence itself conclusively shows that credit was not given.” 367 F.2d at 330 (footnote omitted).
Obviously, the key word of the statute is “sentence.” At the time of sentencing, the following colloquy took place: “The Court: I, therefore, sentence you to the maximum prison term provided by statute, to wit, thirty years.
While it may be gratuitous on my part, I at this point note my recommendation against parole. The Court will stand adjourned. ,
Mr. Phillips: [Appellant’s counsel] Before the Court adjourns, are the months already served taken into consideration ?
The Court: No, they are not, but I will have to so sign the judgment. They have to be so considered.”
The judgment of conviction thereafter signed by the district court contained no reference to the seven months which appellant had served prior to sentencing.
The Government argues, and the Court below so found, that the colloquy indicated Judge Kaufman’s intention merely to consider, not necessarily to grant, the inclusion of the pre-sentence custody into the 30-year sentence. The signed judgment, it is suggested, showed that Judge Kaufman, upon such consideration, decided not to grant the seven-month credit.
To reach this conclusion, in my opinion, would be to ignore the rule that the *184oral pronouncement of sentence in the presence of the defendant prevails over the written commitment. Henley v. Heritage, 337 F.2d 847, 848 (5th Cir. 1964) . The court in Henley noted that Rule 43, F.R.Crim.P. required that the defendant be present when sentence was pronounced by the court and that Rule 32(b) F.R.Crim.P. required the judgment of conviction to set forth the sentence and concluded, therefore, “that where there is a discrepancy between the oral pronouncement and the written judgment and commitment, the former must control.” 337 F.2d at 848.
It is the oral sentence which constitutes the judgment of the court, and which is authority for the execution of the court’s sentence. The written commitment is “mere evidence of such authority.” Kennedy v. Reid, 101 U.S. App.D.C. 400, 249 F.2d 492, 495 (1957) ; see also Pollard v. United States, 352 U.S. 354, 360 n. 4, 77 S.Ct. 481, 1 L.Ed.2d 393 (1957). If, as the Government would have it, appellant was sentenced not when he appeared before Judge Kaufman but at some later time when the commitment was signed, the sentence would be invalid since appellant was not present. United States v. Johnson, 315 F.2d 714 (2d Cir. 1963); James v. United States, 348 F.2d 430, 432 (10th Cir. 1965) .
It is the duty of this court to “carry out the true intention of the sentencing judge as this may be gathered from what he said at the time of sentencing.” United States v. Morse, 344 F.2d 27, 30 (4th Cir. 1965). I believe that the most plausible interpretation of Judge Kaufman’s remarks is that he demonstrated a present intention, at the time of thei oral sentencing, to give appellant credit for his presentenee custody. When asked by appellant’s counsel whether the presentenee months would be “taken into consideration,” he answered that they would “have to be so considered” (italics mine). In this exchange, I interpret the phrases “taken into consideration” and “so considered” to have meant “included in the sentence.”
Certainly, at a minimum, Judge Kaufman’s words were ambiguous and this Court has said that such ambiguities are to be resolved in favor of the prisoner. United States v. Chiarella, 214 F.2d 838, 841 (2d Cir.), cert. denied 348 U.S. 902, 75 S.Ct. 226, 99 L.Ed. 708 (1954).
Payne v. Madigan, 274 F.2d 702 (9th Cir. 1960), cited by the Court below as authority for the proposition that the signed judgment is controlling where the oral remarks are ambiguous, does not in fact contradict the rule of Chiarella. In Payne, the Court looked to the written commitments only to confirm a sufficiently clear conclusion which had been drawn from the oral pronouncement. 274 F.2d at 704. The Court in Payne did enter broader dictum by stating that written commitments “may properly serve the function of resolving ambiguities in orally pronounced sentences” but this language was not necessary for the decision since the oral pronouncement of the sentencing court was not viewed as ambiguous. The Payne court also recognized that if the sentence as set forth in the written commitment departed in substance from the oral pronouncement, that sentence would be void.
I cannot accept the majority’s statement that “Section 3658 is properly to be construed as requiring that credit be granted.” This, they say, despite their concession that “Until 1960 it [§ 3658] did not on its face require that any prisoner be given credit for presentence time spent in custody.”
Controversy centers around a two-to-one decision in the District of Columbia Circuit. Stapf v. United States, 125 U.S.App.D.C. 100, 367 F.2d 326 (1966). That case has been followed in the 4th, 5th, 7th and 9th Circuits. But concerning Stapf, we said: This [the Second Circuit] court has never adopted the holding in Stapf.” United States ex rel. Sacco v. Kenton, 386 F.2d 143 (1967).
In Sawyer v. United States, 376 F.2d 615 (8th Cir. 1967), the court neither concurred in nor rejected Stapf. Although it said, “we do not reach this issue,” it wrote by way of dictum that *185“A strong argument could be made that the plain, simple and unambiguous language of the 1960 amendment defies resort to judicial construction” (p. 618). The court in Allen v. United States, 264 F.Supp. 420 (U.S.D.C.M.D.Pa.1966), had no difficulty in reading the law as written, saying: “under the law as it then [1965] stood, no credit could be given for time spent in custody prior to the date of sentence, as Congress made no provision for defendants who were sentenced under statutes which did not provide for a minimum mandatory term of imprisonment” (p. 422). The court there concluded, as do I, that: “There is nothing in the statute to indicate that Congress assumed that in all other instances the Court would reduce the sentence by the amount of time spent in presentenee custody, and such a construction should not be lightly inferred” (p. 423).
Furthermore, the court in Stapf explicitly pointed out that “the amendatory act did not apply retrospectively.” 367 F.2d at 330. The reasoning of Stapf, therefore, would apply only to prisoners sentenced after the passage of the amendatory act in 1960, even if that reasoning had been adopted in this circuit. In Williams v. United States, 118 U.S. App.D.C. 255, 335 F.2d 290, 291 (1964), the court said, “[the prisoner’s] sentence was imposed in 1957, and Congress specifically provided that the credit provision of Section 3568, which became effective October 2, 1960, was not to apply to a sentence imposed prior to that date.”
To Sobell it makes no difference which key unlocks the gates of the prison so long as the gates open immediately. But in defense of the decisional process, I cannot subscribe to the statements that “We accept and adopt the rule laid down in Stapf * * * ” and that “We are not deterred in our decision to follow Stapf when we have said within the last fifteen months that we have ‘never adopted the holding in Stapf.’ ” The law, ever changing though it be, is at least entitled to a more respectful period of existence.
I conclude, therefore, that appellant must be given credit for his pre-sentence custody but solely on the ground that Judge Kaufman’s oral sentence so intended.