Court Opinion

ID: 9453280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:08:53.267844+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:35.754107
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur fully in the Court’s disposition of this case: Townsend v. Burke, 334 U. S. 736, 68 S.Ct. 1252, 92 L.Ed. 1690 (1948), clearer requires that result. Notwithstanding its disavowal of an intention to formulate a prescription of all that should be disclosed to the accused, I am fearful that, by its repeated emphasis that Rule 32(c) is discretionary in form and repeated reference to the dangers of full disclosure, the opinion may be read as discouraging disclosure of the contents of a presentence report except as minimum due process otherwise requires. That this should be our approach, I strongly disagree.
I think that a presentence report should be fully disclosed to a defendant, through his counsel, or to the defendant, himself, if he is unrepresented, prior to sentencing, except for the confidential recommendation of the probation officer to the sentencing judge and except where there is tangible good cause to withhold exhibition of a portion of the report. As to *935the latter, I would place the burden on the district judge to make a part of the record the fact that a portion of the report has been withheld and the reason for his action. If Townsend v. Burke, supra, and Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 86 S.Ct. 1045, 16 L.Ed.2d 84 (1966), do not constitutionally require this result,1 a question on which I express no opinion, I nevertheless, would accomplish the same result by the exercise of our supervisory power over the district courts of this Circuit to regulate the manner and spirit in which the district judges’ presently held discretionary authority to disclose should be exercised.
Legal literature is replete with a debate over the pros and cons of disclosure and non-disclosure, but we need look no further than the District of Maryland in determining how district judges should be guided.2 In the District of Maryland, disclosure of presentence reports, in accordance with my views, has been the practice for over ten years. The experience of Maryland belies the fears that, as general propositions, sources of confidential information dry up, probation officers are deprived of trustworthy and logical informants, and the object of the report is defeated, if the contents of reports are disclosed. Of course, these dangers may be present in a particular case if full disclosure is made, but the decision to disclose or withhold ought to be made in that case on the basis of the facts peculiar to it and not on the basis of general propositions which may have no valid application in the particular context.
In short, even if it is recognized that district judges validly have a discretionary authority to withhold portions of a presentence report, we should follow the lead supplied by United States v. Fischer, 381 F.2d 509 (2 Cir. 1967), a case cited in the majority opinion, where it is said in regard to a discussion of the discretionary aspects of Rule 32(c), Fed.R.Crim.P.:
“The foregoing discussion, however, should not be construed to imply that the authority granted the sentencing judge in the amended Rule 32(e) to disclose material in the presentence investigation report and to give the defendant or his counsel an opportunity to comment on it should be exercised conservatively and in a niggardly fashion. On the contrary, the administration of justice would be improved by a liberal and generous use of the potuer to disclose.” (Emphasis supplied.)
This is the spirit in which the discretion to disclose should be exercised.

. Townsend v. Burke, supra, held that due process was denied where sentence was pronounced on a foundation extensively and materially false when the defendant had no opportunity to correct the misinformation; and Kent v. United States, supra, held that due process required that access must be afforded to counsel to certain records which a juvenile court considered in making its decision to waive jurisdiction. It may be argued that these decisions are inconsistent with the implications of Williams v. State of Oklahoma, 358 U.S. 576, 79 S.Ct. 421, 3 L.Ed.2d 516 (1959), and Williams v. People of State of New York, 337 U.S. 241, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337 (1949), that a sentencing judge may rely on confidential information from out-of-court sources. How can a due process guarantee against a sentence predicated on misinformation be viable, and not rendered meaningless, if the defendant has no way of determining that the sentencing judge was misadvised?

. The majority opinion states that within the districts of this Circuit “[I]n one district disclosure of all is the rule, withholding of part the exception.” That district is Maryland. See, Thomsen, Confidentiality of the Presentence Report, Federal Probation Journal, March, 1964. The majority opinion does not expressly condemn the Maryland practice, but four times it adverts to the dangers of disclosure. A Maryland district judge may well conclude that the Court suggests to him that the*Maryland practice is deserving of reexamination; a district judge in another district, within this Circuit or elsewhere, may well conclude that the Court suggests to him that the Maryland practice is unworthy of imitation. I disassociate myself from any such implications.