Court Opinion

ID: 9478503
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:50:35.628667+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:27.826456
License: Public Domain

MANSMANN, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the opinion of the majority because there are threshold issues not addressed which, to me, are clearly dispositive of the government’s claim to restitution for property loss under the Victim and Witness Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3579 [redesignated § 3663]. In summary, I would hold that where the offense is criminal contempt of court, it is the court who is the victim, not the U.S. Attorney’s Office — which is not even the type of victim envisioned by the Act. Assuming arguendo that the government is a victim here, the injury suffered by the prosecution is at best the intangible right to a tamper-free trial and not the attorney’s fees and costs of an aborted criminal trial. Further, the property loss contemplated by the Victim and Witness Protection Act is concrete, physical property, such as actual items and money, or expenses such as medical and hospital bills, and not an intangible. For these reasons and because the decision of the majority upholding the district court’s order of restitution comes dangerously close to saying that the cost of a criminal trial can be accorded to the government, I respectfully dissent.
I.
it js generally understood that criminal contempt “is punitive in character; it is aimed at vindicating the court’s authority in the face of contumacious and disrespectful acts.” In re Grand Jury Proceedings Harrisburg Grand Jury, 658 F.2d 211, 217 (3d Cir.1981), and, Latrobe Steel Co. v. United Steelworkers, 545 F.2d 1336 (3d Cir.1976). The statutory provision codified at 18 U.S.C. § 401 (1982) states that
A court of the United States shall have power to punish by fine or imprisonment, at its discretion, such contempt of its authority, and none other, as—
(1) Misbehavior of any person in its presence or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice;
(2) Misbehavior of any of its officers in their official transactions;
(3) Disobedience or resistance to its lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command.
Hand’s behavior clearly fell within § 401(1).1 Equally clear is the principle that “a court may uphold respect for the law through the utilization of the criminal contempt process.” Latrobe Steel, 545 F.2d at 1347.
I do not dispute that Hand’s actions were in contempt of a clearly stated court directive not to contact anyone involved in the trial, however, I do dispute the determination that the prosecution was a victim of these actions. Our cases repeatedly hold that the “purpose of criminal contempt is to vindicate the authority of the court by punishing past acts of disobedience.” McDonald’s Corp. v. Victory Investments, 727 F.2d 82, 86 (3d Cir.1984) (emphasis added); Latrobe Steel, 545 F.2d at 1343; and United States Steel Corp. v. Fraternal Ass’n, etc., 601 F.2d 1269, 1273 (3d Cir.1979). Therefore, under the concept of criminal contempt as we know it and as it is expressed in § 401, the Justice Department is not the victim for § 3579 [§ 3663] restitution.
*1108II.
A review of the legislative history of the Victim and Witness Protection Act indicates that the purpose behind the Act was to
Strengthen existing legal protections for victims and witnesses of federal crimes; ... to amend title 18 of the United States Code to require restitution for crimes including loss of property or personal injury; ... to require the Attorney General to prepare guidelines for the fair treatment of victims of federal crimes; and to require that the Attorney General recommend legislation requiring that restitution be made to the victim before a federal felon may profit from his crime’s notoriety.
S.Rep. No. 532, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 9 reprinted in 1982 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 2515. Pursuant to the Act, the Attorney General, through the Department of Justice, developed the Guidelines for Victim and Witness Assistance which became effective July 9, 1983. The application of the internal guidelines was defined as follows:
These guidelines apply to those components of the Department of Justice engaged in the detection, investigation or prosecution of crimes. They are intended to apply in all cases in which individual victims are adversely affected by criminal conduct or in which witnesses provide information regarding criminal activity ... Under these guidelines, special attention should be paid to victims and witnesses who have suffered physical, financial or emotional trauma as a result of violent criminal activity.
48 Fed.Reg. 33774-75 (1983) (emphasis added).
During the hearings held by the Subcommittee on Criminal Law, one victim testified to a situation which was described as being “all too typical.” A retired civil servant suffered a broken hip as the result of a purse snatching. She cooperated completely with the law enforcement agencies despite her serious injuries which cost over $10,000 to treat. She later learned of the disposition of the ease when she was notified that a $350.00 check in the order of restitution was being held for her at the probation office. It appeared that no one involved in the plea negotiations with the defendant in her case had contacted her nor had anyone been aware of the extent of her injuries. The report stated: “This story is typical of the casual way restitution is being used in all our courts.” U.S.Rep. No. 532, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 30-31, reprinted in 1982 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News at 2536-37. The premise behind § 3579 [re-designated § 3663] “is that the court in devising just sanctions for adjudicated offenders, should insure that the wrongdoer make good[], to the degree possible, the harm he has caused his victim.” Id.
Keeping in mind the purpose behind restitution, i.e., to restore the victim to his former state of well being, the emphasis found in the legislative history on personal injury compensation and restoration of property convinces me that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is not the type of victim envisioned by Senators Heinz and Laxalt when they introduced S. 2420 on April 22, 1982. As the introductory language of the Senate report warned, “too often the victim has been the ‘forgotten person’ in the criminal justice system. With few exceptions, victims and witnesses are either ignored by the criminal justice system or simply used to identify offenders.” S.Rep. No. 532, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 10, reprinted in 1982 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News at 2516. Clearly, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which has the authority of the federal government behind it, cannot be said to be the “forgotten person.”
I appreciate the majority’s reliance upon United States v. Ruffen, 780 F.2d 1493 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 963, 107 S.Ct. 462, 93 L.Ed.2d 407 (1986) (county was a “victim” under VWPA since defendant had defrauded its social service agency of welfare payments) and United States v. Dudley, 739 F.2d 175, 178 (4th Cir.1984) (“the government is not foreclosed from establishing that it has been victimized by the crime and recovering restitution” for *1109unlawful use of food stamp coupons) which show that other courts of appeals have found that the government can be a victim for purposes of the Act.
I recognize that the government can be considered a victim where property loss occurs. Here that just did not happen. Indeed the majority’s reliance on Ruffen and Dudley emphasizes my point. The losses suffered by the government in those cases were tangible losses in the form of money payments. Clearly, these do not in any way equate to the loss of the right of a trial before a fair and impartial jury suffered by the government here.
III.
Even if it must be accepted that the government was a victim here because the court, i.e., judiciary, and the prosecution, 1.e., executive, are but branches of the same government, see Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339, 25 L.Ed. 676 (1880) (the state acts through its legislative, judicial and executive authorities), or that the government was an indirect victim not envisioned by the framers but covered by the language of the Act, the type of injury suffered is too remote to reduce to a monetary value. The section of the Victim and Witness Protection Act dealing with the loss of property provides as follows:
(b) ... (1) in the case of an offense resulting in loss or destruction of property of a victim of the offense—
(A) return the property to the owner of the property or someone designated by the owner; or
(B) if return of the property under sub-paragraph (A) is impossible, impractical, or inadequate, pay an amount equal to the greater of—
(i) the value of the property on the date of the damage, loss, or destruction, or
(ii) the value of the property on the date of the sentencing, ...
18 U.S.C. § 3579 [redesignated 3663].
The majority addressed this contention extensively, but focused on the harm as the loss of a trial and concentrated on what that trial cost. However attractive this simplistic method may appear, it is dangerous because of its simplicity. What the government lost due to Hand’s actions was the right to a tamper-free trial; a trial in which open-minded jurors listened to the evidence, weighed the facts and reached an impartial conclusion based on those facts.
In his remarks at the sentencing hearing, the district judge expressed anger for Hand’s inaction in failing to report the improper communications which had a devastating effect, likening it to “a cancer that she implanted in the judicial system. Treachery to her oath as a juror.” 2 Thus, what the prosecution — as well as the other defendants — lost was the right to a fair trial before an impartial jury. This is an intangible right, such as the right to a republican form of government, which cannot be characterized as property. Cf. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 209, 82 S.Ct. 691, 705, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962) (complaints based on the clause guaranteeing a republican form of government are nonjusticiable). A recent Supreme Court case in an analogous situation regarding the concept of property underscores the notion that certain types of intangible rights may not, unless Congress clearly and specifically mandates it, be the basis of an injury. In McNally v. United States, 483 U.S. 350, 107 S.Ct. 2875, 97 L.Ed.2d 292 (1987), the Court noted that while the mail fraud statute clearly protects property rights, it “does not refer to the intangible right of the citizenry to good government.” 107 S.Ct. at 2879. Compare Carpenter v. United States, 484 U.S. 19, 108 S.Ct. 316, 98 L.Ed.2d 275 (1987) *1110(the Wall Street Journal has a property right in keeping confidential any information which is to appear in forthcoming column), with McNally, supra. Just as the citizens of this country are entitled to a republican form of government, see U.S. Const., art. IV § 4, they are also guaranteed a public trial by an impartial jury, see U.S. Const., amends. 6, 7 & 14, but this is not to say that monetary value can or should be placed on that right. Cf. McNally, supra; United States v. Evans, 844 F.2d 36 (2d Cir.1988) (the government’s interest in regulating foreign resale of weaponry is not a property right under mail and wire fraud statute); and United States v. Zauber, 857 F.2d 137 (3d Cir.1988) (claim that pension fund trustees violated mail and wire fraud statute by defrauding fund of honest and faithful employees does not support property loss requirement of statute).
IV.
I agree with the outraged district court and with the majority here that what Patricia Hand did as a juror was despicable and very wrong — contemptuous of the court— but it did not result in the type of damage to property or to a victim which the Victim and Witness Protection Act was enacted to protect. Therefore, I would vacate the district court’s order requiring the payment of $46,850 in restitution to the government.3

. At the sentencing hearing, the district judge stated: “The contempt is based upon her failure to obey my order given to all the jurors — judges do I suppose in every case — not to talk to anybody; and if ever anybody approaches you, that you are to report to the judge, which she did not do.” Transcript of Sentencing Hearing, Crim. No. 87-201-001, at 8 (D.C.N.J. April 8, 1988).

. Sentencing transcript at 9. The judge also stated:
It undermined the sacrifices of her fellow jurors in that long trial and their, I’m sure, conscientious efforts to fulfill and comply with their duties as jurors and the time and sacrifices that were represented by sitting on that long trial as a juror. Indifference to them, indifference to every defendant in that case who was entitled to a fair trial and to a jury comprised of jurors complying with their clear and unambiguous oath and obligation.

Id.

. Although this is a matter not raised by Hand on appeal, I am also concerned that the transcript of the district court’s hearing made no mention of any finding of Hand's ability to pay the amount. In United States v. Palma, 760 F.2d 475 (3d Cir.1985) we directed the “district courts in the future to make specific findings as to the factual issues that are relevant to the application of the restitution provisions of the VWPA." 760 F.2d at 480. See also United States v. Poliak, 844 F.2d 145 (3d Cir.1988). The sentencing transcript is devoid of any references with regard to Hand’s ability to pay.