Court Opinion

ID: 9635374
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:49:06.533841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:26:51.342265
License: Public Domain

NEBEKER, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. While I do not dispute the worth of permitting a trial judge to condition work release on the payment of restitution, I am unable to locate statutory authority for so doing in this case. The majority’s statement that nothing in the work release statutory scheme bars restitution simply begs the question. D.C. Code § 24-463 (1981) limits the sentencing court’s authority to regulate the conditions of an individual’s work release to the time, place and manner of getting to and from his place of work. It does not, by implication, authorize restitution. This conclusion is even more apparent after the D.C. Council’s recent passage of legislation expressly authorizing restitution as a sentencing tool in all sentencing matters. See generally D.C. Sentencing Improvements Act of 1982, D.C.Law 4-202, 30 D.C.Reg. 173 (Jan. 14, 1983). Surely that Act is not redundant. Previously, where the Congress has sought to permit restitution, it has expressly so provided. See D.C.Code § 22-2202 (1981) (restitution permitted as sentencing alternative in cases of petit larceny).
Fine discussions of the penal or rehabilitative purposes of the work release statute aside, there was no authority for the trial court’s imposition of restitution as a condition of appellant’s work release. Should the new Sentencing Improvements Act be repealed or later limited, this decision seems to say that restitution (in the name of rehabilitation and not in the interest of justice for the victim) is permitted in any event and for any offense. While as a matter of favored policy I might agree that restitution in this and other cases is a fine idea, I submit that the rule of law should not be sacrificed in the name of presently perceived virtue. I would vacate the sentence and remand for resentencing.