Court Opinion

ID: 9457203
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:15:51.222942+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:15.581141
License: Public Domain

COFFIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
My difference with the court’s opinion is confined to its dismissal of petitioner’s claim that he is entitled, as a matter of due process, to a statement of the reasons which have led the Appellate Division to increase his sentence. The court does not distinguish this case from the case of a trial court’s imposing sentence on a convicted defendant. If it is constitutionally permitted for a trial *1213court to impose sentence without a statement of reasons, the court believes that an appellate panel, charged with de novo review of a sentence, is also free from any responsibility to give reasons for its judgment.
In my view, however, there are such differences between the two situations as to require, as a matter of due process, an appellate sentence review panel of judges to articulate reasons for increases in sentences. This view is based on the institutional reason for being and appellate nature of such a panel. Although petitioner has urged the applicability of North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969), pointing to the alleged chilling effect on present and potential appellants by reason of lack of a knowledge basis to take a sensible risk of appeal, the possibility that a panel of Superior Court judges might be motivated by a desire to minimize appeals or vindicate colleagues, or the possibility that sentence increases might be based on impermissible considerations, I do not reach this issue. Nor would I confine the requirement of reasons, as Pearce does, to post-conviction conduct.1
In the first place, it is one thing not to require, as a matter of due process, a sentencing judge in the first instance, who cannot refrain from acting, to specify reasoning which led him to choose from the many options available — from probation to maximum fine and imprisonment.2 An appellate review panel however, can and most often does refuse to order a change in a sentence; but when it is so moved as to order an increase, it must be persuaded that some factor has not been taken fully into account. This observation sharpens when one reflects that the Appellate Division was established to consider a specific factor: “whether a particular defendant’s sentence is excessively short or long compared to other defendants’ sentences for the same or similar offences.” Walsh v. Commonwealth, 1970 Mass.A.S. 1315, 1322, 260 N.E.2d 911, 916. It therefore seems entirely practicable to require articulation of the rationale for altering in severity the trial judges’ sentence. As Walsh observed, at 1321, 260 N.E.2d at 915, a fourteen year record reveals an average of only 6 sentence increases in some 300 appeals per year. Moreover, the fact that other states require a statement of reasons for an increase supports the workability of the requirement.3
In the second place, the entire purpose of the appellate review system would seem to be frustrated if the result were to be “only more judges having another bite at the same apple”, 1963 Annual Survey of Massachusetts Law, 1963, Ch. 11 “Criminal Law, Procedure and Administration”, Sanford J. Fox, p. 127. There would be no possibility of developing principles on a case-by-case basis which would not only advance the system’s purpose of consistency, but would inform the legislature, give guidance to trial judges, state’s attorneys, defense counsel, and even boards of parole.4
*1214Finally, and most important, I would conclude that an articulation of reasons by the Appellate Division is constitutionally compelled. I know of no other appellate judicial body that ever reverses the decisions of the initial decision-maker without stating its reasons. It is familiar doctrine that the decision of a trial court carries a presumption of correctness. When we affirm a ruling below without opinion, we are impliedly saying that the presumption has not been overcome. A corollary of that presumption is the principle that reasons must be given if a court acts contrary to that presumption.
The most obvious support for this principle is that reasons are essential to enable further review to take place. Here, of course, there is no further statutory right of appeal, only such review as habeas corpus might justify in the extraordinary case. This very fact explains the absence of authorities directly on point. But it seems to me that, precisely because there is no right to appeal, due process requires the minimum internal check of an expressed rationale.
The Fourteenth Amendment is violated by a state procedure that “is an arbitrary and unreasonable requirement, so inconsistent with established modes of administering justice that it amounts to a denial of due process.” Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U.S. 94, 103, 41 S.Ct. 433, 435, 65 L.Ed. 837 (1921). When state officials are permitted to act in an unrestrained way, they offend due process. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886). Although state officials may in fact exercise that discretion in a cautious and wise manner, without some sort of restraint, whether it be controlling legislative principle or required explanations after the fact, a court can only assume any action taken is arbitrary. Cf. Kunz v. New York, 340 U.S. 290, 293, 71 S.Ct. 312, 95 L.Ed. 280 (1951). The very antithesis of due process is an arbitrary decision; the last place where we should expect arbitrariness in decision-making is final judicial appellate review.
The only check on an appeals court not subject to further review, which will insure that its decisions are based on reason and not caprice, is a requirement that the court explain its decisions. Without such an explanation, there is no way of knowing whether the court performed its primary function of rationally evaluating the facts and arguments put before it. Cf. Capital Transit Co. v. Public Utilities Comm’n., 93 U.S.App.D.C. 194, 213 F.2d 176, 187 (1954) (Stephens, C. J., concurring), cert. denied, 348 U.S. 816, 75 S.Ct. 25, 99 L.Ed. 643 (1954). Such a concern to insure the rule of reason and law, and not of unaccountable individuals, seems to me to compel the conclusion that all appellate decisions which so adversely affect an individual as an increase in sentence and for which no reasons are given are on their face arbitrary.

. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, as well as the district court, was understandably concerned that literal application of Pearce was not suited to Appellate Division proceedings. Walsh v. Commonwealth, 1970 Mass.A.S. 1315, 1322, 260 N.E.2d 911. I quite agree that these proceedings should not be so circumscribed.

. I note, however, that, by statute, the sentencing judge must, if requested by the Appellate Division, supply a statement of reasons for imposing sentence. Mass.G.L. c. 278 § 28B.

. E. g., 51 Conn.Gen.Stats. §§ 51-196; Mont.Rev.Code Ann. § 95-2503, as amended by § 1, Ch. 196, L.1967.

. For a discussion of the shortcomings and potential of the implicit policy-making function of the sentence Review Division in Connecticut, see Appellate Review of Primary Sentencing Decisions: A Connecticut Case Study, 69 Yale L.J. 1453, 1466-1477 (1960). See also, Halperin, Sentence Review in Maine: Comparisons and Comments, 18 Maine L.Rev. 133, 153 (1966).