Court Opinion

ID: 9476101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:47:13.142737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:07.381587
License: Public Domain

LOGAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
We are a court used to dealing with the parole evidence rule, that an unambiguous written statement supersedes and precludes reliance upon any prior oral statements between the parties. The Statute of Frauds, in effect in the Anglo-Saxon world since 1677, makes many agreements unenforceable unless they are in writing. Fed. R.Civ.P. 58 requires every civil judgment to be set forth on a separate “document.” The time limitations for appeal from civil and criminal cases do not commence until “the entry of the judgment or order appealed from.” Fed.R.App.P. 4(a) and (b). One would suppose then that when Fed.R. Crim.P. 32(b)(1) says that “[a] judgment of conviction shall set forth the sentence,” and “[t]he judgment shall be signed by the judge and entered by the clerk,” that written document would supersede the prior oral pronouncement of sentence by the judge from the bench. The trial judge below supposed that to be true when he considered the motion to correct filed under Fed.R.Crim.P. 36. But we here hold that is not true in criminal sentencing; instead, citing many cases, we declare that the rule of law is that the oral pronouncement of sentence controls and overrides the written pronouncement of sentence in the judgment and commitment order. I agree with that general proposition for the reasons stated in the majority opinion and elaborated in the first section below. But I cannot agree entirely with the majority’s redaction of that proposition to an invariable and ostensibly simple rule. As discussed in the sections that follow, I think there are two major problems in moving from the general proposition to the application of an “oral controls the written” rule: (1) determining what in fact was the oral pronouncement of sentence; and (2) dealing with ambiguity or silence on an important aspect of the sentence.
I
The rule that the oral pronouncement controls in a conflict with the written order had its origin long before the promulgation of Rule 32(b)(1), requiring a written order setting forth the sentence. See Hill v. United States ex rel. Wampler, 298 U.S. 460, 465, 56 S.Ct. 760, 762, 80 L.Ed. 1283 (1936). As the majority notes, a primary rationale for the rule is the necessity for the defendant’s presence at sentencing. This is now covered by the requirement in Fed.R.Crim.P. 43 that the defendant be present at sentencing unless his punishment is to be reduced under Fed.R.Crim.P. 35. See Rakes v. United States, 309 F.2d 686, 687 (4th Cir.1962), cert. denied, 373 U.S. 939, 83 S.Ct. 1543, 10 L.Ed.2d 694 (1963).
The history of the presence privilege was traced in United States v. Gregorio, 497 F.2d 1253 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1024, 95 S.Ct. 501, 42 L.Ed.2d 298 (1974). There a defendant challenged his conviction on the ground that he had been excluded from a jury instruction conference in violation of the Due Process Clause and Rule 43. Id. at 1256-57. The circuit court affirmed the defendant’s conviction. But en route to that determination it recognized Rule 43 as a “restatement” of the common law privilege of presence, see Fed.R. Crim.P. 43 advisory committee notes, and explored the development of that common law. Gregorio, 497 F.2d at 1257-59. The earliest reason for requiring the defendant’s presence at trial was the English tradition denying counsel to felons. Id. at 1257. Without counsel, a defendant had to be present to make his defense. Id. After this tradition went by the wayside in the nineteenth century, two other reasons for requiring the defendant’s presence evolved. Id. at 1258. First, the reliability of the trial should be protected by giving defendants a chance to help with their defense. Id. at 1258-59. This reason would include the defendant’s right of allocution, the right to speak in his own behalf, at sentenc*1457ing. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 32(a)(1); Green v. United States, 365 U.S. 301, 304-05, 81 S.Ct. 653, 655, 5 L.Ed.2d 670 (1961) (“legal provenance” of Rule 32(a) “was the common-law right of allocution”); Byrd v. United States, 345 F.2d 481, 483-84 (10th Cir.1965). Second, the defendant should be given an opportunity to observe and understand the trial to “prevent the loss of confidence in courts as instruments of justice which secret trials would engender.” Gregorio, 497 F.2d at 1258. The Gregorio court characterized its analysis of the reasons for Rule 43 as equally applicable to the defendant’s due process claim. Id. at 1259.
Long tradition alone is not enough reason to continue a practice that produces so many hard cases for the courts. But the right to speak in one’s own behalf, and to observe and understand the court proceedings, are extraordinarily important. That the judge and the convicted defendant should be face-to-face when the sentence is pronounced, also promotes important societal interests. If we should adopt a rule that the written judgment and commitment order is the sentence, judges would have to hold defendants over after sentencing hearings until written orders are prepared and signed, or bring the defendants back for the signing, in order to comply with Rule 43. I fear such a rule would tempt judges to bring to the sentencing hearings orders already prepared, to be signed in the defendant’s presence. Such a practice would severely compromise the defendant’s right of allocution. If we should hold that the judge could hear the defendant’s plea for mercy, take the matter under advisement, and issue a sentence, in writing, outside the defendant’s presence, I believe the sentences would sometimes not be the same as under the rule that sentence must be orally pronounced in a face-to-face fashion. Therefore, I agree, as a general proposition, that the sentence orally pronounced in the defendant’s presence is the sentence of the court.
II
What if the oral pronouncement was inaccurately reported in the transcript, and how does one know whether it was inaccurately reported if there is no tape recording? This is the situation I thought was before us when I wrote the earlier panel opinion. That the sentencing had been taped was only discovered after argument to the en banc court. The court reporter has resided out of the country for the past three years; we had no affidavit from her nor her original notes. Counsel for codefendants had filed affidavits as to what they remembered of the court’s pronunciation three years before; but the judge’s personal recollection was to the contrary. More important, the written notes of the courtroom deputy, written down contemporaneously with the pronouncement, were that the sentences were to all run consecutively, and the judgment and commitment order, signed on that day, was to the same effect. In that circumstance does the reporter’s transcript control?
In my view it will be a rare case in which all participants will even claim to recall precisely what was said, and an even rarer case in which their recollections will all agree with each other in contradiction to the written judgment and commitment order. Indeed, in the case at bar, if it were not for the recently discovered tape recording of the sentencing hearing, the trial court’s oral pronouncement would be very much in doubt. Fortunately, we found the tape recording of the sentencing hearing, and it clearly shows that the oral pronouncement prescribed the sentence on the third count to run consecutively with the first, instead of the second count.
As a practical matter, the written sentence and commitment order most of the time must be recognized as the best evidence of “what was said from the bench,” maj. op. at 1451. See Hill, 298 U.S. at 464, 56 S.Ct. at 762. This is the order that follows the defendant throughout his stay in prison and upon which prison authorities, parole boards, and the defendant himself generally rely. No transcript of the judge’s oral pronouncement is made to be attached to the prisoner’s prison record; no transcription of sentencing is likely to be made for an appeal, unless the sentencing *1458is drawn into issue. See Fed.R.App.P. 10; 10th Cir.R. 10.1.
The government should be held to a duty, I believe, to point out quickly to the court disparities between the sentence orally pronounced and the sentence in the written order, if it believes the sentence recorded in the judgment and commitment order was wrong. The defendant certainly will not do so, if the written order favors him, for fear that the judge will change the sentence before the defendant enters executive custody and the court loses its power to make such a change freely. If the government fails to call a problem with the written order to the court’s attention while the court may still change or clarify its sentencing, then I do not believe, as I discuss in IV, infra, that it may raise such problems later to the defendant’s detriment.1
Ill
What if the orally pronounced sentence is silent or ambiguous on an important matter? In the instant case the majority opinion says there is no ambiguity because the judge said “consecutively with the sentence on count one.” But it declares that an ambiguity may exist, inter alia, “when otherwise unambiguous words are used in an unusual way,” or “the plain meaning of the words used lead to an absurd result.” Maj. op. at 1453 n. 6.
The government, at oral argument, tried to make a case for ambiguity here, arguing that the oral pronouncement itself, in context, was ambiguous: The word “concurrent” was never used in this sentencing proceeding; in the context of pronouncing three sentences, to say that two of them were to run “consecutively ... with count one” creates ambiguity; there is ambiguity in using the word “with” in connection with the word “consecutively,” because the more standard usage is “consecutively to” or “concurrently with.” But I agree with the majority opinion that the instant pronouncement should not be treated as one that is ambiguous. New criminal defendants were college English majors. Some defendants may understand the words “consecutively” or “concurrently” only because they have encountered them before in their earlier criminal proceedings. We should not act as a congress of grammarians, parsing the sentences to find ambiguity in what would have been reasonably understandable.2
Some courts, including the Tenth Circuit, have characterized the situation as one of ambiguity rather than conflict when a sentencing court did not state orally whether sentences were concurrent or consecutive, but the written commitment order indicated the sentences were to run consecutively. Thus, in the face of the current legal rule that silence means concurrent sentences, we have relied upon the written judgment and commitment order as evidencing the district court’s intent to impose consecutive sentences. Lundquist v. Taylor, 347 F.2d 369, 370 (10th Cir.1965); see also Schurmann v. United States, 658 F.2d 389, 391 (5th Cir.1981); Aga v. United States, 312 F.2d 637, 641 (8th Cir.1963). The majority here says if there is ambiguity “such extrinsic evidence as the judgment and commitment order, the judge’s intentions, or the defendant’s understanding of what he believes the sentence to be, may be consulted.” Maj. op. at 1453 (footnote omitted). In another place the majority says that if the oral pronouncement is ambiguous the judgment and commitment order may be used to “help clarify ... by providing evidence of what was said from, the bench.” *1459Id. at 1451 (emphasis added). I assume the majority opinion does not mean that literally, and would in that situation, as I suggest, follow the written order, if it is not ambiguous.
IV
In a case of conflict, if the written judgment and commitment order imposes a longer, harsher, or otherwise more onerous sentence on the defendant than the oral pronouncement, I would apply the rule as does the majority here. Treating the judge’s oral pronouncement as the sentence, the harsher written order in effect increases the sentence outside the presence of the defendant, in violation of Rule 43. No matter how much time has elapsed before this conflict is discovered and brought to the court’s attention, the sentence orally pronounced should be confirmed as the defendant’s sentence.
If the sentence orally pronounced is harsher than the written judgment and commitment order, I would hold that the written should control unless the government moves to call the matter to the attention of the court, while the court still has authority to make a sentencing order. See Earley, at 1430-1431, 1432-1434. Under present Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(b) the district court may reduce a sentence, without a motion, within 120 days of its imposition. The court’s written judgment and commitment order, signed by the judge after the sentence is pronounced, arguably is a sua sponte reduction or clarification of the judge’s intent. See United States v. Glass, 720 F.2d 21, 22 n. 2 (8th Cir.1983) (permitting district court on remand to decide whether shorter sentence stated in written order represented a change of mind). The defendant need not be present at a reduction of sentence. Fed.R.Crim.P. 43(c)(4).
As stated above a defendant will not bring the difference between the oral and the written sentences to the attention of the court, for fear that the difference will be resolved against him. The written order is what follows him through the course of his stay in prison. Insofar as a discrepancy is apparent only after review of a reporter’s transcript of the oral pronouncement of sentence, a defendant may not even be aware of the discrepancy. It is reasonable to impose a duty on the government to call a problem to the court’s attention, and within time limits, for the due process reasons stated in Breest v. Helgemoe, 579 F.2d 95, 101 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 933, 99 S.Ct. 327, 58 L.Ed.2d 329 (1978):
“[T]he power of a sentencing court to correct even a statutorily invalid sentence must be subject to some temporal limit. When a prisoner first commences to serve his sentence, especially if it involves a long prison term as here, the prospect of release on parole or otherwise may seem but a dimly perceived, largely unreal hope. As the months and years pass, however, the date of that prospect must assume a real and psychologically critical importance. The prisoner may be aided in enduring his confinement and coping with the prison regime by the knowledge that with good behavior release on parole or release outright will be achieved on a date certain. After a substantial period of time, therefore, it might be fundamentally unfair, and thus violative of due process for a court to alter even an illegal sentence in a way which frustrates a prisoner’s expectations by postponing his parole eligibility or release date far beyond that originally set.”
Id. at 101.
If there is no actual conflict as to what was said, but rather just ambiguous wording in the orally pronounced sentence or silence on whether sentences were concurrent or consecutive, I would use the contemporaneous written order of judgment and commitment to clarify the sentencing judge’s intent, as we did in Lundquist v. Taylor. Accord United States v. Pagan, 785 F.2d 378, 380 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 667, 93 L.Ed.2d 719 (1986); Schurmann v. United States, 658 F.2d 389, 391 (5th Cir.1981). Although this may result in the imposition of a potentially longer sentence, the defendant has a copy *1460of the written order. Under such circumstances, if the defendant thinks a mistake was made in the sentencing order, the defendant, no less than the government, should be held to a duty to bring the matter promptly to the attention of the court.
If there is ambiguity in the written order of judgment and commitment as well, then it will be necessary to consult the record of the sentencing hearing as a whole to ascertain if the ambiguity may be resolved without finding the sentence illegal. The same due process concerns that limit recognition of a sentence harsher than that in the written order mandate application of the principle of lenity here. See Gaddis v. United States, 280 F.2d 334, 336 (6th Cir.1960) (prisoner entitled to have ambiguous language in the pronouncement construed most favorable to him); cf. Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81, 83, 75 S.Ct. 620, 622, 99 L.Ed. 905 (1955) (“It may fairly be said to be a presupposition of our law to resolve doubts in the enforcement of a penal code against the imposition of a harsher punishment.”).
In the case before us, I agree with the majority that we are dealing with conflict between the oral and written orders. The written order is the harsher, more onerous. I would hold that the oral sentence controls, because to hold otherwise would violate Villano’s right to be present, as set forth in Fed.R.Crim.P. 43 to his detriment. Therefore, I concur in the court’s judgment.

. The district court retains the ability to correct an illegal sentence, to change its mind on the sentence or to correct misstatements of its intent, as permitted by Fed.R.Crim.P. 35 and 36, and subject to certain constitutional limits. See United States v. Earley, 816 F.2d 1428 (10th Cir.1986) (en banc). In United States v. Davidson, 597 F.2d 230 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 861, 100 S.Ct. 127, 62 L.Ed.2d 83 (1979), we held that the district court may call the defendant back for different or corrective sentencing until the defendant passes into executive custody.

. Even English professors are unable to agree on definitions of ambiguity and conflict, and the distinctions between them. See W. Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930, 1956); C. Brooks, The Well Wrought Urn (1947, 1966).