Court Opinion

ID: 9463542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:09:39.851966+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:09.843739
License: Public Domain

BROWNING, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The significant issue on this appeal is whether the record must show appellant’s awareness of the substantial rights she would waive by admitting she had violated the conditions of her probation. It is difficult to understand why the majority labors with such obvious difficulty to find a basis *1302for denying appellant a procedural protection so effective and so easily afforded.
Because revocation of probation deprives the defendant of a liberty interest protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, probation may be revoked consistently with the Constitution only by due process of law. Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 781-82, 93 S.Ct. 1756, 36 L.Ed.2d 656 (1973). The “minimum requirements of due process” to which a probationer is entitled include (1) notice of the charges, (2) disclosure of the adverse evidence, (3) an opportunity to be heard and present evidence, (4) an opportunity to confront and cross-examine witnesses, absent a finding of good cause not to allow it, (5) a neutral and detached tribunal, and (6) a written statement of the reasons for revocation and the evidence relied on. Id. at 786, 93 S.Ct. 1756.
Appellant, the majority states “does not claim that she was denied any of the rights described in Gagnon v. Scarpelli.” That is true, but irrelevant. What appellant does claim is that by admitting the alleged violations of the conditions of her probation she lost the benefit of most of these rights, and that the record does not disclose she did so knowingly. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969), requires that the waiver of rights implicit in a guilty plea appear on the face of the record. The reason for this requirement is that the rights involved are significant and the consequence of their waiver is grave. The rights waived by admitting a violation of the conditions of probation are equally significant, and the result that may follow is the very same loss of liberty to which the defendant is exposed by a guilty plea.
The reasons advanced by the majority for distinguishing the two situations are without substance. The majority argues that a guilty plea “ends the controversy,” while the issue of whether to revoke probation remains open after an admission that conditions of probation have been violated. “Thus, admissions of probation violations, unlike guilty pleas,” the majority asserts, “do not automatically trigger sentencing.” If there is a distinction here, it is one without significance. Both the guilty plea and the admission of probation violations end any inquiry into whether the alleged acts have been committed, but leave open the question of punishment. The identical issue remains after a guilty plea and after an admission of probation violation, namely, what action should be taken with respect to the defendant that will best serve society’s interests. A guilty plea and an admission of a probation violation thus expose a defendant to exactly the same punishment in exactly the same way. To say, as the majority does, that “there is no equivalent drastic consequence” from admission of a probation violation is inaccurate. Indeed, the consequences may be more drastic — as in this case. Appellant’s guilty plea resulted in probation and deferment of sentencing but her admission of probation violations resulted in a three-year prison sentence.
The majority’s elaborate discussion of the precise extent to which three rights waived by a guilty plea — the rights to jury trial, to confrontation and cross-examination of witnesses, and to be free of compelled self-incrimination — are available to a probationer is also beside the point. A probationer faced with revocation unquestionably has the rights spelled out in Gagnon v. Scarpelli. They may be different from the rights available to the accused when he is called upon to plead to the original charge, but they are no less important. In both situations the rights waived afford the defendant his primary protection against an unfair deprivation of liberty. The majority seizes upon the fact that before appellant pleaded guilty she was presumably advised of the rights she waived by that plea. But it can hardly be argued from this that appellant was aware of the additional and different rights she waived when she admitted the violations of the conditions of her probation.
Curiously, the majority suggests that informing a probationer of his rights before he foregoes them will poison the relationship between the probationer and the court. It is far more likely that this simple demon*1303stration of fairness will encourage the probationer to accept the court as a just tribunal. The nondisclosure rule adopted by the majority is hardly consistent with the “openness leading, where possible, to cooperation in accomplishing the goals of probation,” that the majority properly extols. The Supreme Court rejected an argument similar to that made by the majority in applying extensive due process protections to parole revocation proceedings. See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 475, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972).
There is no basis for the majority’s concluding argument that if Boykin applies to the probation revocation hearing it must also apply “at each interview with the probation officer.” What is at stake here is the obligation to inform the probationer of the rights accorded by Gagnon v. Scarpelli. Those rights do not apply at probation interviews, and neither would the obligation to inform the probationer.
The only substantial question is whether waiver on the record should be required at all probation revocation proceedings where violations are admitted, or only selectively. Failure to inform a probationer of his rights at a revocation hearing may result in a serious injustice, see, e. g., Preston v. Piggman, 496 F.2d 270 (6th Cir. 1974), but perhaps not in every case. Clearly the appellant had notice of the charges against her, and would not have been likely to adopt a different course if she had been informed on the record of the rights she was waiving. Since the claimed violations included two readily provable convictions, her right to put the government to its proof and her right to offer evidence on her own behalf were probably not of great practical value. The Supreme Court’s holding in Gagnon v. Scarpeili, conditioning the right to counsel in a probation revocation hearing upon the need for counsel’s assistance in the circumstances of the particular case, might suggest a similar case-by-case application of the waiver requirement.
However, the result in Gagnon v. Scarpelli rested upon considerations not present here. The Court concluded that the intro-
duction of counsel might significantly alter the informal atmosphere of probation revocation proceedings and that the enormous cost of providing counsel in every such proceeding outweighed the risk that counsel would be erroneously denied if the decision were made on a case-by-case basis. 411 U.S. at 787-88, 93 S.Ct. 1756. Here the balance is quite different. A simple enumeration on the record of the rights guaranteed by Gagnon v. Scarpeili will not significantly alter the nature of the proceeding, and the time and effort required to provide the probationer with this information is minimal. For these reasons it is pointless to run the risk that an uninformed and unjustified admission of violation may occur, resulting in the interruption of a successful effort at rehabilitation and an unwarranted deprivation of probationer’s liberty.