Court Opinion

ID: 9455082
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:10:29.050484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:26.834119
License: Public Domain

ROBB, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
In my opinion the District Judge was correct in denying the appellant’s motion for release pending appeal, upon the ground that the appellant poses a danger to the community. The appellant’s history reflects a series of lawless and progressively more dangerous acts. As the District Judge noted: “During a seven-year period, the defendant was charged *1189with one truancy, one unlawful entry, one disorderly conduct, one robbery, one petit larceny, one grand larceny, one brutal assault (where he punched a woman in the face and knocked her to the ground), and one robbery which was reduced to petit larceny. To ignore this record would be to ‘blink in the face of reality.’ ”
I cannot agree that because the appellant’s offense was carnal knowledge it involved no element of violence. The appellant participated in a “gang rape”. It seems to me that violence or the threat of violence is implicit in any such offense. To me it does not seem unreasonable to conclude, as did the District Judge, that if the appellant is released his next excursion into crime may involve violence, perhaps fatal violence. Such an excursion may of course be by day, while the appellant is released pending appeal.
I suggest also that the community is entitled to be protected against the appellant even though he might limit his activity to “property offenses”.
I would deny the motion.