Court Opinion

ID: 9459398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:19:12.181216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:08.692742
License: Public Domain

MacKINNON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
In my view this case should not be remanded to consider Coefield’s eligibility for a youth sentence because Judge Robinson adjudged an adult sentence for him a little over two months before he was sentenced by Judge Green. The imposition of an adult sentence of a youth offender when such sentence amounts to a final judgment involves an implicit finding that the youth offender would not benefit from Youth Act treatment. Moreover, ten months after Judge Green sentenced appellant, Judge Robinson denied a motion specifically requesting a Youth Act sentence and this decision is final. It was not appealed. This forecloses the subsequent litigation of that issue between the parties. In addition since the statute only provides that the sentencing judge shall “find” that the youth offender will not derive benefit, this does not require a statement of “reasons.”
I
Appellant Coefield was born on December 31, 1948. On July 31, 1968 he committed two robberies, by snatching, in which he obtained a total of $45. The victims were both women. His indictment for such offenses charging robbery in violation of D.C.Code § 22-2901 was returned on September 30, 1968 (Criminal No. 1548-68).
During the time he was released from custody awaiting trial he committed a similar robbery by snatching on April 26, 1969 in which he stole $10. Again the victim was a woman. The second indictment, which was for this offense, was returned on July 29, 1969.
Appellant was tried on the first indictment by a jury before Judge Aubrey E. Robinson, Jr., found guilty on both counts and on December 16, 1969 was sentenced to serve an adult sentence of two (2) to six (6) years concurrently on each count. He appealed this conviction and made a motion for release on work release program pending appeal. In denying said motion on September 15, 1970, Judge Robinson found:
[T]his Court concludes that the defendant is a sophisticated predator and a danger to the public and would continue to be so if released. .
Coefield’s appeal to this court on the first indictment was • dismissed sua sponte on November 2, 1970 by Judges Spottswood Robinson III and Robb when counsel’s motion for leave to withdraw was granted.
Appellant was tried on the second indictment by a jury before Judge June L. Green on December 17, 1969, the day after he was sentenced on the charges of the first indictment. A guilty verdict was returned on this charge of the second indictment and Judge Green adjudged another adult sentence for him on March 3, 1970 (two months and 18 days after he was awarded an adult sentence by Judge Robinson) of imprisonment of two (2) to six (6) years, to run consecutively to the adult sentence on the first indictment.
By petition dated November 1, 1971 appellant requested that his adult sentence adjudged by Judge Robinson be modified to one under the Federal Youth Corrections Act. This motion effectively raised the issue as to his eligibility for a Youth Corrections Act sentence. The motion was denied by order on December 21, 1971. No appeal was taken from this order, so that judgment is final.
II
It thus appears that when appellant came on for sentencing before Judge *1162Green on March 3, 1970 he was already-serving an adult sentence which had been adjudged by Judge Robinson only two months and 17 days previously on December 16, 1969.1 In imposing sentence on the second indictment, apart from facing the practical impossibility of imposing a concurrent or consecutive Youth. Corrections Act sentence, Judge Green had the right to rely upon the regularity of Judge Robinson’s sentence and that regularity necessarily included a finding by Judge Robinson that appellant would “not derive benefit from treatment under [the Youth Corrections Act]” 18 U.S.C. § 5010(d). The decision by Judge Robinson to impose an adult sentence made it unnecessary for Judge Green to reconsider the appellant’s eligibility for a Youth Corrections Act sentence as that issue had been necessarily involved in Judge Robinson’s decision just two and one-half months before and Coefield is collaterally estopped from raising the issue in a subsequent action.
The doctrine of collateral estoppel is an aspect of the broader principle of res judicata; it applies to both civil and criminal proceedings, and extends to facts necessarily involved in an issue or necessarily implied by a judgment, Sealfon v. United States, 332 U.S. 575, 578, 68 S.Ct. 237, 92 L.Ed. 180 (1948), Pena-Cabanillas v. United States, 394 F.2d 785, 786 (9th Cir. 1968) as well as to facts actually decided.
If there were any doubt as to the conclusive nature of the first sentence on file issue of Coefield’s eligibility for YCA treatment, that doubt was completely removed by Judge Robinson’s order of December 21, 1971 which denied a specific motion to modify appellant’s sentence so as to impose one under the Youth Corrections Act. That same issue cannot again be raised by appellant. I thus see no necessity to discuss any of the considerations treated by the opinion of the majority.
Ill
The majority opinion imposes the requirement for the future that the sentencing court state the “reasons” upon which it may base its finding
that the youth offender will not derive benefit from treatment under [the Youth Corrections Act] ....
18 U.S.C. § 5010(d).
The Youth Corrections Act, however, only requires that
[T]he court shall find that the youth offender will not derive benefit from [youth] treatment under subsection (b) or (c) .
18 U.S.C. § 5010(d) (Emphasis added.)
“Reasons differ from findings in that reasons relate to law, policy, and discretion rather than facts.” 2 K. Davis, Administrative Law § 16.12 (1958). The opinion of the majority in requiring “reasons” thus imposes a requirement not imposed by Congress and goes even *1163further than the Supreme Court went in S.E.C. v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 95, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943), where it refused to enforce “formal requirements” upon an administrative agency. And courts have always been permitted wider latitude in this respect than administrative agencies.2 I thus see no justification for placing our trial courts in an administrative straight jacket on sentencing youth offenders, which incidentally involves a subject over which we have very little control. It is accordingly my conclusion that the majority opinion in this respect exceeds our authority.
IV
I also dissent specifically from the statement at page 1155, supra, that:
The fact that Coefield was already serving an adult sentence not imposed under the Act, does not establish by implication the requisite finding.
This fails to give adequate consideration to the prior judgment and completely overlooks the effect of the contemporaneous sentence and judgment on the issue of “no benefit.” Judge Green’s trial began the day after Coefield was sentenced on the first offense and she was not ignorant of his sentence thereon. She confirmed her awareness of his prior sentence by fashioning her sentence to run consecutively to the prior sentence. The prior sentence was also referred to by counsel at the time of allocution. While a sentence which was adjudged long after a prior adult sentence, for some purposes, might not be controlled by an implicit “no benefit” finding in a prior offense because of changed circumstances, such is not this case. The two sentences here were practically contemporaneous, with no material intervening circumstance, except that appellant was convicted upon a second indictment which charged his third offense. This additional conviction was not a factor likely to cause any fair-minded judge to impose more lenient punishment.
In addition, I would refrain from relying upon the claimed conduct of appellant while serving his sentence in prison as a basis of our interfering in the sentencing function of the trial court. We are in no position to evaluate a prisoner’s conduct in prison. We have no jurisdiction to impose our judgment or philosophy as to sentences. Such matters are for the trial court and the Parole Board and the facts necessary to such a determination are not a proper part of this record on appeal. It is improper for the majority opinion to rely upon the sketchy facts here presented.
' In conclusion, I repeat that I see no reason to remand this case to the trial court to consider the eligibility of this appellant for a Youth Corrections Act sentence when appellant was given an adult sentence by another court shortly, before the instant sentence and when the identical issue as to whether appellant was entitled to an adult sentence was raised on motion in the first case *1164and determined adversely to appellant by Judge Aubrey E. Robinson, Jr. shortly after appellant’s sentence by Judge Green.3

. It should also be noted that the sentence adjudged by Judge Robinson of two to six years would mean that appellant would be 22 years, 11 months and 16 days of age before he would have served the minimum portion of his sentence on the charges of the first indictment. An offender to be eligible for sentencing under the Youth Corrections Act must be under the age of 22 years at the time of conviction, 18 U.S.C. § 5006(e). The obvious intent of this provision was to place a top ceiling on the age when an offender could enter the youth correction treatment program. Appellant here could not enter the program on his second sentence at a minimum until he was 15 days short of his 23rd birthday and he might be considerably older before he would have fully served his sentence. Thus, while he would satisfy the literal requirements of the statute that he be under 22 at the time of conviction he would not satisfy the real objective that Congress had in mind when it imposed the 22 year age limitation, i. e., that the youth offender not be above 22 when he starts serving his Youth Act sentence.

. Since most courts, including the Supreme Court, often decide cases without opinions, administrative opinions can hardly be a requirement of due process of law. The Court of Claims once asserted that the requirement of written opinions is a “cardinal principle of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence.” Of this dictum Professor Radin has written that “the word ‘cardinal,’ the word ‘principle’ and the word ‘Anglo-Saxon’ are somewhat excessive.” Professor Radin points out that courts in California, Arkansas, and Montana have held statutory requirements of written judicial opinions to be unconstitutional, and courts in eight states have interpreted such requirements to be directory and not mandatory. For compelling unwilling agencies to prepare opinions, due process is a much less promising weapon than section 8(b) of the Administrative Procedure Act which, for determinations required by statute to be made on the record after opportunity for agency hearing, requires not only findings and conclusions but also a statement of “the reasons or basis therefor . . . . ”
2 K. Davis, Administrative Law § 16.13 (1958).

. It conceivably may be argued from the reference to Fed.R.Crim.P. 35 in Judge Robinson’s denial of the motion to impose a youth sentence, that the trial court merely did not consider Coefield to have been “illegally sentenced,” and still did not consider the YCA. But this argument refuses to recognize the even more obvious implication that in the denial by the trial court of Coefield’s specific motion to sentence him under the Youth Corrections Act, the court found that Coefield was not eligible under the statute for YCA treatment, because if he had been eligible, the court was required to sentence him under the YCA. I would conclude from Judge Robinson’s citation of Fed.R.Crim. P. 35 that he considered “an illegal sentence” was not involved because he had properly considered Coefield’s eligibility for Youth Corrections Act treatment.