Court Opinion

ID: 9464402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:31:59.742594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:36.110449
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Chief Judge
dissenting, in which ROBINSON, Circuit Judge joins:
Having decided that Dorszynski will not be applied retroactively to collateral attacks on sentences and that the pre-Coefield requirement of either an express or implied finding of “no benefit” applies to this case — views which I share — the majority affirms Brackett’s sentence because it concludes that the sentencing judge here made the necessary implied finding. On this record, I find neither an express nor implied finding of “no benefit,” and thus conclude that under either a pre- or post-Dorszynski standard the sentencing judge failed to give the required degree of attention to the possibility of a Youth Corrections Act sentence.
Before pronouncing sentence on Brackett and his codefendant, the district judge asked counsel for their comments. Brack-ett’s attorney stressed his client’s youth and urged YCA sentencing; his codefendant’s attorney argued that his client’s youth, low intelligence, and lesser role in the crime supported leniency and YCA sentencing. The court then expressed its views:
The fact that these defendants are young is not a mitigating circumstance so far as their crime is concerned. They are really murderers. They were allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter, but their acts could have been held by the jury to constitute murder. They were prisoners in the National Training School for Boys, having been committed under the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act for stealing automobiles. Each of them has a bad record before this present commitment. They were in a dormitory with 80 other prisoners. There was only one guard during the night. He sat inside, immediately inside the dormitory, at a desk. The door of the dormitory was locked.
These two defendants, in conjunction with the third defendant, Jankowski, plotted to overpower the officer, get the keys from him and make an escape during the night. Brackett, although he is the youngest of the three, was the ring leader and he is apparently the most vicious of the three.
By a prearranged signal they got out of their beds and walked to the desk and Brackett grabbed a big heavy brass lamp and began to beat the guard over the head with that lamp and, in addition to that, used a big broom. McCracken, according to the evidence, participated in the beating by hitting the guard with his fist. The guard was screaming and pleading for help but Brackett, particularly, did not let up the beating.
The guard was eventually found on the floor in a pool of blood. He was in a coma for a week and a three weeks later he died of this attack.
Now, obviously this is not a case for the Youth Corrections Act, both because of the nature of the offense and the nature of the prior records of these defendants. The Court is more interested in the fate that befell the guard than it is in the future of these two boys.
Now, if they have a spark of humanity — and every human being has; some have a greater spark and some a lesser, but everyone has — they will lie awake many a night in a feeling of remorse for what they have done, and if they have *509any spark of humanity they will spend many an hour on their knees praying to God and imploring God to forgive them.
Now, Brackett has shown vicious tendencies. In addition to plotting the escape plan involved in this case, after he pleaded guilty he tried to escape from the Marshal’s van. He needs incarceration in a maximum security institution. (Emphasis added.)
The court then gave Brackett the maximum adult sentence of five to fifteen years, with recommended commitment in a maximum security facility. Appellant was fifteen years old at the time.
I do not find in the sentencing judge’s statement any conclusion, express or implied, that appellant would fail to benefit from Youth Corrections Act sentencing. The judge obviously was aware of this option, but his comments demonstrate that he ruled it out without regard to Brackett’s rehabilitative potential under Youth Act treatment. He focused instead on the viciousness of the crime, frankly admitting that he was more concerned with the violence done to the victim than with the reformation of the defendants.1
Under either a pre- or post-Dorszynski standard, a judge must do more than indicate awareness that the Youth Corrections Act option exists. He must express his decision “that the youth offender would not derive benefit from treatment under the Act.” Dorszynski, supra, at 444, 94 S.Ct. at 3053. Section 5010(d) of the Act requires that a judge make this finding before resorting to an adult sentence because Congress believed that the Youth Corrections Act program would be likely to “provide a better method for treating young offenders convicted in federal courts in that vulnerable age bracket, to rehabilitate them and restore normal behavior patterns.” Dorsz-ynski, supra, at 433, 94 S.Ct. at 3048.
The majority’s effort to recast the judge’s discourse in our pre-Coefield doctrinal mold falls considerably wide of the mark. The most the majority can say is that some of his remarks are “supportive of [a no-benefit] implication” and that others, which concededly “argue for a different interpretation,” assertedly are not “inconsistent with a non-benefit conclusion.” Majority op. at--of 185 U.S.App.D.C., at 504 of 567 F.2d n.2. Even assuming ar-guendo the validity of this analysis, however, it hardly bears out the thesis that the sentencing judge made an implied no-benefit finding within Section 5010(d) as construed in Waters and Ward. It does not suffice to merely wring some intimation of no-benefit from what the sentencing judge said; at the very least, the question in terms of those decisions is whether the implication is plain and unambiguous. In each of those cases, particular observations viewed in isolation indicated that no benefit from Youth Act treatment was expectable, but there were other observations casting doubt on that reading. United States v. Waters, 141 U.S.App.D.C. 289, 291-292, 437 F.2d 722, 725-726 (1970); United States v. Ward, 147 U.S.App.D.C. 149, 150-151, 152, 454 F.2d 992, 993-994, 995 (1971). See also Dorszynski, supra, 418 U.S. at 443-444, 94 S.Ct. 3042. In concluding that Section 5010(d) did not tolerate that sort of fuzziness, we held in effect that imprecise expressions could do service as implied no-benefit findings only when the message was clear.
Although the Supreme Court has held that a judge need not give reasons for his *510finding of “no benefit,”2 no one has yet suggested that a judge may impose an adult sentence for reasons other than the defendant’s incapacity to be helped by Youth Act treatment. Because the sentencing judge’s comments unmistakably show reliance on such impermissible reasons, I would reverse and remand to the District Court for determination of whether Brackett might have benefited from Youth Act treatment at the time of his original sentencing.3

. The Youth Corrections Act does not exclude categories of youthful offenders from its coverage, neither those with long records nor perpetrators of vicious offenses nor murderers. These factors may be relevant to the determination of whether a youth will benefit from Youth Corrections Act treatment — either pro or con — but they cannot be relied on as rigid indicators. As the Second Circuit has stated, the sentencing judge should make “a careful appraisal of the variable components relevant to the sentence upon an individual basis” rather than employing “a fixed and mechanical approach in imposing sentence.” United States v. Schwarz, 500 F.2d 1350, 1352 (1974) (district judge’s statements required vacation of adult sentence because they were susceptible to the interpretation that only ghetto youths are eligible for YCA treatment). See also Dorszynski v. United States, 418 U.S. at 450, 94 S.Ct. 3042 (Marshall, J., concurring).

. Dorszynski v. United States, 418 U.S. 424, 441-42, 94 S.Ct. 3042, 41 L.Ed.2d 855 (1974).

. If Brackett were found suitable for YCA treatment, he should be released from federal supervision stemming from this conviction because the YCA requires that a youth sentenced thereunder be discharged no later than “the expiration of the maximum sentence imposed, computed uninterruptedly from the date of conviction.” 18 U.S.C. § 5017(d). See majority op. at-of 185 U.S.App.D.C., at 504-505 of 567 F.2d. Compare Dorszynski, 418 U.S. at 429 n.6, 94 S.Ct. 3042.