Court Opinion

ID: 9456895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:05:11.403212+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:08.101269
License: Public Domain

ROBB, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I am unable to agree with the decision of the majority.
The decision adds a new complication to the intricate machinery of criminal procedure: a sentencing judge must in each case explain and justify his refusal to disclose the presentenee report to a defendant. If his explanation is more than perfunctory it will inevitably become the subject of controversy and no doubt will be scrutinized on appeal. Furthermore, anything beyond a routine formal statement will at least partially disclose the contents of the confidential report. I think the wide discretion granted to the district court by Rule 32(c) (2) ought not to be trammeled in a way that will have such results.
In my opinion the ruling of the majority is especially inappropriate in the circumstances of this case. At the time he first sentenced Bryant the district judge announced that he would explain the reason for the sentence so that “the defendant will understand why the Court is imposing the sentence that it has determined is called for in this case”. The judge then noted that the defendant had been convicted of three separate bank robberies and that in at least two of these cases he was armed with and threatened to use a pistol. The judge emphasized that in his opinion the deterrent effect of the sentence on others was an important factor for the court to consider. These reasons, which were the only ones mentioned by the judge, were based upon the evidence at trial, and had nothing whatever to do with the contents of the presentence report. I think we should take the district judge at his word, and should not assume that inspection of the presentence report by the defendant might have produced a different result.