Court Opinion

ID: 9473446
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:30:13.84426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:32.259528
License: Public Domain

FARRIS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s definition of “substantial question” as one that is merely “fairly doubtful” or “fairly debatable.” I would instead adopt the Eleventh Circuit’s statement that a “substantial question” is “a ‘close’ question or one that very well could be decided the other way.” United States v. Giancola, 754 F.2d 898, 901 (11th Cir.1985).
When Congress enacted the District of Columbia Code provision on which the 1984 Bail Reform Act was later modeled, Congress intended release on bail pending appeal to be limited to “exceptional circumstances.” H.R.Rep. No. 907, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 186 (1970), quoted in United States v. Miller, 753 F.2d 19, 22 (3d Cir. 1985). This presumption against bail pending appeal was based on the fact that 1) the defendant’s conviction “is presumably correct in law”; 2) the sentencing judge has already made a determination that the defendant is dangerous to the person or property of others; 3) release after a conviction “destroys whatever deterrent effect remains in the criminal law”; and 4) release pending appeal was not meant to be used as an opportunity to demonstrate a basis for reducing a sentence after the conviction has been affirmed. H.R.Rep. No. 907 at 186-87. A “close question” standard would further the presumption against bail and restrict bail pending appeal to the extent Congress intended.
The cases cited by the majority in support of its definition of “substantial question” are inapplicable because they rely on a presumption in favor of bail — “the presumption that the [Senate Judiciary] Committee wishe[d] to eliminate in section 3143.” S.Rep. No. 225, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. at 26 (1983), reprinted in 1984 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad.News 3182, 3209. For example, the majority quotes extensively from D’Aquino v. United States, 180 F.2d 271 (9th Cir.1950) (Douglas, Circuit Justice), and borrows from it the definition of a “substantial question” as one that is “fairly debatable.” But D’Aquino proceeds from the premise that “[i]t has long been a principle of federal law that bail after conviction and pending appeal is a remedy normally available to a prisoner.” Id. at 272. That view is now invalid in light of Congress’ stated intent that bail pending appeal should be available only under “exceptional circumstances,” and that there is a “presumption of detention” pending appeal. Because D ’Aquino relies on an obsolete presumption against detention in reaching its conclusion that a “substantial question” is one that is “plainly not frivolous,” id., and Congress has clearly indicated its intention that the new standard is to be higher than “nonfrivolous,” it is inappropriate to rely on D Aquino to interpret the 1984 Bail Reform Act. Similarly, the majority’s reliance on Herzog v. United States, 75 S.Ct. 349, 99 L.Ed. 1299 (1955) (Douglas, Circuit Justice), is misplaced because Herzog was based on the premise that “[djoubts whether [bail pending appeal] should be granted or denied should always be resolved in favor of the defendant.” Id. at 351.
*1285Finally, while the majority places reliance on the more recent formulation of “substantial question” set out in Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 3394, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983), that case and the authority it in turn relied on were decided in the context of a habeas proceeding, where “doubts should be resolved in favor of the petitioner.” Gordon v. Willis, 516 F.Supp. 911, 912 (N.D.Ga.1980), cited in Barefoot, 103 S.Ct. at 3394 n. 4. Again, the presumption in the cases on which the majority relies — including Gardner v. Pogue, 558 F.2d 548 (9th Cir.1977) — is exactly the opposite under the 1984 Bail Reform Act.
The majority notes that prior to 1956, “substantial question” was defined as “fairly debatable” or “fairly doubtful.” The term “substantial question” was dropped when the statutory standard for bail was eased in 1966, but the term reemerged in 1984. The majority’s argument turns on the crucial inference that when Congress re-employed the term “substantial question” in 1984, it also intended to reintroduce the pre-1956 interpretations of that term.
This would be an entirely reasonable reading of legislative intent, if it were not for the fact that the 1984 Act was undis-putably intended to place sharp restrictions on the availability of bail pending appeal. To adopt wholesale the pre-1956 interpretations of substantial question as “fairly debatable” would thwart Congress’ manifest intention to restrict bail.
The majority addresses this objection by arguing that Congress was able to restrict the availability of bail through other measures in the Act — by adding the requirement that a question be of a type “likely to result in reversal,” and shifting the burden of proof to the defendant — and that these measures alone were sufficient to accomplish Congress’ basic purpose of tightening the availability of bail. However, questions raised on appeal nearly always are of a type “likely to result in reversal.” Therefore, the only hurdle that a defendant must realistically overcome is to carry his burden of showing that a “fairly debatable” question exists. This hurdle, in my opinion, would not restrict bail pending appeal to “exceptional circumstances” as Congress intended. See H.R.Rep. No. 907, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 186 (1970).
I therefore would adopt the approach of the Eleventh Circuit, which not only recognizes that a “ ‘substantial question’ is one of more substance than would be necessary to a finding that it was not frivolous,” Giancola, 754 F.2d at 901, but must further be “a ‘close’ question or one that very well could be decided the other way.” Id. Accordingly, I would not affirm the district court’s use of a “fairly debatable” standard, but would reverse and remand to permit the district court to determine whether Handy has presented a “close” question. The district court could then grant or deny bail accordingly.