Court Opinion

ID: 9496489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:27:58.278326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:36.630269
License: Public Domain

GOULD, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part:
I agree with the majority that C.K.’s detention is reviewed for abuse of discretion, United States v. Juvenile, 38 F.3d 470, 472 (9th Cir.1994), but I disagree with the majority’s application of that standard. I conclude that resentencing is necessary only because the record does not adequately show justification for confinement of C.K. so far from C.K’s home in Huron, South Dakota or in Santa Fe, New Mexico. If there were specific and valid reasons, as there may be, for the district court’s decision on place of confinement, then the specified recommendation to the Bureau of Prisons of these locations might be warranted; but absent such reasons, in my view C.K.’s detention in the places specified does not comport with 18 U.S.C. § 5039. On the other hand,, contrary to the majority’s view, I conclude that it was well within the district-court’s customary province and sound exercise of discretion to conclude that C.K. required detention until the age of 21. Accordingly I respectfully dissent from majority’s opinion on that ground. I also regret that I cannot join the majority’s discussion of sentencing principles, because the majority has understated the risk to the public posed by C.K. *791and the scope of the district court’s legitimate discretion to address that risk.
Under the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act (“FJDA”), the maximum term for which a juvenile under the age of eighteen may be officially detained is the lesser of the date of the juvenile’s twenty-first birthday and the maximum term “that would have been authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult.” 18 U.S.C. § 5037(c); United States v. G.L., 143 F.3d 1249, 1251 (9th Cir.1998). The latter limit is determined with reference to the Sentencing Guidelines, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b). United States v. R.L.C., 503 U.S. 291, 306, 112 S.Ct. 1329, 117 L.Ed.2d 559 (1992).1 Here, the applicable guideline range, if C.K. had been tried as an adult, was 78 to 97 months. C.K. was sentenced to official detention for 81 months, until C.K.’s 21st birthday, which is within the range specified by statute.
The district court did not abuse its discretion in regard to the scope of confinement. Rehabilitative measures should be considered when sentencing a juvenile. 18 U.S.C. § 5039; R.L.G., 503 U.S. at 298 n. 2,112 S.Ct. 1329 (“the Juvenile Delinquency Act does not completely reject rehabilitative objectives”). Here, the district court considered and provided for C.K.’s rehabilitative needs by recommending that he receive treatment. The majority mistakenly assumes that, because the district court recommended a minimum of 18 months of rehabilitation, C.K. would serve the remainder of C.K.’s detention without rehabilitative treatment. This assumption does not follow from the district court’s order, nor from the FJDA. See 18 U.S.C. § 5039 (“Every juvenile who has been committed shall be provided with ... counseling, education, training, and medical care including necessary psychiatric, psychological, or other care and treatment.”).
The district court carefully reviewed C.K’s record and found that official detention was warranted by virtue of the seriousness of the offense that C.K. admitted to committing, the history of prior offenses by C.K. of the same type beyond the charge admitted, and C.K’s poor response to rehabilitative treatment. The district court also found that C.K. was at serious risk of returning to C.K.’s prior behavior. The district court’s ruling on confinement took into account the best interests of both C.K. and the public.
C.K.’s interests were best served because, as sentenced, C.K. would be in a structured environment in which treatment was possible. The interests of the public were best served because, as sentenced, C.K. would not pose a likely threat to other children while a minor. There is no question but that abuse of C.K. by others when he was a young child may have contributed to C.K. becoming, in turn, a repeat abuser of younger children. The majority’s approach to this is to give him a pass at an earlier age, but this approach ignores that C.K.’s predatory abuse of other children, if not restrained, can continue a cycle of abuse and corruption of youth. The district court’s concern for the public’s interest was not precluded by the FJDA, but rather encouraged by it. The district court did not abuse its discretion by requiring official detention for C.K., nor by the length of the detention, given the risk that C.K. posed to the community by committing further sexual abuse.
Despite my conclusion that, in general, the district court did not abuse its discre*792tion, the recommendation that C.K. receive rehabilitation in either Huron, South Dakota or Santa Fe, New Mexico appears on the record before us to be an abuse of discretion. Huron is nearly 850 miles (at least a 16-hour drive) away from C.K’s family in Hays, Montana. Santa Fe is, of course, even further away. This recommendation by the district judge was given without explanation or justification. Absent very good reasons for confinement at such a distance from C.K’s home, C.K.’s confinement in the locations specified would be contrary to the presumption that it is generally beneficial for all to maintain the juvenile in close proximity with his or her family and home community. See 18 U.S.C. § 5039 (“Whenever possible, the Attorney General shall commit a juvenile to a foster home or community-based facility located in or near his home community.”). In light of this provision for a juvenile’s confinement proximate to family whenever possible, I would interpret the FJDA to require that the district court must provide very good reasons to justify recommending or ordering that a juvenile be detained so far from his or her home and community. The district court did not provide such justification. I would vacate the sentence to permit the district court to reassess this part of the sentence and to explain the grounds for decision. I agree that a resentencing is needed, but only on this narrow ground.2

. The Guidelines set the maximum term of official detainment. R.L.C., 503 U.S. at 306, 112 S.Ct. 1329. The sentencing court must determine the appropriate sentencing range. Id.

. If, on remand, the district court adequately justifies why C.K. should be located so far away from C.K.’s home or orders C.K.'s detention to be served in the rehabilitation facility nearest to Hays, Montana, then I would hold that the sentence is within the district court’s discretion.