Gonzalez v. United States

• Decision Date: 30 September 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-859.,No. 84-1809.,No. 84-1521.,84-859.,84-1521.,84-1809.
• Citation: 498 A.2d 1172
• Parties: Carlos J. GONZALEZ, James H. Neal, and William C. Wright, Appellants, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

498 A.2d 1172

Carlos J. GONZALEZ, James H. Neal, and William C. Wright, Appellants, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 84-859.

No. 84-1521.

No. 84-1809.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued June 26, 1985.

Decided September 30, 1985.

Mark Rochon, Public Defender Service, with whom James Klein, Randy Hertz, and Mark Carlin, Public Defender Service, Washington, D.C., were on the briefs, for appellants.

Debra N. Diener, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., with whom Joseph E. diGenova, U.S. Atty., and Michael W. Farrell, Robert L. Bredhoff, and Mark H. Dubester, Asst. U.S. Attys., Washington, D.C., were on the briefs, for appellee.

Before PRYOR, Chief Judge, and NEWMAN and ROGERS, Associate Judges.

PRYOR, Chief Judge:

The sole issue presented in these consolidated appeals is whether D.C. Code § 24-465(b) (1981), which sets out a penalty for a work release prisoner's "failure to return" to his designated place of confinement, is the exclusive penalty for such a violation by a misdemeanant sentenced to work release under the District of Columbia Work Release Act, D.C. Code §§ 24-465 et seq. (1981) (hereinafter the Work Release Act or Act). We hold that § 24-465(b) does not establish the exclusive penalty for a work release misdemeanant's failure to return to a correctional facility, and that such a violation is also subject to prosecution under the general prison break statute, D.C. Code § 22-2601 (1981).

I

The facts underlying each of these appeals are similar. In unrelated cases, Carlos J. Gonzalez, James H. Neal, and William C. Wright were each convicted of one or more misdemeanor offenses. Thereafter, Gonzalez and Neal were each sentenced by the respective trial judges to six months of work release; Wright received a sentence of one year of work release. Pursuant to their work release plans, appellants were each placed in a Community Correctional Center (hereinafter halfway house) and hours were established in which they were permitted to leave the institution in order to work at a place of employment. At some point following commencement of their individual sentences, Gonzalez, Neal, and Wright each failed to return to their designated halfway houses at the stipulated curfew. Each was subsequently arrested and charged with prison break pursuant to § 22-2601. Gonzalez pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to one to three years imprisonment. Neal also pleaded guilty and was placed on probation on the condition that he enroll in the Second Genesis drug rehabilitation program. After Neal absconded from the Second Genesis program, the trial court revoked Neal's probation and imposed a sentence of 17 to 51 months imprisonment. Wright was found guilty of prison break at a stipulated trial and was sentenced to one to three years imprisonment.

Following sentencing, all three appellants filed motions to vacate their respective sentences; Gonzalez and Neal also sought, in the alternative, permission to withdraw their pleas. Each of the three argued that they had been prosecuted under the wrong statute and that, as misdemeanants sentenced to work release, they were subject to punishment solely under the less severe penalties contained in § 24-465(b) of the Work Release Act,¹ which establishes a maximum punishment of ninety days, or a $300 fine, for the offense of failure to return. The motions were all denied, and appellants now appeal the denial of those motions. Because we find that appellants were subject to prosecution under § 22-2601, we affirm their convictions.

II

A.

In effect, appellants contend that the penalties set out in § 22-2601 do not apply to their conduct. Therefore, we must determine whether or not a misdemeanant's failure to return to a halfway house is prosecutable under the provisions of § 22-2601.

We begin our analysis with the plain language of § 22-2601. See Peoples Drug Stores v. District of Columbia, 470 A.2d 751, 753 (D.C.1983) (en banc); Davis v. United States, 397 A.2d 951, 956 (D.C. 1979). The language of the prison break statute provides as follows:

Any person committed to a penal institution of the District of Columbia who escapes or attempts to escape therefrom, or from the custody of any officer thereof or any other officer or employee of the District of Columbia, or any person who procures, advises, connives at, aids, or assists in such escape, or conceals any such prisoner after such escape, shall be guilty of an offense and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 5 years, said sentence to begin, if the convicted person be an escaped prisoner, upon the expiration of the original sentence.

D.C. Code § 22-2601 (1981). Previous decisions by this court have interpreted the language contained in § 22-2601, and have determined that, for purposes of this section, the act of failing to return to a halfway house constitutes an "escape," and a halfway house constitutes a "penal institution." E.g., Mundine v. United States, 431 A.2d 16, 17 (D.C.1981); Days v. United States, 407 A.2d 702, 704 (D.C.1979); United States v. Venable, 316 A.2d 857, 858 (D.C.1974) (per curiam); Armstead v. United States, 310 A.2d 255, 256 (D.C.1973).

For example, in Armstead, the court found that a prisoner, who had been placed in a halfway house on work release through an administrative error, was guilty of escape under § 22-2601, when he left his halfway house and failed to return. Similarly, in Venable and in Days, the court found that felons who failed to return to their halfway houses after either an authorized or non-authorized departure committed an escape within the meaning of § 22-2601. Thus, our prior decisions support the government's position that § 22-2601 applies to appellants' conduct.

Conceding that the prison break statute if interpreted literally applies to their actions, appellants argue that they were improperly prosecuted because § 24-465(b) is the exclusive penalty provision applicable to misdemeanants who "escape" from work release programs.² They distinguish our previous decisions on the ground that those decisions involved felons placed in work release programs. The Work Release Act, they point out, was only meant to apply to misdemeanants. Appellants contend that the Work Release Act must be viewed as a "self-contained and complete expression" of the parameters of the work release program, and accordingly, where a misdemeanant is sentenced by the trial court to work release pursuant to the Act, only the Act itself can provide the penalty for a violation. According to appellants, the inclusion of a specific penalty provision in the Act itself evinces congressional intent to make § 24-465(b) the sole penalty for those sentenced under the Act. Disagreeing, the government argues that nothing in either the legislative history or the language of the Act manifests a clear legislative intent to make § 24-465(b) the exclusive penalty for the violations at issue.

We are mindful that when faced with a statutory problem such as this one we have a duty "to make `every effort' to reconcile allegedly conflicting statutes and to give effect to the language and intent of both." District of Columbia v. Smith, 329 A.2d 128, 130 (D.C.1974). Of course, as a first step we must determine whether there exists any actual conflict between the two statutes.

Here, there is no conflict on the face of the statutes in question. These statutes, if read literally, merely provide alternative means of prosecuting escape from a penal institution — which includes a halfway house. Section 22-2601 contains no exceptions making its terms inapplicable to escapes by individuals sentenced under the Work Release Act. Significantly, § 22-2601, which was initially enacted in 1932, was amended by Congress twice following the passage of the Work Release Act, and neither amendment changed the language of the statute to reflect an exception for work release participants. See ch. 254, § 6(a), 54 Stat. 243 (1970); Pub.L. No. 91-358, § 157(b), 84 Stat. 574 (1973). Similarly, nowhere in § 24-465(b) is there language to the effect that the section's provisions constitute the exclusive penalties for violations committed by misdemeanants pursuant to the Act, or that the prison break statute does not operate with to a failure to return to a halfway house. Nor is there any apparent conflict in the respective procedures set out by the two statutes.³ In short, having examined language and provisions of the two we find nothing which prevents from coexisting as alternative punishment for escape. Accordingly, we proceed to examine the legislative history of § 24-465(b) to determine whether there is indication that Congress intended that provision to constitute the exclusive penalty under facts such as these, i.e., whether 24-465(b), was meant to limit the applicability of § 22-2601.

B.

Congress enacted the District of Columbia Work Release Act in 1966. Pub.L. No. 89-803, 80 Stat. 1519 (1966). The Act authorized the establishment of a work release program under which selected persons convicted of misdemeanors and other minor offenses could, in the discretion of the sentencing judge, be granted work release, "when the sentencing judge is satisfied that the ends of justice and best interests of society as well as the prisoner will be subserved thereby." H.R.REP. No. 2250, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 3, 7 (1966); see also Armstead v. United States, supra, 310 A.2d at 257. The apparent objective of the legislation was to allow trustworthy prisoners to go into the community each day so that they could work at gainful employment, contribute to the financial support of their families, and maintain their occupational skills. H.R.REP. No. 2250, supra, at 2. Notwithstanding emphasis in the Act on rehabilitation, Congress clearly viewed the halfway houses, in which work release prisoners would reside, as places of "incarceration." Such incarceration was deemed important lest the prisoner "go entirely...