Guidry v. United States, Misc. No. 1623.
| Decision Date | 09 March 1970 |
| Docket Number | Misc. No. 1623. |
| Citation | 317 F. Supp. 1110 |
| Parties | Claude Leon GUIDRY, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana |
Edward E. Chase, New Orleans, La., for petitioner.
George P. Hand, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., for respondent.
Petitioner pleaded guilty to a charge of violating 26 U.S.C.A. § 5054 () and was committed to the custody of the Attorney General as a youth offender, under the Youth Corrections Act, 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 5005-5026. Section 5017(c) of that Act provides that one committed under Section 5010(b), as was petitioner, "shall be released conditionally under supervision on or before the expiration of four years from the date of his conviction and shall be discharged unconditionally on or before six years from the date of his conviction." Other subsections of Section 5017 authorize conditional release of the prisoner at any time, and unconditional discharge one year following the conditional release. Guidry is currently serving this indeterminate sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Florida.
Guidry filed a motion to vacate his sentence, under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255, claiming his constitutional rights were violated because he was subjected to incarceration and penal supervision for a longer period than he could have been confined had he been sentenced to the maximum one year imprisonment prescribed for the crime to which he pleaded guilty.1 Although his court-appointed counsel presented an excellent and exhaustive brief on Guidry's behalf, the court must deny the motion to vacate the sentence.
Petitioner's principal complaint is that the indeterminate sentence provisions of the Youth Corrections Act violate his right to fair and equal treatment under the Fifth Amendment, because they apply only to an age group — 18 to 26 — that he contends was chosen arbitrarily. Because of the Act, this group alone may be incarcerated for a period longer than the maximum prescribed for the substantive offense; Guidry charges that the imposition of potentially longer confinement on an arbitrarily defined class constitutes an invidious discrimination.
Petitioner also charges that this potentially longer sentence violates due process in his case, by imposing a greater penalty than Congress had designed for the offense of which he was convicted. This loses sight of the fact that Congress passed the Youth Corrections Act as an alternative sentence, in effect, considering it more effective than orthodox penalties for some persons convicted of crimes. The legislature does not encroach upon personal rights under the Fifth Amendment when it provides for flexibility in the treatment of offenders; it is well-settled that the benefits a convict receives under the Youth Corrections Act sufficiently balance the possibility of longer confinement to justify the indeterminate sentence under the Fifth and Eighth Amendments. Cunningham v. United States, 5 Cir. 1958, 256 F.2d 467; Tatum v. United States, 1962, 114 U.S.App.D.C. 49, 310 F.2d 854; Rogers v. United States, 10 Cir. 1963, 326 F. 2d 56. Indeed the end result of that Act may be that he will so fully discharge his societal debt as to erase his conviction. In re Gault, 1967, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527, does not require a different result. Guidry was denied no procedural safeguard because of his age, and Gault does not forbid — it expressly permits — special educational and rehabilitative treatment for youthful offenders.
Petitioner's contentions that the Youth Corrections Act is an ex post facto law, and that it violates due process by imposing too much quasi-legislative discretion in the judiciary, are also without merit. In reality, the Youth Corrections Act preceded by nine years the law setting up the crime to which Guidry pleaded guilty, and preceded his commission of the crime by 18 years; in no way can it be said to have aggravated the penalty for an existing offense. The discretion granted judges to invoke the Youth Corrections Act or to sentence an eligible offender to the specific penalty attached to the offense is no greater in kind or degree than the traditional discretion of a sentencing judge; ...
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