Saunders v. United States

• Decision Date: 23 April 1986
• Docket Number: No. 84-1531.,84-1531.
• Citation: 508 A.2d 92
• Parties: Patrick W. SAUNDERS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

508 A.2d 92

Patrick W. SAUNDERS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 84-1531.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued January 28, 1986.

Decided April 23, 1986.

Stuart Fisk Johnson, Washington, D.C., appointed by the court, for appellant.

Daniel S. Seikaly, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Joseph E. diGenova, U.S. Atty., Michael W. Farrell, Judith Hetherton, and Kenneth W. Cowgill, Asst. U.S. Attys., Washington, D.C., were on brief, for appellee.

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

PER CURIAM:

Following a probation revocation hearing, the trial court revoked appellant's probation and executed a sentence of five to fifteen years imprisonment. On appeal, appellant contends that the trial court's decision revoking his probation was not supported by substantial evidence, and thus was an abuse of discretion, and that the trial court's failure to execute a written statement containing evidentiary findings and reasoned conclusions of law was a violation of appellant's due process rights. We affirm.

I

In 1982, a jury convicted appellant of armed robbery.¹ Thereafter, Judge Shuker, the presiding trial judge, sentenced appellant to five to fifteen years imprisonment, but stayed execution of the sentence and placed appellant on a three-year period of probation. The main condition of his probation was that appellant complete all phases of the Second Genesis drug treatment program.²

Appellant entered the Second Genesis program on September 23, 1982. On June 18, 1984, however, the Second Genesis staff terminated appellant's participation in the program because appellant failed to comply with the program's rules. As a result, on September 24, 1984, Judge Shuker issued a written order to show cause why appellant's probation should not be revoked.³

A probation revocation hearing was held before Judge Shuker in October 1984. Three witnesses testified at the hearing: Hardy Bennett, Senior Program Therapist for Second Genesis; Edward Flowers, Assistant Regional Director of Second Genesis and Director of the D.C. Treatment Facility; and appellant.

Mr. Bennett testified that Second Genesis decided to terminate appellant from the program because of appellant's pattern of irresponsible behavior over approximately a twenty-one month period. He recounted a number of specific incidents, occurring between August 1983 and June 1984, which illustrated appellant's failure to comply with Second Genesis' rules. According to Mr. Bennett, appellant's violations of the rules included: (1) agreeing, without permission from the Second Genesis staff, to part company from a co-resident, who had been deliberately assigned to accompany appellant during a visit home, to "serve as [appellant's] strength in the community;" (2) having contact with, and taking the phone number of, a former Second Genesis resident who had absconded from the program, even though such contact directly violated Second Genesis' rule that once a person leaves the Second Genesis program unsuccessfully, a resident currently in treatment may not communicate with the former resident; (3) leaving Second Genesis premises with one of the program's vehicles on a specific errand that required approximately one hour to complete, and failing to return for over twelve hours; (4) failing to pay his rent in the amount of ten dollars per week even though he was financially able to do so; (5) operating his girlfriend's car in the community even though he did not have a driver's license; and (6) going to the vicinity of 9th Street and Florida Avenue, N.W., when he should have been at work, in contravention of the program's regulations prohibiting residents from going to that area because it is a high drug area.

Mr. Flowers' testimony corroborated Mr. Bennett's statements describing appellant's conduct. In addition, Mr. Flowers emphasized that either he or another staff member had thoroughly explained to appellant the rules and regulations which appellant later violated. Mr. Flowers testified that on a number of occasions he had attempted to discuss with appellant the problems with appellant's conduct. Moreover, appellant had previously been disciplined within the program both for specific violations of the rules and for "a combination of attitude and behavior, [and] a lack of motivation."

Appellant testified in his own defense. With respect to his alleged violations,⁴ appellant explained that his contact with the former Second Genesis resident occurred accidentally, when the two unexpectedly met in D.C. General Hospital. He also admitted that he had used "bad judgment" in failing to return the program's van in a timely fashion. In addition, the defense introduced evidence that appellant had participated in "couple's therapy" with his girlfriend, had successfully worked his way through certain phases of the Second Genesis program, and had had regular urine analyses which all tested negative for drug use.

At the conclusion of the hearing, and after arguments from counsel, Judge Shuker made the following statement setting out the evidentiary basis for his ruling and the rationale underlying his decision:

Notwithstanding his conviction of a very, very, very serious crime, one that was life threatening and outrageous, I bought an argument that I should put Mr. Saunders on probation. Not something that I do lightly in an armed robbery case, not something I've done often. In fact, Mr. Saunders is only one of . . . five people I've risked probation with under those circumstances. And I did it in spite of the fact that he had a drug history in New York before his conviction in this case. And I did it for only one reason, and that was because he was going into the best rehabilitation program for people using narcotics that I know of in the whole world. And I did it because I know the conditions of that program were very tough, and I told Mr. Saunders about that up front. And I told him that was the only reason I was keeping him in the community now that he was, by history, an armed robber. But I told him that it was tough, and that the only way that he could stay on probation was to keep all of the rules and successfully complete the 2nd Genesis program.

2nd Genesis has terminated him. The . . . issue [is] . . . whether they did so arbitrarily and capriciously. From the testimony that I've heard, and primarily from Mr. Flowers, I am . . . persuaded that they did not do so arbitrarily and capriciously, that they made a very wise and reasoned judgment over a period of time. That an escalation in incidents from August of '83, at least, up until this past early summer of violations of their rules led them to believe that Mr. Saunders was not successful within the program and that he should not be continued within their treatment mode. The evidence is clear that he did violate at least on four occasions,[⁵] rules of the organization, and that he either knew or should have known that he was violating them, and that certainly as a reasonable person he should have been able to perceive that repeated violations of the rules of the organization could lead to his termination, and it has.

Since he did not keep . . . the most fundamental condition or the second most fundamental condition of his probation, successful completion of the program . . . he is in violation of the conditions of his probation and that probation is revoked.

As I promised, Mr. Saunders, at the time that I tried this experiment in this serious case, if he couldn't keep the conditions of his probation, the sentence would be five to fifteen years in jail. And that sentence shall be executed.

II

The decision whether to revoke probation is committed to the sound discretion of the trial court and typically involves a two step analysis: "(1) a retrospective factual question whether the probationer has violated a condition of probation; and (2) a discretionary determination by the sentencing authority whether violation of a condition warrants revocation of probation." Black v. Romano, ___ U.S. ____, 105 S.Ct. 2254, 2258, 85 L.Ed.2d 636 (1985); see Smith v. United States, 474 A.2d 1271, 1274 (D.C. 1983).⁶ Thus, the trial court may only revoke probation upon a finding that the express conditions of probation have been violated. Carradine v. United States, 420 A.2d 1385, 1389 (D.C. 1980). Once a decision on revocation is made, we will reverse only if there has been an abuse of discretion. Nelson v. United States, 479 A.2d 340, 342 (D.C. 1984); Jones v. United States, 401 A.2d 473, 477 (D.C. 1979).

Appellant claims the trial court abused its discretion in revoking his probation because insufficient evidence was presented to support a finding that appellant had violated the conditions of his probation. Upon review of the testimony and evidence presented at the revocation hearing, we conclude that appellant's argument is without merit.

Two representatives of Second Genesis testified that appellant's dismissal from the drug rehabilitation program was caused by a "pattern of irresponsible behavior." The witnesses described a number of specific incidents of such behavior, ranging from appellant's illegal operation of his girlfriend's car to the very serious violation of visiting a high drug neighborhood during working hours. They observed that appellant had repeatedly manifested an uncooperative attitude and a lack of motivation. Mr. Bennett testified that a decision was reached by a number of staff members that "[Second Genesis] certainly couldn't discharge [appellant] as a graduate based on all the information and on our treatment experience with him for 21 months." As such they felt that their only alternative was to dismiss him from the program.

Significantly, both Mr. Bennett and Mr. Flowers testified that the rules and regulations and the nature of the Second Genesis program had been explained in full to appellant upon his admission into the drug treatment program. Moreover, numerous attempts...