United States v. Hamm
| Decision Date | 27 April 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 4:19-cr-00613 SRC |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff(s), v. HARRY JOHN HAMM, Defendant(s). |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
In August 2019, a grand jury indicted Defendant Harry John Hamm for crimes Congress deemed "serious," specifically two counts of possession of child pornography and one count of accessing with intent to view child pornography. Docs. 1-2. Hamm has since pleaded guilty to those crimes, and the Court granted him leave to brief certain issues before determining whether to detain him or allow him to voluntarily surrender to the Bureau of Prisons at a later date. See Docs. 68 and 80. Although Hamm agrees that he is subject to mandatory detention under the Mandatory Detention of Offenders Convicted of Serious Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3143(a)(2), he argues that the Court should grant his request for voluntary surrender because he demonstrates "exceptional reasons" under 18 U.S.C. § 3145(c). Docs. 64 and 77. The Court first assesses whether it possesses the authority to release, under section 3145(c), a defendant whom Congress has determined must be detained before then ruling on Hamm's request for voluntary surrender.
After being indicted, Hamm pleaded not guilty. The Court1 released Hamm on a personal-recognizance bond and placed him on location monitoring. Doc. 7. Since then, Hamm violated the conditions of bond and the rules of location monitoring to the point where he "received several warnings regarding his movement and non-compliance on location monitoring." Doc. 22 at p. 2; see also Docs. 19 and 38 ( the "culmination of the aforementioned violations and the severity of [Hamm's] previous violation of maintaining a social media account, and [Hamm's] seemingly blatant disregard for the rules of the location monitoring program[.]"). With the monitoring and efforts of the Court's Pretrial Services Office, Hamm's conduct improved to the point where his restrictions on bond were loosened, though he remained on location monitoring. Doc. 42.
In February 2021, Hamm pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of child pornography and one count of accessing with intent to view child pornography. Docs. 65 and 66. Hamm advised the Court that he preferred to be sentenced on the same day he pleaded guilty. Docs. 48, 49, and 50. The Court held a change-of-plea hearing and accepted Hamm's plea of guilty. Doc. 65. Hamm initially acknowledged that he was subject to mandatory detention. Doc. 64 at ¶ 2. But after pleading guilty, Hamm changed his position on whether the mandatory-detention statute applies to child-pornography crimes, and asked the Court to continue his sentencing to a much later day. Doc. 75 at 49:21-50:5, 52:24-59:2. The Court allowed him to brief various issues before sentencing, and re-set the voluntary-surrender hearing twice. Doc. 68 at 17; Docs. 82, 85, 86. On April 26, 2021, the Court sentenced Hamm and thenheld a hearing on Hamm's voluntary-surrender motion. For the reasons discussed below, the Court orders Hamm detained.
Under the United States Constitution, a person accused of a crime enjoys a presumption of innocence. U.S. CONST. amend. V; U.S. CONST. amend. XIV; Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432, 453 (1895); In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 363 (1970). As a corollary to the presumption of innocence, the accused person also enjoys the right not to be held in custody, typically jail, unless the prosecution meets its burden to show that a person poses a risk of fleeing, or otherwise poses a danger to persons or the community. U.S. CONST. amend. VIII; 18 U.S.C. § 3142; United States v. Kisling, 334 F.3d 734 (8th Cir. 2003).
Once a person either pleads guilty or is found guilty by a judge or jury, the presumption of innocence no longer applies. In the case of a guilty plea, the person has admitted his guilt, as Hamm has done here. See Docs. 66 and 75. With limited exceptions, Congress has since 1984 required federal courts to detain defendants who are convicted of crimes, whether by conviction after trial or by guilty plea. See Bail Reform Act of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98-473, § 302, 98 Stat. 1976, 1978-79, 81-82 (). In this district, sentencing typically occurs 90 or more days after a person pleads or is found guilty. Congress included in the Bail Reform Act provisions for detention of convicted defendants awaiting sentencing. 18 U.S.C. § 3143 (1984).
Before 1990, federal district courts could release a convicted defendant only upon finding by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant "was not likely to flee or pose a danger to the safety of any other person or the community." See 18 U.S.C. § 3143(a) (1984). That year,Congress passed the Mandatory-Detention Act, mandating that courts detain defendants convicted of certain crimes that Congress deemed "serious." Pub. L. No. 101-647, § 902, 104 Stat. 4926 (1990) (). However, the Act included two exceptions to mandatory detention. One, under section 3143(a)(2), a judge may release a defendant found guilty of an offense listed under section 3412(f)(1)(A)-(C) and awaiting imposition or execution of sentence if:
18 U.S.C. § 3143(a)(2) (1990).
Two, Congress inserted a separate exception in section 3145(c) (1990), set forth in italics here:
(c) Appeal from a release or detention order.--An appeal from a release or detention order, or from a decision denying revocation or amendment of such an order, is governed by the provisions of section 1291 of title 28 and section 3731 of this title. The appeal shall be determined promptly. A person subject to detention pursuant to section 3143(a)(2) or (b)(2), and who meets the conditions of release set forth in section 3143(a)(1) or (b)(1), may be ordered released, under appropriate conditions, by the judicial officer, if it is clearly shown that there are exceptional reasons why such person's detention would not be appropriate.
At Hamm's plea hearing, the Court raised the question of whether section 3145(c) only applies to an "[a]ppeal" of a release or detention order or whether a district court may, in the first instance, allow a convicted defendant to remain at large on a finding of exceptional reasons.
Section 3145(c) appears in a statute that deals with appeals of detention orders, indeed the title of section 3145 is "Review and appeal of a release or detention order." As explained below, a split of authority exists on whether section 3145(c) authorizes district courts to order a convicted defendant released for "exceptional reasons" (the broad construction), or only authorizes courts of appeals to do so (the narrow construction).
The Eighth Circuit has not expressly addressed the issue, but it has implied that district court judges may release defendants under section 3145(c) for exceptional reasons. For example, in United States v. Little, the Eighth Circuit reviewed a district court's release of a defendant under section 3145(c) for exceptional reasons. 485 F.3d 1210 (8th Cir. 2007). The Court reversed the district court, finding that the circumstances relied upon did not rise to "exceptional reasons." Id. at 1211. Little therefore implies that district courts possess the authority to release defendants under section 3145(c) because it only reversed after finding that the defendant did not offer exceptional reasons, not because the district court did not have the authority to release the defendant. Id.; see also United States v. Mahoney, 627 F.3d 705 (8th Cir. 2010); United States v. Nickell, 512 F. App'x 660 (8th Cir. 2013); United States v. Schmitt, 515 F. App'x 646 (8th Cir. 2013); United States v. Larue, 478 F.3d 924 (8th Cir. 2007); United States v. Brown, 368 F.3d 992 (8th Cir. 2004).
However, the Eighth Circuit has yet to conduct an extensive statutory interpretation of section 3145(c) and has not definitively spoken on the issue. Mindful that the Court must stay within the boundaries of its statutory authority, the Court finds it appropriate to examine the statute in detail here.
The Court begins by examining the defined term "judicial officer." As used in sections 3141-3151, judicial officer is defined as, "unless otherwise indicated, any person or court authorized pursuant to section 3041 of this title, or the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, to detain or release a person before trial or sentencing or pending appeal in a court of the United States, and any judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia." 18 U.S.C. § 3156(b)(1) (1990). That definition includes a United States District Judge. See 18 U.S.C. § 3041 ().
While at first glance this matter of interpretation appears straightforward given the statutory definition, the statutory context within which the "exceptional circumstances" exception appears muddies the water. As parts of the Bail Reform Act, sections 3141-43 and 3145 naturally flow together, each addressing a distinct aspect of the release-and-detention process. First, section 3141 (1990) mandates that defendants pending trial, sentencing, or appeal shall be ordered either released or detained and specifies the judicial officer responsible for issuing an order...
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