United States v. Miller, 73-1866

• Decision Date: 12 April 1974
• Docket Number: No. 73-1866,73-1868.,73-1866
• Citation: 495 F.2d 362
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Tommy Wayne MILLER, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jack ATKINS, a/k/a Jack Tippitt, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

495 F.2d 362 (1974)

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Tommy Wayne MILLER, Defendant-Appellant.

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jack ATKINS, a/k/a Jack Tippitt, Defendant-Appellant.

Nos. 73-1866, 73-1868.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Heard January 24, 1974.

Decided April 12, 1974.

Cornelius Thomas Ducey, Jr., Belleville, Ill., Lehman D. Krause, E. St. Louis, Ill., for defendants-appellants.

Henry A. Schwarz, U. S. Atty., William C. Evers, III, Asst. U. S. Atty., E. St. Louis, Ill., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before KILEY, Senior Circuit Judge, CUMMINGS, Circuit Judge, and HOFFMAN, Senior District Judge.^*

CUMMINGS, Circuit Judge.

In No. 73-1866, defendant Miller pleaded guilty to a violation of the Dyer Act (18 U.S.C. § 2312). The district court ordered that a presentence investigation be conducted, and the prior criminal record portion of the ensuing presentence report was sent to defense counsel. Prior to sentencing, defendant filed a motion requesting permission to examine the entire presentence report on the ground that he could not otherwise "receive a fair sentence." At the time of sentencing, this motion was denied.

At the sentencing hearing, defense counsel explained that defendant had advised that several matters in the prior record portion of the presentence report were false. The district judge thereupon said that it was his regular custom not to deliver any portion of a presentence report except the prior record, stating "that would jeopardize a lot of sources of information if this was revealed * * *," and that "we would try every issue of this man's life all over again on the presentence report * * *." While the judge said he did not rely entirely on the custom, his only comment on the specifics of this case made clear that he simply considered the case to be an example of the reason for his custom. He did not really consider deviating from the custom. Defendant addressed the district judge and stated that the description of the drowning of his girl friend in the prior record portion of the presentence report was incorrect; defendant then gave his version of the incident. He mentioned that he was currently in a Texas state penitentiary serving an 8-year sentence for a drug-store burglary. Although the prior record portion of the presentence report said that as many as 13 burglary charges were being processed against defendant, he claimed that the drugstore burglary was the only one of which he was accused.

Without revealing any of the contents of the other sections of the presentence report, the district judge thereupon sentenced defendant to five years to be served concurrently with his Texas sentence. This appeal attacks the district judge's uniform policy not to reveal the contents of a presentence report except for the prior record portion.

In the related appeal in No. 73-1868, defendant Atkins pleaded guilty to Count I of an indictment charging him with distributing .46 gram net weight of heroin in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). The remaining three counts were dismissed by the Government. Prior to sentencing, Atkins' counsel filed a motion for leave to examine the presentence report. At the sentencing hearing, he explained that he filed the motion because he was led to believe that there were certain material facts in the presentence report that were not "actually the situation," so that he might wish to present evidence to refute some of the major allegations in the report. As in Miller's case, defense counsel had only been furnished with a copy of that portion of the presentence report containing Atkins' prior record. The same district judge reiterated his policy not to reveal any portion of the presentence report except for the prior record. Before sentence was imposed, Atkins' counsel emphasized that the four pages of prior record in the presentence report revealed only arrests. There was then this exchange:

"THE COURT: You don\'t believe that where there\'s smoke there\'s fire?

"MR. DUCEY: Well, I hope the Court doesn\'t necessarily believe that, because the Court should only go by what has been shown, what convictions . . .

"THE COURT: Well, I go by the whole thing, Mr. Ducey, the whole ball of wax, not one thing. His past record is just one item."

Before imposing a 5-year sentence, the district judge remarked that he knew Atkins was an addict and had sold drugs to get money and feed his own habit, although the court was unsure "that was the sole reason for you to do it." The district judge also thought that defendant might not be rehabilitable because he had been hospitalized several times for drug addiction.

In both appeals, the question before us is whether Rule 32(c)(2) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure permits a district court to maintain a uniform policy of never disclosing information in a presentence report apart from the prior record portion thereof. That rule provides:

"The report of the presentence investigation shall contain any prior criminal record of the defendant and such information about his characteristics, his financial condition and the circumstances affecting his behavior as may be helpful in imposing sentence or in granting probation or in the correctional treatment of the defendant, and such other information as may be required by the Court. The court before imposing sentence may disclose to the defendant or his counsel all or part of the material contained in the report of the presentence investigation and afford an opportunity to the defendant or his counsel to comment thereon. Any material disclosed to the defendant or his counsel shall also be disclosed to the attorney for the government." (Italics supplied.)

The last two sentences of this rule were added by amendment in 1966. The Advisory Committee's note explained that although disclosure is not made mandatory,

"It is hoped that courts will make increasing use of their discretion to disclose so that defendants generally may be given full opportunity to rebut or explain facts in presentence reports which will be material factors in determining sentences."

As noted in 8A Moore's Federal Practice (2d ed. 1973) ¶ 32.034, "the principal argument against disclosure is that it will discourage frank cooperation of those with knowledge of the offender and thus dry up the investigator's sources of information." Pp. 32-37. The Advisory Committee and the Supreme Court considered this, but the amendment was nevertheless adopted to encourage disclosures. 2 Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure: Criminal § 524 at 400 (1969).¹

We of course agree that because of its confidential nature, the entire presentence report need not be made available to counsel or made part of the record. However, discretion in deciding what to disclose must be exercised on a case-by-case basis. In fairness to the parties, a district court should hereafter state any grounds in the presentence report motivating the imposition of the sentence.² To avoid reliance upon critical misinformation in the report which the defendant has had no opportunity to contradict or explain, if the judge regards any information in the presentence report as sufficiently important to affect the sentence, the substance of that information should be disclosed to the defendant or his counsel before sentence is pronounced. If the trial judge denies a motion seeking access to a presentence report, he should henceforth make it clear that his sentence determination is not predicated on the contents of the report or describe the substance of any matter he considers significant. This will avoid the kind of error exemplified by Townsend v. Burke, 334 U.S. 736, 68 S.Ct. 1252, 92 L.Ed. 1690; United States ex rel. Jackson v. Myers, 374 F.2d 707 (3d Cir. 1967); State v. Killian, 91 Ariz. 140, 370 P.2d 287 (1962); State v. Pohlabel, 61 N.J.Super. 242, 160 A.2d 647 (App.Div.1960).

We do not say the sentencing judge must always make these disclosures, for there may be exceptional cases which would justify deviation from the foregoing approach. For example, a district judge may find in a particular case that if a certain material item is disclosed, defendant would inevitably know who provided that information, and that there are compelling reasons for hiding the identity of the informant. In such a case, the district judge might choose not to disclose the item, but if so, he should discount his reliance on the information to allow for its lesser reliability. The discretion vested in the district judge by Rule 32(c)(2) allows him to determine a proper procedure for such exceptional cases, which should be rare, and to decide what information in the presentence report is important enough to affect the sentence.

In holding that district judges must abandon any policies of nondisclosure and exercise their discretion under Rule 32(c)(2) in a manner consistent with the purpose of informed sentencing, we are confident that they will be able to protect informants and other confidential matters so that probation officers' sources of information will not be cut off. Although the district judge in these cases feared that disclosure would lead to lengthy trial-type proceedings at the sentencing stage, this opinion does not modify his power to limit the evidence taken on collateral issues. In its notes to its 1970 draft of proposed rule amendments, the Advisory Committee reported: "Experience in jurisdictions which require disclosure does not lend support to the argument that disclosure will result in less complete presentence reports or the argument that sentencing procedures will become unnecessarily protracted."

The rule established herein is not foreclosed by any previous decision of this Court. Thus in United States v. Humphreys, 457 F.2d 242 (7th Cir. 1972), the Government's principal case, we said that the "need for disclosure" was "obviated" because the defendant was given great latitude in presenting a true...