Vaughn v. US, 90-299

Citation598 A.2d 425
Decision Date29 October 1991
Docket NumberNo. 90-299,90-513.,90-299
PartiesThomas D. VAUGHN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
CourtCourt of Appeals of Columbia District

Mercer Anderson, Washington, D.C.,* appointed by this court, was on the brief for appellant.

John Payton, Acting Corp. Counsel, with whom Charles Reischel, Deputy Corp. Counsel and Mary L. Wilson, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Washington, D.C., were on the brief for appellee.

Before ROGERS, Chief Judge, and WAGNER, Associate Judge, and PRYOR, Senior Judge.

ROGERS, Chief Judge:

Appellant Thomas D. Vaughn appeals from a judgment of the trial court sustaining a determination by the District of Columbia Department of Corrections (the "Department") that he will derive no further benefit under the D.C. Youth Rehabilitation Amendment Act of 1985. Appellant contends that the trial judge erroneously refused to let him demonstrate that the Department had violated its own rules and regulations during appellant's disciplinary hearings which formed the basis for the Director's no-benefit determination. We reverse and remand to the trial court to make findings on whether the procedural violations occurred in the separate disciplinary proceedings under 28 DCMR § 500.1 et seq., and if so, to determine whether a remand to the Department is required because the violation would prevent the Department from relying on the disciplinary report as a basis for a "no-further-benefit" determination.

I.

After being convicted of two drug-related offenses, appellant was sentenced under the District of Columbia Youth Rehabilitation Amendment Act of 1985 (YRA), D.C.Code § 24-803(b) (1989), and confined at Youth Center I in Lorton, Virginia.1 While there, he was the subject of a number of disciplinary reports for a variety of infractions, including assaults on a corrections officer and an inmate, and he spent six months in the maximum security unit as a result of his disruptive behavior.

As a result, on October 5, 1989, the Acting Director of the D.C. Department of Corrections determined that appellant would receive no further benefit from continued treatment under the YRA, and proposed, pursuant to D.C.Code § 24-805(a), that he be transferred to an adult facility. The Acting Director's determination was based upon appellant's aggressive and disruptive behavior while in confinement, as described in the disciplinary reports, his unwillingness to address his drug problem by participating in and completing various programs, including rehabilitation and therapy and vocations programs, and the unlikelihood of his being placed in less secure confinement than the Maximum Security Unit. Appellant appealed to the sentencing judge, claiming that at his disciplinary hearings he had been denied his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, his right to notice, his right to an impartial hearing, findings based on substantial evidence, and written findings on specific acts constituting misconduct.2

The trial judge held a hearing, at which the parties were allowed to present evidence, and appellant testified. The judge restricted appellant's counsel from exploring the factual basis underlying the disciplinary reports. The judge indicated that he thought that he was only required to allow appellant to allocute, viewing the proceedings to be in the nature of a determination whether there should be a resentencing, but he observed that he had afforded appellant additional procedural rights in the interest of fairness. The judge declined to "go behind" the findings in the disciplinary reports or to examine whether sufficient evidence supported the finding of a violation in each case, viewing his role as limited to being "assured that something is not being taken from appellant arbitrarily."

The Corrections Department, through Ms. Renee Story, appellant's Youth Center case manager, testified generally about the Department's disciplinary procedures,3 and, as custodian of the records, produced seven disciplinary reports on appellant.4 Ms. Story also testified that the "no-further-benefit" determination was based on appellant's "assaultive behavior towards staff and other residents" as evidenced by the disciplinary and "incidental" reports and the behavior she had observed in the maximum security unit. On cross-examination she stated that a lot of prisoners have copies of the Lorton regulation booklet, containing the procedures for disciplinary hearings, although she did not know if appellant had received a copy.

Appellant testified that no Corrections Department officer ever appeared or testified against him at his disciplinary hearings, and he corroborated Ms. Story's testimony that when he made no comment on the alleged charges he was automatically found guilty. He claimed that he had asked for his lawyer but his lawyer was only involved in the two most recent disciplinary proceedings. He denied receiving the disciplinary procedures handbook referred to in the investigative reports. Regarding his appeals of charges in two disciplinary reports, he claimed that at one hearing he had presented five or six witnesses who denied he had assaulted a Corrections Department officer, and that the bodily injury charge (but not the assault charge itself) was dropped. His other appeal, after a rehearing, was unsuccessful.5

The trial judge concluded, on the basis of the seven disciplinary reports, that the Acting Director's determination of "no-further-benefit" should be sustained. Appellant had been given a hearing on all seven disciplinary reports, and the judge concluded that it was unnecessary to go behind the findings by the Corrections Department. The judge elaborated:

I wanted to be sure that it wasn't a case where somebody was upset with Mr. Vaughn and decided to get him out of the youth center, but when I look at these exhibits I see where reports are made by various correctional officers—it is not by just one officer—and I do not think that due process requires me to conduct any type of a de novo hearing to determine whether he did or did not commit these infractions, nor do I deem due process requires me to be listening to any tapes of those proceedings to determine whether or not the findings are supported by the evidence presented at those hearings.
What is sufficient perhaps is allocution alone, which has been accorded Mr. Vaughn. What we have done here is a little more. We have gotten the disciplinary reports in and the findings by the body which acted upon the hearing which was requested by Mr. Vaughn, and at least in seven instances there have been disciplinary reports which have been sustained involving some pretty serious disciplinary conduct on the part of the appellant, and the type of conduct set forth in these reports would indicate that he is not the type of individual who should be at a youth center....

The judge ordered appellant to serve the remainder of his sentence for attempted possession with intent to distribute cocaine at an adult facility.

II.

The District of Columbia Youth Rehabilitation Amendment Act of 1985 (YRA), D.C.Code §§ 24-801 to -807 (1989), was enacted by the Council of the District of Columbia in 1985 to fill the void left when Congress repealed the Federal Youth Corrections Act. REPORT OF THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, ON BILL 6-47, "THE YOUTH REHABILITATION ACT OF 1985," (REPORT) at 2 (June 19, 1985); see also Brown v. United States, 579 A.2d 1158, 1158-59 (D.C.1990). For the most part, the YRA is modelled on and similar to its federal predecessor. REPORT at 3; see also, Brown, supra, 579 A.2d at 1159 & n. 2; Ralston v. Robinson, 454 U.S. 201, 207, 102 S.Ct. 233, 238, 70 L.Ed.2d 345 (1981) (describing goals of former federal act in similar terms). Unlike the Federal Youth Corrections Act, however, the YRA authorizes the Director of the D.C. Department of Corrections to make "no-further-benefit" determinations and to "summarily revoke" youth offender status, after affording the youth certain procedural protections. D.C.Code § 24-805.6

Appellant contends that the trial judge, in sustaining the "no-further-benefit" determination by the Department, erred in denying appellant the opportunity to show that the Department had violated its rules and regulations during the disciplinary hearings. Specifically, he maintains that he was improperly denied the rights to counsel and to confront and call witnesses at his disciplinary hearings, that the disciplinary decisions were based on matters not in evidence, that the disciplinary and investigative reports were not supported by reliable, probative and substantial evidence, and that members of the disciplinary board improperly examined his administrative jacket during a hearing. He also contends that he was never given a copy of a booklet describing the procedures used in a disciplinary hearing, as required by 28 DCMR § 507.11. Thus, he contends that his disciplinary hearings were procedurally defective, and that he was entitled to raise these defects at the hearing before the trial judge on his appeal from the Director's "no-further-benefit" determination. He further contends that because the Department violated its regulations and due process, the "no-further-benefit" determination should have been vacated and the matter remanded to the Department.

A.

In (Raymond) Coates v. United States, 482 A.2d 1239 (D.C.1984), the court faced an analogous situation in which the sentencing judge had entered a "no-further-benefit" finding, thereby permitting the defendant's transfer from a youth to an adult facility. The court held, adopting the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in In re (Allen) Coates, 229 U.S.App.D.C. 67, 69, 711 F.2d 345, 347 (1983) (per curiam), that the defendant had a liberty interest that was entitled to due process protections and, further, that upon balancing the interests involved the defendant was entitled, ...

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