Whitfield v. United States

• Decision Date: 13 January 1969
• Docket Number: No. 22682.,22682.
• Citation: 401 F.2d 480
• Parties: Martha G. WHITFIELD, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

401 F.2d 480 (1968)

Martha G. WHITFIELD, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 22682.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

October 7, 1968.

Certiorari Denied January 13, 1969.

Claude L. Rowe (argued), Lucius Powers, Jr. (argued), Fresno, Cal., for appellant.

Ronald S. Morrow (argued), Asst. U. S. Atty., William Matthew Byrne, Jr., U. S. Atty., Robert L. Brosio, Asst. U. S. Atty., Crim. Div., Los Angeles, Cal., for appellee.

Before POPE and HAMLEY, Circuit Judges, and PLUMMER, District Judge.^*

Certiorari Denied January 13, 1969. See 89 S.Ct. 630.

HAMLEY, Circuit Judge:

Mrs. Martha G. Whitfield was convicted on two counts of willful attempt to evade and defeat payment of federal income taxes, in violation of section 7201 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U.S.C. § 7201 (1964). After the trial court denied her application for probation, it imposed a one year sentence on each count, the sentences to run concurrently. On appeal from the conviction, we affirmed. Whitfield v. United States, 9 Cir., 383 F.2d 142.

On the day the mandate of this court was issued, Mrs. Whitfield filed in the district court a motion, purportedly under Rule 35, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, to correct or reduce the sentence. The district court denied the motion and defendant took this appeal.¹

One ground for relief urged in the Rule 35 motion is that the court unlawfully denied defendant probation at the time of sentencing. The denial of probation was unlawful, Mrs. Whitfield asserted,

"* * * in that said sentence was imposed by the Court under the erroneous and illegal assumption of law that the defendant was not as much entitled to probation where as here she had pled not guilty as a defendant who pleads guilty."

At the oral argument in the district court, and in her brief on this appeal, defendant expands this contention to include the assertion that probation was denied not only because she had pleaded not guilty, but also because, after conviction, she would not admit guilt, nor waive her right to appeal from the judgment of conviction.

There is considerable doubt whether this probation issue is properly before us. Since the denial of probation took place before the appeal from the conviction the issue should have been raised on that appeal. Moreover, strictly speaking, a Rule 35 motion pertains only to the correction or reduction of a sentence; neither the suspension of sentence nor the granting of probation constitutes the correction or reduction of a sentence. See Phillips v. United States, 8 Cir., 212 F.2d 327.

In addition, there are expressions in past decisions of this court indicating that an appeal will not lie from the denial of probation. Bryson v. United States, 9 Cir., 265 F.2d 9, 13; Elder v. United States, 9 Cir., 142 F.2d 199, 201. It is fair to note, however, that Bryson relied only on Elder, and in Elder this court cited, as authority, Burr v. United States, 7 Cir., 86 F.2d 502, 503, which held that denial of probation is reviewable for abuse of discretion. See, also, United States v. Wiley, 7 Cir., 267 F.2d 453, 278 F.2d 500; United States v. White, 3 Cir., 147 F.2d 603.

In this case we elect to disregard these possible barriers to a determination of the probation issue on the merits.

Probation cannot be demanded as of right; it is a privilege which may be granted or withheld within the discretion of the district court. Both the applicable statute (18 U.S.C. § 3651 1964) and the applicable rule (Rule 32e, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure), use the permissive "may" rather than the mandatory "shall." It follows that if any appellate review of the denial of probation is permissible, the sole issue is whether there was an abuse of discretion.

In general, an abuse of discretion is not shown unless it is manifest from the record that probation was denied for some arbitrary reason wholly unrelated to the statutory standard to be applied in determining whether to grant probation.² Abuse of discretion is not shown by the fact that the appellate judges may be strongly of the opinion that if they had been sitting in the place of the district judge they would have granted probation. United States v. Wiley, 7 Cir., 278 F.2d 500, 502.

Examination of the record indicates that there is no basis for the assertion that probation was denied Mrs. Whitfield because she pleaded not guilty or because she did not waive her right to appeal the judgment of conviction. In fact, at the hearing on the Rule 35 motion, the district court expressly stated that probation was not denied on either of these grounds.

In the probation report and in a memorandum submitted by the United States Attorney in opposition to the Rule 35 motion, the Government urged that since Mrs. Whitfield persisted in maintaining her innocence even after her conviction, no rehabilitation purpose would be served by granting probation. The district court apparently shared this view, and the record indicates that it was the principal, if not the only, reason that probation was denied.³ Without intending to intimate what significance it would have were the fact otherwise, it should be noted that there is no suggestion in the record that the district court, in denying probation on this ground, was invoking a standard of its own which it uniformly applies in all cases.⁴

Probation is intended to be a means of restoring to society offenders who are good social risks; to afford the unfortunate another opportunity by clemency. Zerbst v. Kidwell, 304 U.S. 359, 58 S.Ct. 872, 82 L.Ed. 1399. It is designed to aid the rehabilitation of a "penitent offender"; to take advantage of an opportunity for "reformation" which active service of the suspended sentence might make less probable. Berman v. United States, 302 U.S. 211, 213, 58 S.Ct. 164, 82 L.Ed. 204, citing Burns v. United States, 287 U.S. 216, 220, 53 S.Ct. 154, 77 L.Ed. 266; Phillips v. United States, 8 Cir., 212 F.2d 327. As the Supreme Court said in United States v. Murray, 275 U.S. 347, 358, 48 S.Ct. 146, 149, 72 L.Ed. 309:

"Probation is the attempted saving of a man who has taken one wrong step and whom the judge thinks to be a brand who can be plucked from the burning at the time of the imposition of the sentence."

We need not here decide whether an admission of guilt following conviction, but prior to appeal may, under some circumstances, have such a chilling effect upon the exercise of the right to appeal that it ought not to be exacted as the price for probation. We are not being asked to review the initial denial of probation, but the denial of a Rule 35 motion made after appeal and affirmance. Whatever adverse effect a pre-appeal admission of guilt might have had on defendant's contemplated appeal, no such consideration remained after affirmance of the conviction. Yet defendant persisted in her refusal to concede wrongdoing.

Under these circumstances, the district court did not err in denying the Rule 35 motion. At least where an admission of guilt cannot jeopardize a prospective appeal, and having in view the purposes of probation referred to above, it is not an abuse of discretion for a district judge to deny probation to a person who, after conviction, will not admit wrongdoing.

Two additional grounds for relief urged in the Rule 35 motion are that the sentence was in violation of the maximum authorized by law, and that the sentence amounted to cruel and unusual punishment within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment.

These grounds for relief are frivolous. Under section 7201 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, defendant could have been sentenced to five years in prison and fined $10,000 on each of two counts, the sentences to run consecutively. As before indicated, defendant...