UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PETITIONER V. R.L.C., A JUVENILE MALE No. 90-1577 In The Supreme Court Of The United States October Term, 1990 The Solicitor General, On Behalf Of The United States, Petitions For A Writ Of Certiorari To Review The Judgment Of The United States Court Of Appeals For The Eighth Circuit In This Case. Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Eighth Circuit TABLE OF CONTENTS Question Presented Opinions below Jurisdiction Statute involved Statement Reasons for granting the petition Conclusion OPINIONS BELOW The opinion of the court of appeals (App., infra, 1a-14a) is reported at 915 F.2d 320. The opinion of the district court (App., infra, 15a-16a) is unreported. JURISDICTION The judgment of the court of appeals was entered on September 12, 1990. A petition for rehearing was denied on December 18, 1990. App., infra, 15a. On March 12, 1991, Justice Blackmun extended the time within which to file a petition for a writ of certiorari to and including April 17, 1991. The jurisdiction of this Court is invoked pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1254(1). STATUTE INVOLVED 18 U.S.C. 5037 provides, in part, as follows: (a) If the court finds a juvenile to be a juvenile delinquent, the court shall hold a disposition hearing concerning the appropriate disposition no later than twenty days after the juvenile delinquency hearing unless the court has ordered further study pursuant to subsection (d). After the disposition hearing, and after considering any pertinent policy statements promulgated by the Sentencing Commission pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 994, the court may suspend the findings of juvenile delinquency, enter an order of restitution pursuant to section 3556, place him on probation, or commit him to official detention. * * * * * * * * (c) The term for which official detention may be ordered for a juvenile found to be a juvenile delinquent may not extend -- (1) in the case of a juvenile who is less than eighteen years old, beyond the lesser of (A) the date when the juvenile becomes twenty-one years old; or (B) the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult; or (2) in the case of a juvenile who is between eighteen and twenty-one years old -- (A) who if convicted as an adult would be convicted of a Class A, B, or C felony, beyond five years; or (B) in any other case beyond the lesser of -- (i) three years; or (ii) the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult. Section 3624 is applicable to an order placing a juvenile under detention. QUESTION PRESENTED Whether, in sentencing respondent as a juvenile delinquent pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 5037(c)(1), which provides that the sentence imposed on a juvenile may not extend beyond "the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult," the district court was required to apply the Sentencing Guidelines to determine "the maximum term of imprisonment." STATEMENT 1. On November 5, 1989, La Tesha Mountain died on the Red Lake Indian Reservation as the result of head and neck injuries suffered when she was propelled from the back seat to the front of a car that her mother, Deborah Garrigan, was driving. Tr. 6, 44-45, 49, 217. The car was demolished when it was hit from the rear by a stolen Chevrolet Camaro driven by respondent. Tr. 44, 56, 68-69, 151-153, 166-168. Respondent and James White, Jr., another juvenile who was a passenger in the car when it was stolen and when the accident occurred, were drunk. They had been drinking at an adult party on the reservation and thereafter stole the car that was involved in the accident. Tr. 119, 163-169, 197-198, 217, 240-241, 249, 279-280; App., infra, 2a, 15a-16a. 2. Following a bench trial, the district court found that respondent stole the car, that he drove the car recklessly while he was intoxicated, that he caused La Tesha's death, and that his conduct constituted involuntary manslaughter, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1112(a). The court found respondent to be a juvenile delinquent under 18 U.S.C. 5031. Tr. 318-319; App., infra, 15a-16a. At sentencing, respondent sought leniency but did not ask the court to apply the Sentencing Guidelines to determine his sentence. Nor did he urge the court to limit his term of commitment to the base offense level defined by the Sentencing Guidelines. 1/24/90 Tr. 5-7. The government urged the court to impose the maximum statutory penalty of three years' confinement. Id at 7-8. See 18 U.S.C. 1112(b). The court carefully weighed the sentencing options and the circumstances of the crime, as well as the juvenile facilities available for detention. 1/24/90 Tr. 9-10. After doing so, the court committed respondent for a term of three years and recommended that he be sent to the Missouri River Adolescent Center in Chamberlain, South Dakota. Id. at 8-11. 3. Respondent appealed. The court of appeals upheld the finding of delinquency, but vacated the sentence and remanded the case for resentencing. App., infra, 1a-14a. The court concluded that the 36-month sentence that respondent received exceeded the maximum period of confinement that can be imposed on a juvenile delinquent under 18 U.S.C. 5037(c)(1), which provides in part that the sentence imposed on a juvenile may not extend beyond "the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult." App., infra, 3a-14a. The court acknowledged that the Sentencing Guidelines do not apply to individuals sentenced as juvenile delinquents under 18 U.S.C. 5037, App., infra, 6a, but nevertheless concluded that "(u)sing the sentencing guidelines to fix the maximum sentence a juvenile delinquent could receive would serve as a guide to courts to eliminate unwarranted disparity between juvenile and adult sentences." Ibid. The court also determined that the legislative history of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98-473, Tit. II, 98 Stat. 1987 (codified at 18 U.S.C. 3551-3742 and 28 U.S.C. 991-998), supported that conclusion because it showed that "Congress did not intend the real time served by juvenile offenders to exceed the real time that would be served by adults convicted of similar crimes." App., infra, 7a-8a. Finally, the court invoked the rule of lenity, stating that the rule "favors the statutory construction that yields the shorter sentence." Id. at 12a. As the court summarized: "We hold that the phrase 'maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult' prohibits a court from sentencing a juvenile to a term of imprisonment greater than the juvenile could have received had he been sentenced as an adult under the sentencing guidelines." Id. at 12a-13a. 4. The government filed a petition for rehearing and suggestion for rehearing en banc. The panel denied the rehearing petition, and the full court declined the suggestion for en banc rehearing over the dissent of four judges. App., infra, 17a. /1/ REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION The court of appeals has erroneously decided an important question of law in a manner that conflicts with a decision of another federal court of appeals. By limiting the "maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult" under 18 U.S.C. 5037(c)(1)(B) to the presumptive term of imprisonment that a similarly situated adult would face under the Sentencing Guidelines, the court of appeals has seriously misread the commitment provisions for juvenile delinquents. In effect, the Eighth Circuit has ruled that the Sentencing Guidelines must be applied by the district courts in making commitment decisions in juvenile delinquency proceedings even though neither Congress nor the Sentencing Commission has imposed any such requirement. 1. The Eighth Circuit's decision in this case directly conflicts with the Ninth Circuit's decision in United States v. Marco L., 868 F.2d 1121, cert. denied, 493 U.S. 956 (1989). In Marco L., the Ninth Circuit held that the "maximum term of imprisonment" authorized by 18 U.S.C. 5037(c)(1) is the maximum term of imprisonment authorized by the statute describing the offense, not the top of the presumptive sentencing range defined by the Sentencing Guidelines. 868 F.2d at 1122-1124. The court below expressly acknowledged that its holding conflicts with the Ninth Circuit's decision in Marco L. App., infra, 13a n.3. 2. The question presented will recur with sufficient regularity that it is important for this Court to resolve the conflict. In Fiscal Year 1990, the federal government brought juvenile delinquency proceedings against 168 defendants, and the figures for Fiscal Years 1986-1989 are similar. /2/ Moreover, many such cases (like this one) can be prosecuted only in federal courts, because the crime occurs in an area of exclusive federal jurisdiction, such as an Indian reservation. 3. The decision below is plainly incorrect. Analysis of 18 U.S.C. 5037 and the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 shows that the "maximum term of imprisonment" authorized by Section 5037(c)(1) is the maximum term of imprisonment authorized by the law describing the offense of conviction, not the top of the presumptive sentencing range defined by the Sentencing Guidelines. a. The Sentencing Guidelines do not "authorize" any punishment to be imposed for an offense. Congress directed the Sentencing Commission to adopt a comprehensive system of guidelines to channel the district courts' sentencing discretion, but did not give the Sentencing Commission "authority" to establish punishments or to modify an offender's "maximum term of imprisonment" in any way; Congress reserved that authority for itself. The Sentencing Guidelines define ranges of presumptive sentences for categories of offenses and offenders; those ranges are within the limits provided by the existing laws defining the punishment for particular offenses. 28 U.S.C. 991, 994(a) and (b); Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 367-369, 374-375 (1989) ("Congress instructed the Commission that these sentencing ranges must be consistent with pertinent provisions of Title 18 of the United States Code and could not include sentences in excess of the statutory maxima."). Congress also left in the district courts' hands the discretion to depart upward from the Guidelines range if there is an aggravating factor of a kind or to a degree that was not adequately considered by the Sentencing Commission and that warrants a more severe sentence than can be found within the presumptive sentencing range. 18 U.S.C. 3553(b). See also United States Sentencing Comm'n, Guidelines Manual Section 5K2.0 (1990). The Sentencing Guidelines therefore do not "authorize" a "maximum term of imprisonment," but simply channel the courts' discretion to impose a particular term of imprisonment within the range that Congress has authorized. That conclusion is fully consistent with general principles of federal criminal law. This Court's decisions make clear that only Congress has power to "authorize" a term of imprisonment as the punishment for a crime. As this Court stated in Ex parte United States, 242 U.S. 27, 42 (1916), "the authority to define and fix the punishment for crime is legislative." See United States v. Evans, 333 U.S. 484, 486 (1948); United States v. Wiltberger, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 76, 95 (1820); United States v. Hudson, 11 U.S. (7 Cranch) 32 (1812). Because the "authority" to imprison an offender stems from the law defining the offense and authorizing a term of imprisonment, the most natural reading of the "maximum punishment" clause in 18 U.S.C. 5037(c)(1) refers to the maximum term of imprisonment authorized in the law defining the offense. /3/ Another provision of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 makes the same point. One new feature adopted by the Act was a classification system that would be used in future legislation to rank federal offenses according to their relative seriousness. Felonies would be categorized from Class A to E, misdemeanors from Class A to C, with remaining crimes listed as infractions. 18 U.S.C. 3559(a)(1)-(9). Congress believed that this grading system would enable it to define the maximum term of imprisonment, the maximum fine, the availability and maximum term of probation, and the maximum term of supervised release simply by specifying the grade of a particular offense. S. Rep. No. 225, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 51, 86-88 (1983). /4/ To avoid any misunderstanding about the effect of this classification system, particularly for existing laws, Congress made clear that "the maximum term of imprisonment is the term authorized by the law describing the offense," not by the new grading scheme. 18 U.S.C. 3559(b). Congress therefore was quite explicit in providing that the maximum term of imprisonment authorized for an adult offender is the maximum sentence set by the statutory penalty provision. The definition given the phrase "maximum term of imprisonment" in Section 3559(b) is significant because Section 3559(b) was enacted and 18 U.S.C. 5037(c)(1) was amended in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. See 18 U.S.C. 3559 and 5037 (Supp. II 1984). Since Congress is presumed to give terms the same meaning throughout a statute, see, e.g., Sullivan v. Stroop, 110 S. Ct. 2499, 2504 (1990), the phrase "maximum term of imprisonment" should have the same meaning in Section 5037(c)(1) that it has in Section 3559(b). /5/ Thus, as the Ninth Circuit concluded in Marco L., 868 F.2d at 1124, Section 3559(b) shows that the "maximum term of imprisonment" that can be imposed under Section 5037 on a juvenile delinquent refers to the maximum period of confinement set forth in the statute describing the offense. See also S. Rep. No. 225, supra, at 51,114. /6/ b. The Eighth Circuit stated that the Sentencing Guidelines do not apply to juvenile commitment hearings under 18 U.S.C. 5037, App., infra, 6a, but its decision effectively requires district courts to apply the Guidelines to commitment decisions at juvenile hearings. That requirement is unjustified because Congress did not incorporate the Sentencing Guidelines into 18 U.S.C. 5037. Section 5037(a) requires the court, at a juvenile disposition hearing, to "consider() any pertinent policy statements promulgated by the Sentencing Commission pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 994" (emphasis added). The necessary implication of that provision is that courts should consider the Commission's policy statements in selecting juvenile dispositions, but they need not apply the Guidelines themselves. /7/ Moreover, 28 U.S.C. 995(a)(19) directs the Sentencing Commission to "study the feasibility of developing guidelines for the dispositon of juvenile delinquents." That provision would be meaningless if the courts already had to apply the Guidelines in juvenile commitment proceedings. The legislative history of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 makes the same point, stating that "(t)he Parole Commission now uses its Youth Corrections Act guidelines for juveniles; it is expected that the Sentencing Commission will make a similar recommendation for Federal judges." S. Rep. No. 225, supra, at 183. To date, the Sentencing Commission has not adopted any policy statements for juvenile commitment determinations, and it has only recently begun to consider whether Sentencing Guidelines for juveniles are feasible. In sum, these provisions show that the Sentencing Guidelines do not apply to juvenile commitment hearings, as the Ninth Circuit noted in Marco L., 868 F.2d at 1124. Unless and until the Sentencing Commission adopts policy statements restricting the district courts' sentencing discretion at such hearings, the district court can still exercise the same sentencing discretion that they enjoyed at juvenile and adult sentencing proceedings before the Sentencing Guidelines went into effect. In the exercise of that discretion, the district courts can sentence juvenile delinquents to terms of detention equal to the statutory maximum terms for the applicable penal provisions. The district court therefore did not violate 18 U.S.C. 5037(c)(1) in committing respondent to three years' custody for involuntary manslaughter. c. The Eighth Circuit correctly noted that 18 U.S.C. 5037(c) was amended as part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. The court then reasoned that, because a principal purpose of the Act was to eliminate unwarranted sentencing disparities in federal cases, the "maximum punishment" clause should be read to limit the maximum sentence that can be imposed on a juvenile to the maximum term of confinement in the Sentencing Guidelines. Otherwise, the court of appeals reasoned, juveniles would be subject to more severe punishments than adult offenders, which would undercut the goals of the Act. App., infra, 7a-11a. /8/ The premise of the court of appeals' analysis is mistaken. Reading the "maximum punishment" clause as referring to the statutory maximum punishment would not necessarily result in harsher penalties for juveniles. Juveniles and adults who commit involuntary manslaughter can both be sentenced to three years' confinement. The difference between the two is that the Sentencing Guidelines apply to adult offenders, so the district court may need to depart upward from the Guidelines range in order to confine an adult for three years. By the same token, however, a district court would need to depart downward in order to sentence an adult convicted of manslaughter to a term of imprisonment below the Guidelines range, while a court could impose the same sentence on a juvenile without the need for a departure. The Sentencing Guidelines limit the discretion with respect to adult offenders that the district courts previously enjoyed, but do so in both directions -- upward and downward -- without affecting the maximum punishment that can be imposed under the statute of conviction. A juvenile committed under Section 5037 thus is not necessarily in a worse position than an adult sentenced under the Sentencing Guidelines. /9/ In any event, it would not be unconstitutional for a juvenile to be exposed to or committed for a longer period of confinement than an adult for the same offense. Juvenile offenders are detained in different settings, for different reasons, and under a different criminal justice system than adult offenders. See Marco L., 868 F.2d at 1122-1124. Accordingly, there is no inherent inequity in providing different periods of detention for juveniles than for adult offenders. For example, because of the rehabilitative purposes and programs of the Youth Corrections Act, 18 U.S.C. 5005-5024 (1982) (repealed by the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98-473, Tit. II, Section 218(a)(8), 98 Stat. 2027), the courts consistently held that it did not violate equal protection principles or the Due Process Clause for an offender sentenced under that Act to be subjected to a period of custody and subsequent supervision that exceeded the maximum sentence imposable on an adult for the same offense. See United States v. Lowery, 726 F.2d 474, 477-478 (9th Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 837 (1984); United States v. Donelson, 695 F.2d 583, 588-591 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (Scalia, J.); United States v. Van Lufkins, 676 F.2d 1189, 1193-1194 (8th Cir. 1982); Carter v. United States, 306 F.2d 283, 285 (D.C. Cir. 1962) (Burger, J.); Cunningham v. United States, 256 F.2d 467, 472-473 (5th Cir. 1958). In sum, there is no ground in either the language or purpose of Section 5037 to limit the sentence that can be imposed on juvenile offenders to the presumptive sentencing range set forth in the Sentencing Guidelines. CONCLUSION The petition for a writ of certiorari should be granted. Respectfully submitted. KENNETH W. STARR Solicitor General ROBERT S. MUELLER, III Assistant Attorney General WILLIAM C. BRYSON Deputy Solicitor General PAUL J. LARKIN, JR. Assistant to the Solicitor General ROBERT J. ERICKSON Attorney APRIL 1991 /1/ Pursuant to the court of appeals' mandate, respondent was resentenced on January 25, 1991, to a period of 18 months' confinement. /2/ In 1986, the federal government brought juvenile delinquency proceedings against 129 defendants. In 1987, there were 81 juvenile delinquency defendants; in 1988, there were 132, and in 1989, there were 172. Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Federal Judicial Workload Statistics Table D-2 (Sept. 30, 1990). /3/ Examination of other portions of Title 18 demonstrates that the phrase "maximum term of imprisonment" is used as a term of art. Congress has invariably used that phrase to mean the maximum penalty authorized by statute. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. 3, 373, 3142(e), 3156(a)(3). /4/ See 18 U.S.C. 3561(a) (probation), 3571(b) (fines), 3581(b) (imprisonment), 3583(b) (supervised release). /5/ The 1984 amendments also did not adopt a novel rule of law. The version of Section 5037 that was in effect prior to the 1984 amendment made clear that a juvenile offender could be sentenced to the same period of custody as an adult convicted of the same crime. See 18 U.S.C. 5037(b) (1982) (authorizing a district court to commit a juvenile for a period "not (to) extend beyond the juvenile's twenty-first birthday for the maximum term which could have been imposed on an adult convicted of the same offense, whichever is sooner"); S. Rep. No. 1011, 93rd Cong., 2d Sess. 57 (1974) (at a juvenile disposition hearing, the court may "commit the juvenile to the custody of the Attorney General for a period not to extend beyond the juvenile's twenty-first birthday, or the maximum term for which a sentence could have been imposed on an adult convicted of the same offense, whichever comes first"). /6/ In 1986, Congress amended Section 5037 by deleting the phrase "by section 3581(b)" immediately following the phrase "maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized." Criminal Law and Procedure Technical Amendments Act of 1986, Pub. L. No. 99-646, Section 21(a)(2), 100 Stat. 3596. Referring to the 1986 Amendment, the Eighth Circuit noted "that Congress reconsidered and rejected establishing * * * statutory maximum sentences as the maximum terms of imprisonment juvenile delinquents could receive." App., infra, 7a n.1. The court of appeals relied on that amendment to bolster its conclusion that juveniles may not be given longer criminal sentences than adults. In doing so, the court misread the 1986 amendment. The purpose of the 1986 amendment to 18 U.S.C. 5037 was to ensure that juveniles would not receive a more severe punishment than adults, not to provide a lower ceiling for juvenile offenders. See S. Rep. No. 278, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 3 (1986) ("Section 17 (of the bill that became the 1986 Act) makes clear that juvenile sentences are to be of equal length as those for adult offenders committing the same crime, * * *."); 131 Cong. Rec. 14,177 (1985) (section-by-section analysis of S. 1236) ("Because of the effect of 18 U.S.C. Section 3559(b)(2) (Supp. II 1984), deleting the reference to section 3581(b) will tie the maximum sentence for juveniles to the maximum sentence for adults, rather than making juvenile sentences more severe than adult sentences."). A footnote in the House Committee Report says that this amendment in the 1986 Act "delete(s) references to 18 U.S.C. 3581(b) so that juvenile offenders will not be subjected to the same maximum penalties assessed for adult offenders. A parallel amendment is made by section 3(b) of the bill. See discussion at 3, supra." H.R. Rep. No. 797, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 21 n.3 (1986). Although that footnote is inartfully phrased, when read in context it indicates that the purpose of the amendment was to ensure that juvenile offenders would have their maximum terms of confinement set by Sections 5037 and 3559(b), instead of 3581(b), which relates only to adult offenders. /7/ The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 clearly distinguishes between the Sentencing Commission's policy statements and its guidelines. See 28 U.S.C. 994-995. See also S. Rep. No. 225, supra, at 167 ("It should be noted that a sentence that is inconsistent with the sentencing guidelines is subject to appellate review (see 18 U.S.C. 3742), while one that is consistent with (the) guidelines but inconsistent with the policy statements is not."). /8/ The Eighth Circuit invoked the rule of lenity in support of its interpretation of 18 U.S.C. 5037(c)(1), App., infra, 11a-12a, but that canon of construction has no application to this case. The rule of lenity is not applicable unless there is a "grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the language and structure of the Act," Huddleston v. United States, 415 U.S. 814, 831 (1974), such that even "(a)fter (a court has) 'seize(d) every thing from which aid can be derived * * *' (it is still) left with an ambiguous statute." United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 347 (1971) (quoting United States v. Fisher, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 358, 386 (1805)). This Court has "always reserved lenity for those situations in which a reasonable doubt persists about a statute's intended scope even after resort to" the standard tools of statutory interpretation. Moskal v. United States, 111 S. Ct. 461, 465 (1990). The text of Section 5037 makes clear that the maximum punishment" clause refers to the statutory maximum punishment, and a straightforward reading of Section 5037 does not produce a result "so 'absurd or glaringly unjust,'" United States v. Rodgers, 466 U.S. 475, 484 (1984) (quoting Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 450 (1932)), as to raise a "reasonable doubt," Moskal v. United States, 111 S. Ct. at 465, about Congress's intent. There is therefore no occasion to resort to the rule of lenity. /9/ In fact, a juvenile committed under Section 5037 is in a better position than an adult who is sentenced under the Sentencing Guidelines, because a juvenile committed under Section 5037 is not subject to a postcustody term of supervised release after completing his commitment period. Compare 18 U.S.C. 5037(b) and (c) with 18 U.S.C. 3583 and Sentencing Guidelines Section 5D1.1. APPENDIX