BRENNAN, J., dissenting 473 U. S. ordered that "a Bench Warrant be issued as a DETAINER." Supp. Record 3. This document was then lodged with corrections officials having custody of Nash in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania officials, the New Jersey officials and courts, and Nash all treated the detainer as subject to the provisions of the Agreement. Upon its receipt, Pennsylvania notified Nash of his rights to dispose of the detainer under the Agreement. Nash then contacted New Jersey officials and requested disposition of the detainer under the Agreement, and the New Jersey officials attempted to comply with the Agreement's requirements. The New Jersey state courts reviewed Nash's case as one involving a "complaint" under Article III of the Agreement, see n. 2, supra, and the Federal District Court in New Jersey ruled that New Jersey's failure to comply with the time limits of the Agreement required dismissal of the New Jersey probation-violation charges. 558 F. Supp. 641, 651 (1983). II In Mauro, supra, we stated that when "the purposes of the Agreement and the reasons for its adoption” are implicated, there is simply "no reason to give an unduly restrictive as yet unproven] constitute a Violation of Probation." Supp. Record 6. The New Jersey Superior Court explicitly characterized this document as a "probation violation complaint." App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 84-776, p. 55 (emphasis added). The Court ignores this characterization, as well as the question of what the result would be under its "plain language" analysis if any signatory States routinely so labeled charges of probation violation. I do not believe the argument should turn on such labels. See n. 16, infra. Probationers in New Jersey are charged with knowledge that commission of further crimes while on probation is an automatic violation under New Jersey law. State v. Zachowski, 53 N. J. Super. 431, 437, 147 A. 2d 584, 588 (1959); cf. N. J. Stat. Ann., §2C:45-3(a)(2) (West 1982) (warrant may be issued on probable cause that probationer "has committed another offense"). Whether or not the probation-violation complaint and consequent detainer had an adequate basis when issued in this case is not before us. 716 BRENNAN, J., dissenting meaning" to the Agreement's terms. 436 U. S., at 361–362; accord, Cuyler v. Adams, 449 U. S. 443, 448-450 (1981) (looking to purposes of the Agreement in light of Article IX's "liberal construction" rule). It is therefore necessary to review the purposes underlying the Interstate Agreement on Detainers and how they relate to detainers based on charges of probation violation. Three distinct goals generated the drafting and enactment of the Agreement: (1) definitive resolution of potential terms of incarceration so that prisoners and prison administrators can know with certainty when a prisoner is likely to be released, (2) speedy disposition of detainers to ensure that those filed for frivolous reasons do not linger, and (3) reciprocal ease for signatory States to obtain persons incarcerated in other jurisdictions for disposition of charges of wrongdoing, thereby superseding more cumbersome extradition procedures. See generally Cuyler, supra, at 446-450; Mauro, supra, at 359-364; Council of State Governments, Suggested State Legislation, Program for 1957, pp. 74-79 (1956) (hereinafter CSG Report). Noting that the Agreement was motivated "in part" by the second purpose-speedy disposition of detainers based on possibly unsubstantiated criminal charges-the Court places far too much emphasis on this purpose which is obviously the least relevant to detainers based on charges stemming from conviction for new criminal conduct.3 'Although the Court's conclusion apparently extends to detainers based on any type of probation-violation charge, its discussion refers only to probation violations founded on a new criminal conviction. Of course, probation-violation detainers may easily be based on arrests alone, as was the detainer in this case, or on charges of "technical" violations, the validity of which cannot be so easily presumed. See, e. g., N. J. Stat. Ann., §2C:45-1(b) (West 1982) (conditions of probation may include "meet[ing] ... family responsibilities," maintaining employment, continuing medical or psychiatric treatment, "pursu[ing] a prescribed . . . course of study," "refrain[ing] from frequenting unlawful or disreputable places or consorting with disreputable persons," etc.). Nevertheless, I am willing to concede, arguendo, that many probation-violation detainers are based BRENNAN, J., dissenting 473 U. S. It is unarguable that a major motivating force behind the Agreement was the first listed above: disposition of unresolved detainers so as to produce sentences of determinate length, so that in-prison programming and rehabilitation could freely occur. Because in-prison educational, vocational, rehabilitation, and other treatment programs are generally (1) overcrowded and (2) designed for inmates who will upon criminal convictions in another jurisdiction. I will also assume that "'uncertainties'" concerning "the factual issue of guilt" are therefore "less severe" with regard to probation-violation than outstanding-criminalcharge detainers, ante, at 732, although the high rate of conviction for most criminal prosecutions suggests the differences are less real than the Court imagines. Both these assumptions are necessary for the Court to dismiss the second purpose of the Agreement as being "less advanced" in the probation-violation context. Ante, at 734. The Court also employs its "factual issue of guilt" argument to dismiss the interest in obtaining speedy disposition of detainers so as not to impair a prisoner's possible defense, which it finds not as "strongly" implicated in the probation-violation context. Ante, at 732-733. Of course, this dismissal also depends on the dual assumptions that all probation-violation charges will be based on criminal convictions, and that they therefore carry greater inherent substantiation. Even if all these assumptions were true, however, the Court's conclusion still does not take proper account of the other goals of the Agreement. 'A detainer is defined by the drafters of the Agreement as any "warrant filed against a person already in custody with the purpose of insuring that he will be available to the authority which has placed the detainer" after his current custody is terminated. CSG Report 74. Because detainers often go unresolved for years, "[t]he prison administrator is thwarted in his efforts toward rehabilitation. The inmate who has a detainer against him is filled with anxiety and apprehension and frequently does not respond to a training program. He often must be kept in close custody, which bars him from treatment such as trustyships, moderations of custody, and opportunity for transfer to farms and work camps. In many jurisdictions he is not eligible for parole; there is little hope for his release after an optimum period of training and treatment. . . . Instead, he often becomes embittered . . . and the objective of the correctional system is defeated." Ibid. See Note, The Right to a Speedy Trial and the New Detainer Statutes, 18 Rutgers L. Rev. 828, 832 (1964) ("The thrust of [the Agreement] is not to protect the convict's right to a speedy trial per se, but rather to protect him from the particular disabilities engendered by an untried detainer pending against him"). 716 BRENNAN, J., dissenting shortly be released to the public world, prisoners that may be released only to another State's prisons are put at the end of the line for such programs. In addition, because prisoners facing longer sentences are believed to be greater escape risks, they are often held in stricter custody levels and denied various in-prison benefits (such as recreational and work-release programs and trusty status). In some States prisoners with detainers may even be denied parole that they would otherwise receive, on the theory that a prisoner cannot be "paroled into" another prison." Thus any "charges outstanding" against prisoners that might result in additional incarceration create "uncertainties" that "obstruct programs of prisoner treatment and rehabilitation." Art. I. This "The deleterious effects of detainers are well recognized and recitation of authority is superfluous. A helpful summary may be found in Wexler & Hershey, Criminal Detainers in a Nutshell, 7 Crim. L. Bull. 753 (1971): "As has been carefully documented elsewhere, a prison inmate with a detainer filed against him. . . may suffer several disabilities, ranging from mandatory maximum-security classification to exclusion from vocational rehabilitation programs and even to possible ineligibility for parole." See also N. Cohen & J. Gobert, The Law of Probation and Parole § 12.01, pp. 562563 (1983); L. Abramson, Criminal Detainers 29-34, 85-87 (1979); Bennett, "The Last Full Ounce," 23 Fed. Prob. 20 (June 1959); 9 Fed. Prob. 1 (July-Sept. 1945) (entire issue devoted to "the detainer and its evils"). "The Court seriously misunderstands what "uncertainties" the Agreement is designed to resolve. It is an uncertain length of incarceration, not an uncertain basis for charges, that is "produced" by a detainer and "obstructs" rehabilitation. Cf. ante, at 732 (discussing only uncertainties related to the "factual issue of guilt"). Prison officials generally do not inquire whether the basis for a detainer is certain or flimsy-if it suggests a possibility of additional incarceration, whether for violation of parole or for conviction of a new crime, it is considered as an additional factor in determining the inmate's security level and programming options. See, e. g., Dept. of Justice, Federal Prison System, Program Statement No. 5100.2, §§ 9(B)(1), 11(A)(1) (1982). The Agreement obviously does not eliminate detainers, but merely provides the means for definitive resolution and imposition of a certain, final sentence. "The result is to permit the prisoner to secure a greater degree of certainty as to his future and to enable the prison authorities to plan more effectively for his rehabilitation and return to society." S. Rep. No. 91-1356, p. 2 (1970). BRENNAN, J., dissenting 473 U. S. statement in Article I represents the legislative findings of 48 States and Congress. It is, therefore, those legislative bodies, and not merely the prisoner, who "prefer the certainty of a known sentence to the relative uncertainty of a pending probation-violation charge." Ante, at 734. Even if a detainer is withdrawn near the end of a prisoner's term, he will have been denied the benefits of less strict custody and will be released to the streets without the education, job training, or treatment he might otherwise have received. It is therefore undisputed that prisoners with unresolved detainers are embittered not only because those detainers may have little basis in fact, but also because they have a palpably punitive effect on the prisoner's life while in prison and on his rehabilitative future following release." Prosecutors know full well that a detainer can operate to deny prisoners substantial in-prison benefits and programs, as well as delay their eventual release. Thus, as the Court acknowledges, detainers are often filed with "little basis" in order to "exact punishment"" impermissibly, and are often "withdrawn shortly before" release of the prisoner after the damage has been done. Ante, at 729-730, n. 6. The evident lawlessness of such practices as well as their disruptive effect on rehabilitation motivated adoption of the Agreement, ibid., "It is in their effect upon the prisoner and our attempts to rehabilitate him that detainers are most corrosive." Smith v. Hooey, 393 U. S. 374, 379 (1969) (citation and stylistic punctuation omitted). 'As Congress noted when it joined the Agreement: "[W]ithdrawal at this late stage is of dubious benefit. The damage to the rehabilitative process has been done because by then the period of treatment and training has ended. Further, this situation precludes the institutional staff from developing a well-planned program upon release." S. Rep. No. 91-1356, supra, at 5. See also Bennett, The Correctional Administrator Views Detainers, 9 Fed. Prob. 8, 9 (July-Sept. 1945) ("It is ... pointless to spend funds for the training of an inmate if he is merely to be graduated to another institution"); Heyns, The Detainer in a State Correctional System, 9 Fed. Prob. 13 (July-Sept. 1945) ("[N]o State correctional agency can plan a sound program of rehabilitation for an inmate so long as he must keep answering detainers"). |