SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III, Circuit Judge:
This case is before the court on appellant’s motion for release from custody pending his appeal from a conviction of violation of the federal narcotic laws.1 [579] Appellant was arrested by police officers who, armed with a warrant, entered and searched an apartment wherein he and three others were present, and uncovered a substantial quantity of heroin and various items of narcotics paraphernalia.2 An indictment was subsequently returned against appellant and two of the others,3 and he was granted pretrial release on personal bond.4 Some thirteen months later, following a ten-day trial, appellant was found guilty by a jury.
Upon return of the verdict, the trial judge directed that custody of appellant be resumed. At sentencing, the judge imposed a mandatory five-year term of imprisonment,5 and refused to enlarge appellant pending his contemplated appeal. In denying bail,6 the judge, relying on provisions of the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 19707 setting standards for the District, ruled that appellant had not satisfied the criteria specified in that legislation.
Subsequent to the sentencing, this court held that applications for release of persons convicted in the District under federal criminal statutes having nationwide application, as was appellant,8 must be considered under the Bail Reform Act of 1966 9 and not the Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act.10 Thereafter appellant, having formalized an appeal from his conviction, moved the trial judge for reconsideration. The judge denied the motion and [580] the bail application was renewed in this court.11 We entered an order remanding the record to the District Court for an acceptable statement of the reasons which led the trial judge to keep appellant in confinement. Our order stated that this opinion for the court would follow.
I
The Bail Reform Act requires release of a convicted defendant pending an appeal unless the appeal is frivolous or a procrastinating maneuver, or unless there is reason to believe that no conditions of release will reasonably assure that he will not flee or pose a danger to another or to the community.12 The Act thus reflects a policy strongly favoring posttrial as well as pretrial release,13 but both its structure and its interpretation underscore the delicacy of the determinations which must precede any ruling on that score.14 A conclusion as to whether “an appeal is frivolous or taken for delay” 15 demands a careful exploration into its potentialities on the merits and the seriousness of its underlying [581] purpose.16 Save for situations where the unlikelihood of flight or community danger is relatively plain, the judicial decision hangs on the availability and capability of conditions to reduce those risks to a level of reasonable safety.17 The Act directs that that determination be made on the basis of what the judge “has reason to believe,” 18 and the process of deriving a belief one way or the other is ofttimes an exacting task. For “reason to believe that” an imposition of conditions will or will not “reasonably assure” against flight or dangerousness19 “involve [s] an attempt to predict future behavior on the basis of present information”20 and requires a close weighing of the probabilities in light of the relevant circumstances.21
Not surprisingly, then, initial resolution of an application for release pending appeal is a function historically committed to trial judges.22 It cannot be gainsaid that “the keynote to successful administration of any system of bail is the adequacy of the information upon which the decisions are based.”23 The need for ample information is particularly acute to investigations of potential danger to the community, findings relative to which, as has aptly been said, “must rest on a ‘scrupulous inquiry’ into appellant’s past, his prospects if released, and conditions of release to mitigate the danger.” 24 The trial court is not only the traditional but also the superior tribunal for the kind of information-gathering which a sound foundation for [582] a bail ruling almost inevitably requires. For it is there that, at a hearing, the judge can come face-to-face with the primary informational sources, and probe for what is obscure, trap what is elusive, and settle what is controversial. It is there, too, that the judge has at his disposal “the judicial machinery necessary to marshal the facts typically relevant to the release inquiry.” 25 Indeed, “as a practical matter only the District Court can conduct the ‘scrupulous inquiry’26 and make the findings contemplated . . . . ”27
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SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III, Circuit Judge:
This case is before the court on appellant’s motion for release from custody pending his appeal from a conviction of violation of the federal narcotic laws.1 [579] Appellant was arrested by police officers who, armed with a warrant, entered and searched an apartment wherein he and three others were present, and uncovered a substantial quantity of heroin and various items of narcotics paraphernalia.2 An indictment was subsequently returned against appellant and two of the others,3 and he was granted pretrial release on personal bond.4 Some thirteen months later, following a ten-day trial, appellant was found guilty by a jury.
Upon return of the verdict, the trial judge directed that custody of appellant be resumed. At sentencing, the judge imposed a mandatory five-year term of imprisonment,5 and refused to enlarge appellant pending his contemplated appeal. In denying bail,6 the judge, relying on provisions of the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 19707 setting standards for the District, ruled that appellant had not satisfied the criteria specified in that legislation.
Subsequent to the sentencing, this court held that applications for release of persons convicted in the District under federal criminal statutes having nationwide application, as was appellant,8 must be considered under the Bail Reform Act of 1966 9 and not the Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act.10 Thereafter appellant, having formalized an appeal from his conviction, moved the trial judge for reconsideration. The judge denied the motion and [580] the bail application was renewed in this court.11 We entered an order remanding the record to the District Court for an acceptable statement of the reasons which led the trial judge to keep appellant in confinement. Our order stated that this opinion for the court would follow.
I
The Bail Reform Act requires release of a convicted defendant pending an appeal unless the appeal is frivolous or a procrastinating maneuver, or unless there is reason to believe that no conditions of release will reasonably assure that he will not flee or pose a danger to another or to the community.12 The Act thus reflects a policy strongly favoring posttrial as well as pretrial release,13 but both its structure and its interpretation underscore the delicacy of the determinations which must precede any ruling on that score.14 A conclusion as to whether “an appeal is frivolous or taken for delay” 15 demands a careful exploration into its potentialities on the merits and the seriousness of its underlying [581] purpose.16 Save for situations where the unlikelihood of flight or community danger is relatively plain, the judicial decision hangs on the availability and capability of conditions to reduce those risks to a level of reasonable safety.17 The Act directs that that determination be made on the basis of what the judge “has reason to believe,” 18 and the process of deriving a belief one way or the other is ofttimes an exacting task. For “reason to believe that” an imposition of conditions will or will not “reasonably assure” against flight or dangerousness19 “involve [s] an attempt to predict future behavior on the basis of present information”20 and requires a close weighing of the probabilities in light of the relevant circumstances.21
Not surprisingly, then, initial resolution of an application for release pending appeal is a function historically committed to trial judges.22 It cannot be gainsaid that “the keynote to successful administration of any system of bail is the adequacy of the information upon which the decisions are based.”23 The need for ample information is particularly acute to investigations of potential danger to the community, findings relative to which, as has aptly been said, “must rest on a ‘scrupulous inquiry’ into appellant’s past, his prospects if released, and conditions of release to mitigate the danger.” 24 The trial court is not only the traditional but also the superior tribunal for the kind of information-gathering which a sound foundation for [582] a bail ruling almost inevitably requires. For it is there that, at a hearing, the judge can come face-to-face with the primary informational sources, and probe for what is obscure, trap what is elusive, and settle what is controversial. It is there, too, that the judge has at his disposal “the judicial machinery necessary to marshal the facts typically relevant to the release inquiry.” 25 Indeed, “as a practical matter only the District Court can conduct the ‘scrupulous inquiry’26 and make the findings contemplated . . . . ”27
Moreover, the trial judge’s familiarity with the case ordinarily enables ready association of the relevant facts in appropriate relationships with the criteria governing release from custody. The judge's role in evolving trial evidence and his observation of the accused’s trial demeanor often imparts to those facts a significance not discernible from the paper record upon which bail decisions in appellate courts must be achieved.28 Findings on the risks of danger or flight, and on the efficacy of particular conditions of release to sufficiently minimize those risks, are obviously enriched by a feel of the case that comes only from participation in the live trial. The respect we customarily accord the district judge’s determinations29 attests the value of his appraisal of the intangibles which ultimately make or break the case for bail.
So, even prior to the Bail Reform Act, our settled practice called for submission of applications for release pending appeal to the District Court for decision in the first instance.30 With the advent of the Federal Rules of Crim[583] inal Procedure,31 that practice became a uniform requirement in all federal judicial circuits. Rule 38(c) provided that motions in courts of appeals for release pending appeal must show that prior application to a district judge had been made and denied or was impracticable,32 and nothing in the scheme of the Bail Reform Act signaled a change in that regard.33 More recently, Rule 9(b) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure has explicated that “[application for release after a judgment of conviction shall be made in the first instance in the district court”, and that only “[thereafter” could “a motion for release, or for modification of the conditions of release, pending review be made to the court of appeals or to a judge thereof.”34 Since jurisdiction of a court of appeals attaches immediately upon the filing of a notice of appeal,35 this requirement did not spring from any lack of power on that court’s part to deal with bail matters from the very beginning. It emanated instead from recognition that initial processing by the trial judge was apt to make a contribution to any consideration of bail that might later be required at another level.
II
Appellate Rule 9(b) couples a second requirement to the one that release pending appeal be first sought in the trial court. It is that the trial judge state in writing his reasons in the event that release is either denied or conditioned.36 Quite obviously, the values of initial consideration by a district judge are lost to the extent that the significance he assigned to the various and often conflicting factors — legal and factual — is left unknown. Without the settling effect of a reasoned treatment of the relevant information by the judge, we are apt to confront “a welter of assertion and counter-assertion [by the parties] . . . from which we have no adequate means of emerging.”37 [584] Without elucidation of the bases for the judge’s action, we cannot fairly evaluate the merits of either the application or the judge’s decision thereon. As we have had occasion to point out, “[t]he District Judge’s reasoning must be delineated both out of fairness to the appellant and as an aid to this court in its role in bail administration.” 38 We read the twin specifications of Rule 9(b)— that applications for release pending appeal be first adjudicated in district courts and that district judges supply their reasons for dispositions other than unconditional release — as a mandate that circuit judges give those reasons respectful consideration in arriving at their own decisions on bail.
In Weaver v. United States,39 we defined the trial judge’s duty in these words:
The District Judge should indicate not only which one or more of [the statutory] reasons has prompted him to deny release, but should also delineate the basis for his utilization of such reason or reasons. If he deems the appeal frivolous, he should state the considerations, legal and factual, which led him to that conclusion. If he views appellant’s release as posing a risk of danger or flight, he should point to those factors in the record which foreshadow such a possibility. He should also inquire concerning available financial and nonfinancial conditions of release and offer reasons why they do not “assure that the person will not flee or pose a danger to any other person or to the community.” 40
We added that “[o]nly when these reasons are spelled out can an appellant intelligently renew his motion before this court; and only then can this court fairly review the merits.” 41
In the case at bar, we are not favored with a Weaver-type statement of the trial judge’s reasons for denying appellant’s release pending appeal. The judge’s response to Rule 9(b) is little more than a recitation of certain of the procedural events during the prosecution and an expression of opinion that release conditions would not suitably safeguard against flight or dangerousness.42 [585] Vague insinuations aside, no facts which might augur risks of that magnitude are identified, and no reasons why an imposition of conditions might not sufficiently minimize them is offered. The statement Weaver envisions must fairly explain the judge’s ruling in order that it may be intelligently reviewed. The statement with which we are presented is wholly conclusory and in no way comports with Weaver standards.
Ill
In this milieu, we confront a problem which we have had to face in the past: the course appropriately to be taken when a trial judge has failed to comply with Rule 9(b). Our decisions have traveled each of two possible routes, according to whether an opportunity for a solid decision by this court on bail was present. Where the relevant facts have been clear enough to lead convincingly to but one conclusion on release, we have resolved the question ourselves without a remand for a further statement of reasons.43 We have followed the same course in situations where it appeared that the cause of elucidation would not be served by a remand.44 But where we have felt unable to soundly resolve the bail issue on the information available to us and a further call upon the trial judge promised real assistance, we have remanded for suitable amplification of the Rule 9(b) statement.45 That, we think, is the disposition incumbent upon us here.
The question at hand is not the standard by which we are to decide motions for release from custody during the pendency of an appeal. The question is whether we can justifiably proceed to any decision without soliciting [586] from the trial judge conceivably helpful information we do not have. Our duty in the statutory scheme is to insure against indiscriminate administration of bail and, indubitably, “[t]he function of this court on a bail application pending appeal ... is not merely appellate but includes the duty to make an independent determination of all relevant factors.”46 Once all pertinent information has been developed by the parties and subjected to the decision-making process by the trial judge, we are accorded leeway in assessing the merits of both the information and the judge’s decision.47 But this does not mean that we are free to ignore the reasons assigned by a trial judge for his action48 or, except where the ruling properly to be made on release is very clear, to adjudicate the application when the judge has neglected a statement of reasons.49 The requirement that the trial judge furnish such a statement, we have said, is a direction that we in turn consider it, with all the deference it is due.50 We can no more remain faithful to our responsibilities by venturing a decision when potentially valuable views of the trial judge remain unknown than when other material information remains ungathered.
We cannot proceed confidently to a resolution of the present appellant’s bail motion without an expression of the trial judge’s reasons for denying it. The information before us does not point inexorably to a single conclusion; rather, in critical respects, it lends itself to duplicitous interpretations. On the one hand is appellant’s impressive showing, predicated largely on personal and family ties to the District,51 the absence of any substantial prior criminal record;52 a good performance on pretrial release,53 and the offer of a home and a job pending appeal.54 On the other hand, appellant has been found guilty of a heinous offense,55 he admits to past [587] use of narcotics,56 and he faces five years in prison without hope of probation or parole.57 Contrary to the appraisal of our dissenting colleague, we do not rate the case for bail “overwhelming” 58 or a grant of release “inescapable.”59 We are completely in the dark as to the treatment the trial judge gave the circumstances we already know and, beyond that, more remarkable indicia of nonreleasability may reside in circumstances we do not know.60 We cannot afford to discount either possibility; the judge revoked appellant’s bail immediately upon return of the jury’s verdict and, when asked to reconsider, stated emphatically that no conditions of release could provide a reasonable assurance against flight or danger to the community. On the information before us we could not be nearly so positive, but we realize that we lack the benefit of the judge’s thinking as well as his observations of and impressions from the ten-day trial at which he presided.61
In this state of affairs, both principle and reason caution against an attempt to assess and safeguard against the risks of flight and community danger which may be incidental to appellant’s enlargement. Our current predicament is comparable to that in which we found ourselves in United States v. Jackson,62 where we were forced to remand a record similarly unrevealing :
We do not know whether the District Judge deemed appellant a potential fugitive or a potential menace to the community, or in either event precisely why. Nor do we know just what consideration he may have given to an imposition of conditions with a view to minimizing the risks of flight and danger. These, of course, are initially subjects for the District Judge’s inquiry and decision, and we intimate no view as to them. On the contrary, our practice is to defer to the District Judge’s determinations when deference is due, in preference to a de novo investigation and ruling on our own —either for or against release. With evidence here pointing both ways on the issues of flight and danger, we cannot intelligently perform our review responsibilities without an understanding of the District Judge’s decisional basis.63
We realize, of course, that remands necessitated by failures to observe the commands of Rule 9(b) may occasion some encroachment on the accused’s right to a speedy resolution on bail.64 That enroachment, however, need not be more than slight. A remand simply calls upon the trial judge for an articulation of reasons he already has. Prompt compliance with the remand order is expected, and indeed may be [588] required.65 The truth of the matter is that the judge can act responsively about as quickly as we can de novo. Thus we discern no substantial incompatibility between promptness and soundness in bail determinations.66 To scrap a remand in this case is not only to uproot previous decisions of this court 67 but also to emasculate the wholesome policies undergirding the scheme of the Bail Reform Act and the implementing Rules.68 We admonish counsel and trial judges alike to tap every available source of information potentially helpful to a solid decision on releasibility.69 As judges likewise [589] charged with administration of the bail system, we are not at liberty to do less,
I. FINDINGS OF FACT
1. On May 21, 1971, defendant was found guilty by a jury of receipt and concealment of narcotic drugs knowing same to have been imported contrary to law, 21 U.S.C. § 174.
2. The evidence introduced at trial was more than sufficient to sustain defendant’s conviction and the Court can recall no error in that proceeding.
3. During defendant’s pre-sentence interview he admitted using narcotics during his employment as a Metropolitan Police Department officer, and re-affirmed this fact at sentencing.
4. On August 2, 1971, defendant was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of five years, the minimum sentence permitted for a violaion of 21 U.S.C. § 174.
5. On that same date, this Court, sua spante, determined that defendant should not be released pending appeal.
6. On October 27, 1971, defendant filed the within motion, arguing that this Court erred in referring to 23 D.C. Code § 1325 for the appropriate standards for judging release pending appeal.
II. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. The appropriate standard for judging release pending appeal following a conviction under 21 U.S.C. § 174 is 18 U.S.C. §§ 3146 and 3148, as determined in United States v. Benjamin Thompson, [147 U.S.App.D.C. 1, 452 F.2d 1333] D.C.Cir. No. 71-1182 decided October 7, 1971; i. e., subsequent to denial of defendant's release on August 2, 1971.
2. By reason of the foregoing findings this Court is of the opinion that no one or more conditions of release as [585] outlined in IS U.S.C. § 3146 will reasonably assure that defendant will not flee or pose a danger to any other (jerson or to the community.
We note that the judge’s statement only obliquely opines that appellant’s appeal is frivolous. See ¶ 2. Appellant claims error in instructing and failing to instruct the jury, in admitting evidence allegedly hearsay, and in refusing to grant appellant’s motion for a judgment of acquittal.
We express no opinion on the merits of these contentions save that we are satisfied that nonfrivolous issues are presented.