spamc failure results in mail being allowed anyway?

[Ron Snyder]

With spamass-milter 2.31, I've got my sendmail is configured to return a
temp fail error if the milter isn't accessible, but I'm noticing that if
spamc can't connect to spamd, the milter allows the mail to be delivered
anyway.  Is there any way to resolve this issue?  (I'd like for the incoming
mail delivery to "temp fail" if any portion of the milter+spamassassin sw
isn't available.)

-ron