holding that the defendant’s three convictions under different statutes did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause, even though they were based on a single sale of narcotics, because Congress had proscribed three offenses
How later courts described this case
- holding that the defendant’s three convictions under different statutes did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause, even though they were based on a single sale of narcotics, because Congress had proscribed three offenses
- construing applicable federal drug statutes to authorize multiple convictions for a single drug sale and noting that if “the legislation reveals anything, it reveals the determination of Congress to turn the screw of the criminal machinery–detection, prosecution and punishment–tighter and tighter.”
- single proceeding; convictions and punishments for sale and distribution of heroin and cocaine not in the original stamped package, a violation of 26 U.S.C. § 4704(a
- noting that “[w]hatever views may be entertained regarding severity of punishment, whether one believes in its efficacy or its futility, these are peculiarly questions of legislative policy” (internal citation omitted)
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by United States v. Forman, 990 F. Supp. 875 (1997)
357 U.S. 386, 78 S.Ct. 1280, 2 L.Ed.2d 1405 (1958), relied upon by the government, is inapposite.
Distinguished by Commonwealth v. Grubb, 1993 Ky. LEXIS 129 (1993)
Gore v. United States, 357 U.S. 386, 78 S.Ct. 1280, 2 L.Ed.2d 1405 (1958), is clearly distinguishable in that three separate crimes committed under the auspices of a single sale of narcotics were clearly intended to be classified as separate crimes, and punishment to be imposed for each commission.
Distinguished by United States v. Roy Condy Woods, 568 F.2d 509 (1978)
357 U.S. 386, 78 S.Ct. 1280, 2 L.Ed.2d 1405 (1958), relied upon by the government, is inapposite.
Distinguished by State v. Ruiz, 127 N.J. Super. 350 (1974)
Gore is inapposite, since the three offenses there charged were not necessarily incident to or integral parts of the sales transaction.
The opinion
*395 Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom Mr. Justice Black concurs,
dissenting.
The first three counts of this indictment cover one sale of narcotics made on February 26, 1955. The one sale was broken down for purposes of the three counts into three crimes:
(1) petitioner made the sale not in pursuance of a written order” which is contrary to the requirement of 68A Stat. 551, 26 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 4705 (a) ;
(2) the narcotics were sold “not in the original stamped package” which is contrary to the requirements of 68A Stat. 550, 26 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 4704 (a);
(3) petitioner “facilitated the concealment and sale” which is in violation of 65 Stat. 767 , 21 U. S. C. § 174 .
Another single sale, one made on February 28, 1955, was likewise broken down into three separate and distinct crimes.
Consecutive sentences were imposed for the three crimes resulting from the first sale. Sentences imposed for the three crimes resulting from the second sale were made to run concurrently with each other and with the sentences imposed for the three offenses resulting from the first sale.
Plainly, Congress defined three distinct crimes, giving the prosecutor on these facts a choice. But I do not think the courts were warranted in punishing petitioner three times for the same transaction. I realize that Blockburger v. United States, 284 U. S. 299 , holds to the contrary. But I would overrule that case.
I find that course necessary because of my views on double jeopardy, recently expressed in Hoag v. New Jersey, 356 U. S. 464 . And see Ciucci v. Illinois, 356 *396 U. S. 571 . Once a crucial issue is litigated in a criminal case that issue may not be the basis of another prosecution. Here the same sale is made to do service for three prosecutions. The different evidence test, which was adopted without much analysis by the Court in Carter v. McClaughry, 183 U. S. 365, 394-395 (cf. Ex parte Nielsen, 131 U. S. 176 ), would permit the practice. Yet I agree with Bishop: . . in principle, and by the better judicial view, while the legislature may pronounce as many combinations of things as it pleases criminal, resulting not unfrequently in a plurality of crimes in one transaction or even in one act, for any one of which there may be a conviction without regard to the others, it is, in the language of Cockburn, C. J., a fundamental rule of law that out of the same facts a series of charges shall not be preferred.’ ” * 1 Criminal Law (9th ed. 1923) § 1060. I think it is time that the Double Jeopardy Clause was liberally construed in light of its great historic purpose to protect the citizen from more than one trial for the same act.
That analysis was adopted by the Court in Ballerini v. Aderholt, 44 F. 2d 352, 353 , a case close on its facts to the present one. There two counts were charged from one sale: (1) a sale without registration and payment of the tax and (2) a sale without requiring a written order. The court said:
“The offense charged in each count was the unlawful sale of the same ounce of heroin. As there was but one sale, it would seem to follow that there was but one criminal act committed against the laws of the United States. The failure of appellant to register and pay the special tax, as charged in the first count, or to obtain a written order, as charged in the second count, could not have been the basis of a criminal *397 prosecution. It was only in the event of a sale that such failure could become material. At last it was the sale, and not the failure to register, pay the tax, or secure the written order, that constituted the offense.”
Cf. Mr. Justice Rutledge concurring in District of Columbia v. Buckley, 75 U. S. App. D. C. 301, 305, 128 F. 2d 17, 21 .
I would read the three present statutes from that approach. I would hold that the prosecutor was given the choice of one of three prosecutions for this single sale. I would resist a reading which inferred that Congress intended multiple offenses from the same sale, for that would not make the statutes square with the Constitution.
Regina v. Elrington, 9 Cox C. C. 86, 90, 1 B. & S. 688.