# Sanabria v. United States

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 14, 1978 · 437 U.S. 54

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9427256

## Case

- **Full name:** Sanabria v. United States
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 14, 1978
- **Citations:** 437 U.S. 54; 98 S. Ct. 2170; 57 L. Ed. 2d 43; 1978 U.S. LEXIS 108
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Blackmun
- **Judges:** Blackmun, Marshall, Burger, Brennan, Stewart, Powell, Stevens, Ii-A, White, Blacicmun, Rehnquist
- **Cited by:** 848 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9427256

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that the protection of the Double Jeopardy Clause does not preclude a defendant from being charged under a “statute[ ] defining as the criminal offense a discrete act, after a prior conviction or acquittal of a distinguishable discrete act that is a separate violation …
- explaining that ''[a] mistake in designating the judgment appealed from is not always fatal, so long as the intent to appeal from a specific ruling can fairly be inferred by probing the notice and the other party was not misled or prejudiced”
- holding that the Blockburger test did not apply to violation of a single statute
- holding that, although a “gambling business” may violate multiple provisions of state law, the “allowable unit of prosecution” under the statute for the purposes of double jeopardy is participation in a particular “gambling business”

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
with whom Mr. Justice Rehnquist joins, dissenting.
This case, of course, is an odd and an unusual one, factually and procedurally. Because it is, the case will afford little guidance as precedent in the Court’s continuing struggle to create order and understanding out of the confusion of the lengthening list of its decisions on the Double Jeopardy Clause. I would have thought, however, that the principles enunciated late last Term in Lee v. United States, 432 U. S. 23 (1977) — which I deem a more difficult case for the Government than this one — had application to the facts here. I do not share the Court’s distinction of Lee, ante, at 75, and I do not agree that Lee is “manifestly inapposite.” Here, as in Lee , there is misdescription by the trial court of the nature of its order, and, as in Lee , the defendant-petitioner’s maneu *81 vers should result in a surrender of his right to receive a verdict by the jury that had been drawn. Further, it appears to me that petitioner has succeeded in having the indictment read one way in the trial court, and another way here, as the situation required.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9427256. Public record. Not legal advice.