Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02809/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02809-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Gary A. Boughton
Appellee
Demetrius M. Boyd
Appellant

Document Text:

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 14-2809 

DEMETRIUS M. BOYD, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v.

GARY A. BOUGHTON, 

Respondent-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Wisconsin. 

No. 12 C 388 — William E. Callahan, Jr., Magistrate Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED APRIL 22, 2015 — DECIDED AUGUST 14, 2015 

____________________ 

Before POSNER and KANNE, Circuit Judges, and DARRAH, 

District Judge.

KANNE, Circuit Judge. Appellant Demetrius M. Boyd has 

filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He claims that he 

is being detained in violation of federal law—specifically, the 

 

 The Honorable John W. Darrah, of the United States District Court for 

the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation. 

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Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The district court denied Boyd’s petition, and he appeals pursuant 

to a certificate of appealability. For the reasons below, we affirm the district court’s denial of the petition. 

I. BACKGROUND

Boyd was arrested on criminal charges and released from 

jail pursuant to a bond agreement. Boyd was subject to a 

number of bond conditions, including that he not engage in 

any criminal activity. While on release, however, Boyd was 

arrested and charged in Wisconsin state court with ten 

counts, including three counts of armed robbery with the 

threat of force; being a felon in possession of a firearm; possessing a short-barreled shotgun; taking a vehicle without 

the owner’s consent by the use of a dangerous weapon; battery; unlawfully and intentionally pointing a firearm at another person; operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent; and resisting or obstructing a law enforcement officer. 

Pursuant to Wisconsin Statute § 946.49, which makes 

“bail jumping” a felony offense, the state charged Boyd in 

the same proceeding with ten counts of bail jumping: it 

charged one bail-jumping count for each of the underlying 

substantive offenses that Boyd allegedly committed while on 

bond. A jury convicted Boyd on all twenty counts, and he 

was sentenced to over forty years’ imprisonment. 

Boyd appealed. Among other arguments, he contended 

that he was being punished for both bail jumping and the 

substantive offenses in violation of the Double Jeopardy 

Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The Wisconsin Court of 

Appeals rejected his double-jeopardy argument and afCase: 14-2809 Document: 35 Filed: 08/14/2015 Pages: 23
No. 14-2809 3

firmed his convictions. Boyd then appealed to the Supreme 

Court of Wisconsin, which denied his petition for review. 

Having exhausted his state remedies, Boyd filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Eastern District of 

Wisconsin. Among other claims, he raised the same doublejeopardy argument that he had pursued in state court. The 

district court denied his petition but granted a certificate of 

appealability on the double-jeopardy issue. 

Boyd appeals the denial of his writ of habeas corpus. 

II. ANALYSIS

In short, Boyd argues that his bail-jumping and underlying offenses constituted the “same offense” under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. 

Constitution. He argues that, as a result, he may not be lawfully punished for both. He claims that the state court’s opposite conclusion constituted a decision contrary to clearly 

established federal law, rendering him eligible for habeas 

relief. 

A. Standard of Review 

Our review of Boyd’s claim is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”). In order 

to obtain relief, Boyd must show that “he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United 

States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a); see Wilson v. Corcoran, 562 U.S. 1, 

16 (2010) (per curiam). And he must show that his detention 

was the result of a state court decision that was (1) “contrary 

to, or involv[ing] an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court 

of the United States;” or (2) “based on an unreasonable deCase: 14-2809 Document: 35 Filed: 08/14/2015 Pages: 23
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termination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in 

the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). 

Boyd invokes here the first of those requirements—that 

his detention is the result of a state court decision that is contrary to clearly established federal law. The relevant state 

court decision is that of the last state court to address the 

claim on the merits. McFowler v. Jaimet, 349 F.3d 436, 446 (7th 

Cir. 2003). 

A state court decision is contrary to Supreme Court precedent “if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to 

that reached by [the] Court on a question of law,” or “if the 

state court confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court precedent and arrives at 

[an opposite result].” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405 

(2000) (citing Green v. French, 143 F.3d 865, 869–70 (4th Cir. 

1998)). A decision applying the correct legal rule to the facts 

of a case is not “contrary to” within the meaning of 

§ 2254(d)(1). Williams, 529 U.S. at 406. Additionally, a state 

court decision is not unreasonable simply because the court 

applied federal law incorrectly. Id. at 410 (“For purposes of 

today's opinion, the most important point is that an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law.”). 

We review the district court’s findings of fact for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. Rizzo v. Smith, 528 F.3d 

501, 505 (7th Cir. 2008). 

B. The Supreme Court’s Double-Jeopardy Jurisprudence 

Boyd’s claim rests on the Supreme Court’s doublejeopardy jurisprudence, which he says the Wisconsin state 

court misapplied. So we begin by discussing at some length 

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the twists and turns of the Supreme Court’s interpretation 

and application of the Double Jeopardy Clause. 

1. Double Jeopardy Basics 

The Double Jeopardy Clause provides that no person 

shall “be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” U.S. Const. amend. V. While this provision may appear straightforward, its meaning and application have long been the subjects of debate and changing legal standards. Commentators have called the Supreme 

Court’s double-jeopardy jurisprudence (among other unflattering descriptions) full of “double talk” and “double 

takes,”1 lacking a “cogent analysis,”2 and “just about as far 

removed from a model of logical and conceptual clarity as it 

is possible to be.”3 Without endorsing any of those descriptions, we must admit that the Court’s jurisprudence is complicated and often unclear. Indeed, as we discuss later, that is 

one of the reasons why Boyd’s claims fail. 

As the Supreme Court has interpreted it, the Double 

Jeopardy Clause envisions three ways in which a defendant 

may be “twice put in jeopardy of life or limb”: (1) a subsequent prosecution after an acquittal; (2) a subsequent prosecution after a conviction; and (3) being twice punished for 

 

1 Akhil Reed Amar, Double Jeopardy Law Made Simple, 106 Yale L. J. 1807, 

1807-08 (1997). 

2 Peter Henning, Precedents in a Vacuum: The Supreme Court Continues to 

Tinker with Double Jeopardy, 31 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1, 3 (1993). 

3 Ronald J. Allen, Bard Ferrall & John Ratnaswamy, The Double Jeopardy 

Clause, Constitutional Interpretation and the Limits of Formal Logic, 26 Val. 

U. L. Rev., 281, 281-82 (1991). 

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the same offense. North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 717 

(1969). The type of jeopardy at issue in this case is the third, 

which we will refer to as the “multiple-punishment” line of 

cases. 

2. The Blockburger Test 

Our starting point is Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 

299 (1932). In that case, Harry Blockburger was convicted of 

multiple counts of violating a federal narcotics statute. 

Among other charges, he was convicted of selling “ten 

grains” of a narcotic drug to a specific purchaser (Count 2), 

and then selling “eight grains” of the same drug to the same 

purchaser on a different day (Count 3). Blockburger claimed 

that the conduct underlying Count 3 was merely a continuation of the conduct in Count 2—this was one single drug 

deal. He argued, therefore, that those counts were actually 

the same offense, for which he could not lawfully be punished 

twice. 

To determine the application of the Double Jeopardy 

Clause, the Court had to decide when two criminal charges 

actually constituted the “same offense.” It laid out what 

came to be known as the “same-elements” or Blockburger

test. That test asks whether each offense requires an element 

that is not required by the other: if not, then the two are the 

“same offense.” See Blockburger, 284 U.S. at 304 (“[W]here the 

same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct 

statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine 

whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each 

provision requires proof of a fact of which the other does 

not.”). Put differently, if Statute 1 requires an element that 

Statute 2 does not; and Statute 2 requires an element that 

Statute 1 does not, then the statutes constitute different ofCase: 14-2809 Document: 35 Filed: 08/14/2015 Pages: 23
No. 14-2809 7

fenses. Otherwise, they are the same offense for Blockburger

purposes. 

3. The Short-Lived Grady Test 

In 1990, the Supreme Court revisited the Blockburger test 

in Grady v. Corbin, 495 U.S. 508 (1990). In that case, the Court 

held that in the context of successive prosecutions, the Double 

Jeopardy Clause required one further layer of analysis. The 

Court held that a successive prosecution “must do more 

than merely survive the Blockburger test.” Grady, 495 U.S. at 

521. In addition, “the Double Jeopardy Clause bars any subsequent prosecution in which the government, to establish 

an essential element of an offense charged in that prosecution, will prove conduct that constitutes an offense for which the 

defendant has already been prosecuted.” Id. (emphasis added). 

This was, in effect, a “same conduct” test. Two offenses 

could pass the Blockburger test, because each offense contained an element that the other did not, but still fail under 

Grady. The Court noted, however, that the Blockburger test 

had been developed in the multiple-punishment context, and 

it appeared to assume that Blockburger would continue to be 

the test applied in such cases.4 

Grady, however, was short-lived. In 1993, just three years 

after it decided that case, the Supreme Court abandoned 

Grady’s same-conduct test for subsequent-prosecution 

claims. And it reinstituted Blockburger as the test applicable 

 

4 We concluded the same. See, e.g., United States v. Hartmann, 958 F.2d 

774, 792 (7th Cir. 1992) (applying Blockburger analysis to post-Grady multiple sentencing case). 

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to all varieties of double-jeopardy cases. It did so in United 

States v. Dixon, a fragmented, plurality opinion. 509 U.S. 688 

(1993). We need not detail the Court’s reasoning in jettisoning Grady—we describe Grady’s brief existence only to set the 

stage for the Court’s opinion in Dixon. 

4. Blockburger Applied to Lesser-Included Offenses: Harris

and Dixon

In addition to overturning Grady and reinstituting Blockburger, the Dixon Court took up another issue: how to apply 

Blockburger’s “same elements” test when one of the offenses 

looks like a “lesser-included offense” of the other. 

The lesser-included-offense story begins with Harris v. 

Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682 (1977) (per curiam). In that case, defendant Thomas Harris killed a grocery store clerk during 

the commission of a robbery. Harris was convicted of felonymurder, and in a later prosecution was also convicted of the 

underlying robbery. Harris appealed his robbery conviction, 

arguing that it was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. 

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction, but acknowledged that “[i]n a felony murder case, 

the proof of underlying felony [here robbery with firearms] 

is needed to prove the intent necessary for a felony murder 

conviction.” Harris, 433 U.S. at 682 (citation omitted) (brackets in original). 

The Supreme Court reversed. It determined that “[w]hen, 

as here, conviction of a greater crime, murder, cannot be had 

without conviction of the lesser crime, robbery with firearms, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars prosecution for the 

lesser crime, after conviction of the greater crime.” Id. The 

Court concluded that the two crimes failed the “sameCase: 14-2809 Document: 35 Filed: 08/14/2015 Pages: 23
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elements” test, so the Double Jeopardy Clause barred a subsequent prosecution for robbery. Subsequent cases, such as 

Whalen, applied the same analysis. Whalen v. United States, 

445 U.S. 684 (1980). 

Now enter Dixon, a consolidated case involving two defendants. The first defendant, Alvin Dixon, had been arrested in the District of Columbia and was released on bond. 

Dixon’s bond agreement stated that he was not to commit 

“any criminal offense.” Dixon, 509 U.S. at 691. It also stated 

that any violation of the conditions of his release would subject him “to revocation of release, an order of detention, and 

prosecution for contempt of court.” Id. While out on bond, 

Dixon was arrested and indicted for possession of cocaine 

with intent to distribute, in violation of D.C. law. 

Before any proceedings regarding the cocaine indictment, 

the D.C. court held a hearing, requiring Dixon to show cause 

as to why he should not be held in contempt. The court concluded that the government had “established beyond a reasonable doubt that [Dixon] was in possession of drugs and 

that those drugs were possessed with the intent to distribute.” Id. at 691 (brackets in original). 

The court found him guilty of criminal contempt. Dixon 

then moved to dismiss the cocaine indictment on doublejeopardy grounds, and the court granted his motion. The 

District of Columbia Court of Appeals, relying on (thencontrolling) Grady, agreed that Dixon’s subsequent prosecution was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. 

The second defendant, Michael Foster, was subject to a 

civil protection order obtained by his estranged wife, Ana. 

The order required that he not “molest, assault, or in any 

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manner threaten or physically abuse” her. Over the next 

eight months, Ana filed three motions to have her husband 

held in contempt of the order. She alleged, among other 

claims, that Foster threatened her on three occasions and 

physically assaulted her twice. 

The D.C. court held a three-day bench trial on the contempt issue. In order to prove contempt, the court stated that 

Ana would have ”to prove as an element, first that there was 

a Civil Protection Order, and then [that] ... the assault as defined by the criminal code, in fact occurred.” Id. at 693 

(brackets in original). The court found Foster guilty of the 

physical assaults but acquitted him on the threat allegations. 

The government later obtained an indictment charging 

Foster with, among other counts: threatening to injure another for the three threats (for which he had been acquitted 

of contempt); simple assault for one of the physical assaults 

(for which he had been found guilty of contempt); and assault with intent to kill for the other physical assault (for 

which he had been found guilty of contempt). Foster filed a 

motion to dismiss, based on double jeopardy, and the trial 

court denied his motion. Foster appealed, and as in Dixon’s 

case, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals held that 

Foster’s subsequent prosecutions were barred by the Double 

Jeopardy Clause. The cases were consolidated and appealed 

to the Supreme Court. 

The question before the Supreme Court was whether the 

subsequent prosecutions of Dixon and Foster violated the 

Double Jeopardy Clause. After overturning Grady, the majority of the Court applied Blockburger. The Court divided, 

however, as to how Blockburger would apply to those subsequent prosecutions. Seven of the justices looked to the 

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Court’s “lesser-included-offense” jurisprudence as the most 

pertinent authority. But the fractured court then veered in 

multiple directions. 

Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Kennedy, concluded that a 

subsequent prosecution of Dixon would violate the Double 

Jeopardy Clause. He concluded that the drug charge constituted a sort of lesser-included-offense to the contempt crime: 

[T]he ‘crime’ of violating a condition of release cannot be abstracted from the ‘element’ of the violated 

condition. The Dixon court order incorporated the 

entire governing criminal code in the same manner 

as the Harris felony-murder statute incorporated 

the several enumerated felonies. Here, as in Harris, 

the underlying substantive criminal offense is ‘a 

species of lesser-included offense.’” 

Id. at 698 (citations omitted). He also concluded that Foster 

could not be subsequently prosecuted for simple assault because the civil protection order required him not to “assault” 

his wife. Id. at 700. This amounted to simple assault being a 

lesser-included offense of contempt. 

But, Justice Scalia concluded, Foster’s other charges did 

not constitute lesser-included offenses of Foster’s contempt 

conviction. Id. at 700. In short, they passed the Blockburger 

test: each substantive offense had an element that the protection order did not, and the protection order had an element 

that each substantive offense did not. As for assault with intent to kill, it required proof of the specific intent to kill, 

which the protection order did not; and the protection order 

required that Foster have knowledge of the protection order, 

which assault with the intent to kill did not. Id. at 701–02. 

The same was true of the threat charges. Id. 

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Justice White, joined by Justice Stevens in relevant part, 

also concluded that the lesser-included-offense analysis 

barred Dixon’s subsequent prosecution and Foster’s subsequent prosecution for simple assault. Id. at 733 (White, J., 

concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part). 

Unlike Justice Scalia, however, Justice White concluded that 

the Double Jeopardy Clause barred all of the charges 

brought against Foster, based on an application of the Blockburger same-elements test. Id. Justice White faulted Justice 

Scalia for an overly formalistic focus approach to applying 

Blockburger, concluding that “[t]he distinction drawn by Justice SCALIA is predicated on a reading of the Double Jeopardy Clause that is abstracted from the purposes the constitutional provision is designed to promote.” Id. at 735. 

Chief Justice Rehnquist, joined by Justices O’Connor and 

Thomas, concluded that none of the criminal prosecutions 

against Dixon or Foster were barred under Blockburger. Id. at 

713 (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in 

part). The Chief Justice rejected Scalia’s reading of Harris, 

that the elements of a lesser-included offense are “incorporated” into the greater offense, for purposes of doublejeopardy analysis. Instead, he concluded, one most look only 

at the crime of contempt and the elements it explicitly lists. 

Contempt of court, he stated, comprises two elements: “(i) a 

court order made known to the defendant, followed by (ii) 

willful violation of that order.” Id. at 716. On its face, the 

crime of contempt has different elements than the substantive criminal charges at issue. Therefore, he concluded, the 

statutes all passed the Blockburger test. Id. at 713. 

Justice Blackmun concluded that the interests served by 

the contempt mechanism “are fundamentally different from 

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those served by the prosecutions of violations of the substantive criminal law.” Id. at 743 (Blackmun, J., concurring in the 

judgment in part and dissenting in part). He stated that the 

purpose of contempt was not to punish any offense against 

the community, but instead to punish the specific act of disobeying a court order. Id. at 742. Because of those fundamentally different purposes, he concluded that neither Foster nor 

Dixon had been “subject for the same offence to be twice put 

in jeopardy of life or limb.” Id. at 743. 

And finally, Justice Souter concluded that the Double 

Jeopardy Clause barred subsequent prosecutions against 

both Dixon and Foster on all counts. Id. at 744 (Souter, J., 

concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part). 

His analysis, however, focused on his stance that Grady 

should remain in force, and that Harris should be interpreted 

in light of Grady. 

Harris and Dixon illustrate how the Supreme Court analyzes double-jeopardy claims when faced with lesserincluded offenses. Although they were both multipleprosecution cases, it is a fair inference that the Court would 

employ the same analysis in a multiple-punishment case like 

this one, for the same Blockburger test applies in both contexts. 

5. The Two-Part Test for Multiple Punishments in the Same 

Proceeding 

But, at least in the multiple-punishment context, the 

Blockburger test is not the end of the story. When the government seeks to impose cumulative punishments in the same 

proceeding, the Court has concluded that statutes can fail the 

Blockburger test and still not run afoul of the Double JeopCase: 14-2809 Document: 35 Filed: 08/14/2015 Pages: 23
14 No. 14-2809

ardy Clause.5 According to the Supreme Court, “simply because two criminal statutes may be construed to proscribe 

the same conduct under the Blockburger test does not mean 

that the Double Jeopardy Clause precludes the imposition, 

in a single trial, of cumulative punishments pursuant to 

those statutes.” Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 368 (1983). 

Instead, the Court concluded that when multiple punishments are imposed in a single proceeding, “the Double 

Jeopardy Clause does no more than prevent the sentencing 

court from prescribing greater punishment than the legislature 

intended.” Id. at 366 (emphasis added). So, in such cases, the 

Blockburger test is effectively a “rule of statutory construction.” See Whalen, 445 U.S. at 691. A court must assume that 

the legislature “ordinarily does not intend to punish the 

same offense under two different statutes. Accordingly, 

where two statutory provisions proscribe the ‘same offense,’ 

 

5 Most multiple-punishment cases arise when charges that might result 

in cumulative punishment are brought in the same proceeding. But it is 

possible for multiple-punishment scenarios to arise in successive proceedings. See North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 717 (1969) (where defendant successfully challenged his conviction while serving his prison 

term. When he was subsequently retried and convicted of the same offense, the Court held that he must be given “credit” for the time he had 

already served. To do otherwise would be to punish him twice for the 

same offense.). The Court has made clear that the Double Jeopardy 

Clause outright forbids multiple punishments for a single offense only 

when those punishments are imposed in successive proceedings. See 

Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93, 99 (1997) (citing Hunter, 459 U.S. at 

366). So in those cases, the Blockburger test is the beginning and the end 

of the analysis: if the Blockburger test indicates that the offenses at issue 

are the same, then multiple punishments may not be imposed. 

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they are construed not to authorize cumulative punishments 

in the absence of a clear indication of contrary legislative intent.” Whalen, 445 U.S. at 691–92. But if the legislature clearly 

indicated that it intended cumulative punishment, then the 

Double Jeopardy Clause does not prohibit multiplepunishment. Id. 

 Thus, in order to determine whether multiple punishments in a single proceeding violate the Double Jeopardy 

Clause, a court must engage in a two-step analysis: first, it 

must evaluate the statutes at issue by applying the Blockburger test. If the statutes pass Blockburger (i.e., if they are different offenses), then there is no double-jeopardy violation. 

But if the statutes fail Blockburger, then the court must look to 

whether the legislature nevertheless clearly intended for the 

statutes to apply simultaneously and impose cumulative 

punishment. 

That concludes our discussion of the Supreme Court’s 

relevant double-jeopardy jurisprudence. We next evaluate 

how the Wisconsin courts have applied that jurisprudence in 

the context of “bail jumping” generally and to Boyd’s case 

specifically. 

C. Double Jeopardy and Bail Jumping in Wisconsin 

Wisconsin law makes bail jumping, under certain circumstances, a felony offense. Bail jumping includes more 

than a defendant’s failure to appear for a court date; it encompasses any acts that constitute noncompliance with the 

terms of a defendant’s bond agreement. Wis. Stat. § 946.49 

provides that: 

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(1) Whoever, having been released from custody 

under ch. 969, intentionally fails to comply with the 

terms of his or her bond is: 

(a) If the offense with which the person is charged 

is a misdemeanor, guilty of a Class A misdemeanor. 

(b) If the offense with which the person is charged 

is a felony, guilty of a Class H felony. 

(2) A witness for whom bail has been required under s. 969.01(3) is guilty of a Class I felony for failure to appear as provided. 

We note that the “offense” referenced in subsections (a) and 

(b) is the offense for which the defendant was originally arrested and on release—not the violation that is alleged during the release period. As we understand it, the commission 

of a crime while on release will virtually always constitute a 

failure to comply with the terms of a defendant’s bond, because a standard bond term is that the defendant “shall not 

commit any crime.” See, e.g., Wisconsin Court Form (Criminal) CR-203, Bail/Bond. 

The Court of Appeals of Wisconsin (the state’s intermediate appellate court) considered a double-jeopardy challenge 

to the operation of § 946.49 in State v. Nelson, 432 N.W.2d 115 

(Wis. Ct. App. 1988). In that case, defendant Eugene Nelson 

had been released on bond, subject to the condition that he 

not commit any crimes. He was subsequently arrested and 

charged with two counts of sexual assault while on release. 

The state, pursuant to § 946.49, added one count of bail 

jumping to each of his sexual assault charges and prosecuted 

both the bail jumping and the substantive offenses in the 

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same proceeding. A jury convicted Nelson on all counts. Id.

at 116–17. 

Nelson challenged his convictions for sexual assault on 

double-jeopardy grounds, arguing that he was being twice 

punished for the same offense. He argued that the sexual assault charges constituted lesser-included offenses of bail 

jumping. To determine whether bail jumping and sexual assault constituted the “same offense,” the court applied a version of the Blockburger test, adopting a formulation that had 

developed under Wisconsin state law: “the lesser offense 

must be statutorily included in the greater offense and contain no element in addition to the elements constituting the 

greater offense.” Id. at 118. The court stated, “[i]n simplest 

terms, it must be utterly impossible to commit the greater 

crime without committing the lesser.” Id. 

To commit bail jumping, the court explained, the defendant must only have (1) been released from custody on bail; 

and (2) intentionally failed to comply with the terms of the 

bond. Id. And to commit sexual assault, the defendant must 

(1) with the use of threat or violence; (2) [have] sexual contact or intercourse with another person; (3) without that person’s consent. Id. By the plain terms of the statutes, the court 

concluded, those were two separate offenses. Id. 

Nelson argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s felonymurder cases instructed that bail jumping and sexual assault 

actually constituted the same offense. In those cases, Nelson 

argued, the felony-murder statutes did not explicitly list the 

elements of the underlying felony; yet the Supreme Court, in 

essence, “incorporated” those elements into the greater, felony-murder offense. The same, Nelson argued, should be 

true in his case. 

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The court rejected this argument. It concluded that the 

felony-murder statutes were distinguishable because they 

required the commission of an underlying felony. Id. at 119. In 

other words, it was “utterly impossible” to commit the 

greater crime, felony-murder, without committing the lesser 

crime, the accompanying felony. Id. In the case of bail jumping, however, it was possible to violate the bail-jumping 

statute by committing any act that violated the terms of the 

bond agreement—whether or not that act was criminal. Id.

Therefore, the court concluded, there was no doublejeopardy violation. 

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin then addressed the issue in State ex rel. Jacobus v. State, 559 N.W.2d 900 (Wis. 1997). 

In that case, the court adopted the court of appeals’ conclusion in Nelson that bail jumping and the conduct underlying 

it are “distinct and separate offenses.” Jacobus, 559 N.W.2d at 

905. And it explored the legislative intent underlying 

§ 946.49. 

In Jacobus, defendant Alexander Jacobus had been released on bond, subject to a condition that he not consume 

any alcohol. He was then charged with disorderly conduct 

and operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated. In addition 

to those charges, the state added several bail-jumping 

counts. One of those counts was based solely on Jacobus’s 

consumption of alcohol in violation of his no-alcohol bond 

condition. Jacobus pled guilty to that count. 

Jacobus later filed a state writ of habeas corpus based on 

that “no-alcohol bond violation” conviction. He argued that 

Wisconsin law prohibited the state from criminally prosecuting him for the violation of his no-alcohol condition. Wisconsin Statute § 51.45 provides that “[i]t is the policy of this 

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state that alcoholics and intoxicated persons may not be subjected to criminal prosecution because of their consumption 

of alcohol beverages but rather should be afforded a continuum of treatment in order that they may lead normal lives as 

productive members of society.” Wis. Stat. § 51.45. 

This, Jacobus argued, prohibited the state from criminally prosecuting him for bail jumping based on the underlying 

consumption of alcohol. He argued that doing so would 

constitute criminal prosecution for the consumption of alcohol. The court of appeals agreed with Jacobus, concluding 

that “although the State may prohibit alcohol consumption 

as a condition of bail, parole, or probation, the only available 

penalty is revocation of the applicable status.” Id. at 902. 

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin reversed, concluding 

that a conviction for bail jumping did not constitute punishment for the underlying act. Instead, it constituted punishment for the crime of violating a court order. While Jacobus did not raise a double-jeopardy claim, the court looked 

to the double-jeopardy context as analogous. In doing so, the 

court adopted the court of appeals’ conclusion in Nelson that 

bail jumping and its underlying offenses constituted “distinct and separate offenses.” Id. at 905. 

The court also looked to legislative intent. It turned to 

§ 946.49 to ascertain “the purpose of the bail jumping statute, 

to determine whether public drunkenness is the gravamen of 

the offenses with which Jacobus was charged.” Id. In other 

words, did the legislature intend that § 946.49 punish a bail 

jumper for his underlying offense or conduct? 

 First, the court underscored that bail jumping and any 

underlying offense were distinct criminal charges. Second, 

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the court concluded that when an individual is charged with 

bail jumping, “the focus of the prosecution is on the fact that 

the individual has violated a condition of his or her bond. 

The focus is not on the underlying act.” Id. at 905. Therefore, 

the court concluded, “[t]he State is not prosecuting the individual for public drunkenness or the consumption of alcohol.” Accordingly, it held that Jacobus could be prosecuted 

for bail jumping when the underlying conduct was violation 

of a no-alcohol condition. 

D. Boyd’s Double-Jeopardy Claim 

That brings us at last to Boyd’s claim. Boyd argues that 

his state court convictions and punishment on the bailjumping and substantive charges are “contrary to, or involv[ing] an unreasonable application of, clearly established 

federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the 

United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). First, Boyd argues that 

the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in Jacobus reached a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court on a 

question of law. He contends that Supreme Court precedent 

compels the conclusion that, under an application of the 

Blockburger test, his bail-jumping and substantive charges 

were the “same offenses.” 

The problem with Boyd’s argument is that it runs headlong into Dixon. First, we underscore that the federal law at 

issue must be clearly established. The “lesser-includedoffense” analysis in Dixon included five separate opinions, 

all reaching different conclusions as to how Blockburger 

should apply. Assuming, as the district court did, that Dixon 

(a subsequent-prosecution case) applies equally in the multiple-punishment context, we don’t see any federal law as 

being clearly established from that five-way divide. 

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No. 14-2809 21

Seven of the Dixon justices applied a lesser-includedoffense analysis to the double-jeopardy issue. Of those, only 

four came to the conclusion that any of the subsequent prosecutions failed the Blockburger test. And of those four, the justices split in half as to which subsequent prosecutions were 

barred. 

The court in Jacobus applied an analysis similar to Chief 

Justice Rehnquist’s in Dixon, in which he concluded that 

none of the subsequent prosecutions were barred. We note 

that two other justices joined the Chief in that approach. 

Moreover, this approach garnered more votes than any of 

the other approaches laid out in the heavily fractured Dixon 

opinion. We can hardly conclude that the Supreme Court of 

Wisconsin erred in adopting that analysis—let alone that it 

contravened clearly established federal law. 

In a footnote in his reply brief, Boyd himself concedes 

that Dixon does not create any clearly established federal law 

on this issue.6 He argues instead that the law he relies upon 

is established not by Dixon but by other Supreme Court jurisprudence. His formulation of the clearly established federal law is “that it violates double jeopardy to punish an individual twice for the same offense without the legislature’s 

express approval.” 

 

6 The district court certainly understood Boyd to be arguing that Dixon 

established the relevant federal law. The district court concluded that “to 

the extent that Boyd’s habeas petition is predicated on the claim that 

Dixon compels that his double jeopardy rights were violated ... his petition will be denied.” 

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Boyd may be correct in his general statement of the law. 

But that statement alone does not answer the critical question—what constitutes the same offense for the purposes of the 

Double Jeopardy Clause? The lesser-included-offense issue 

was the critical question in Boyd’s case—it was outcomedeterminative, and it is the very issue he appeals here. Dixon 

provides the Supreme Court’s last word on it, so Boyd cannot avoid it. In fact, while attempting to distance himself 

from Dixon, Boyd simultaneously asks us to adopt the “incorporation” approach laid out in Justice Scalia’s Dixon concurrence. Boyd’s own request demonstrates that his path to 

proving a double-jeopardy violation must pass through Dixon.

Furthermore, even if Boyd were able to show that the 

Jacobus court erred in concluding that the two statutes 

passed the Blockburger test, his claim would still fail. As we 

noted above, there is a second step to the double-jeopardy 

analysis. “[S]imply because two criminal statutes may be 

construed to proscribe the same conduct under the Blockburger test does not mean that the Double Jeopardy Clause 

precludes the imposition, in a single trial, of cumulative 

punishments pursuant to those statutes.” Hunter, 459 U.S. at 

368. In such cases, “the Double Jeopardy Clause does no 

more than prevent the sentencing court from prescribing 

greater punishment than the legislature intended.” Id. at 366 

(emphasis added). 

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin concluded in Jacobus

that the legislature intended that the bail jumping statute 

punish separate conduct (the act of violating a court order) 

from any underlying offense. Boyd has provided no reason 

why that conclusion does not apply to the statutes at issue in 

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No. 14-2809 23

his case. And we have no reason to otherwise disturb the 

court’s conclusion. 

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s 

denial of Boyd’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. 

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