Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/357/386/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 06:05:42+00:00

Document:
Convicted in a federal court on six counts for violating three different sections of federal law by a single sale of narcotics on each of two different days, petitioner was sentenced to three consecutive terms for each day's sale, the terms for each day's sale to run concurrently with those for the other day's sale. He moved under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to vacate the sentences as unlawful.
Held: The sentences were not unlawful. Pp. 357 U. S. 387-393.
(a) The Court adheres to the decision in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U. S. 299. Pp. 357 U. S. 388-393.
(b) Though the three sections here involved grew out of a single purpose to outlaw nonmedicinal sales of narcotics, they grew out of three different laws enacted at different times, for each of which Congress has provided a separate punishment, and Congress did not intend that violations of all three should be treated as a single offense when committed through a single sale. Pp. 357 U. S. 390-391.
(c) Bell v. United States, 349 U. S. 81, distinguished. Pp. 357 U. S. 391-392.
(d) The result here reached does not offend the constitutional prohibition of double jeopardy. Pp. 357 U. S. 392-393.
(e) The question of policy involved is for Congress to decide, and this Court has no power to increase or reduce sentences for such offenses. P. 357 U. S. 393.
100 U.S.App.D.C. 315, 244 F. 2d 763, affirmed.
the conviction is before us. In controversy is the legality of the sentences imposed by the trial court. These were imprisonment for a term of one to five years, imposed on each count, the sentences on the first three counts to run consecutively, the sentences on the remaining three counts to run concurrently with those on the first three counts. Thus, the total sentence was three to fifteen years. Petitioner moved, under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, to vacate the sentence, claiming that, for all three counts, a sentence as for only one count could be imposed. The motion was denied, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, 100 U.S.App.D.C. 315, 244 F.2d 763, with expressions of doubt by two of the judges, who felt themselves bound by Blockburger v. United States, 284 U. S. 299. We brought the case here, 355 U.S. 903, in order to consider whether some of our more recent decisions, while not questioning Blockburger but moving in related areas, may not have impaired its authority.
Blockburger was sentenced to ten years for the two offenses, petitioner was sentenced to a maximum of fifteen years. The Court of Appeals inevitably found the Blockburger case controlling.
to suggest that three different enactments, each relating to a separate way of closing in on illicit distribution of narcotics, passed at three different periods, for each of which a separate punishment was declared by Congress, somehow or other ought to have carried with them an implied indication by Congress that, if all these three different restrictions were disregarded, but, forsooth, in the course of one transaction, the defendant should be treated as though he committed only one of these offenses.
the Prince case it suffices to say that the Court was dealing there "with a unique statute of limited purpose." 352 U.S. at 352 U. S. 325.
Finally, we have had pressed upon us that the Blockburger doctrine offends the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy. If there is anything to this claim, it surely has long been disregarded in decisions of this Court, participated in by judges especially sensitive to the application of the historic safeguard of double jeopardy. In applying a provision like that of double jeopardy, which is rooted in history and is not an evolving concept like that of due process, a long course of adjudication in this Court carries impressive authority. Certainly if punishment for each of separate offenses as those for which the petitioner here has been sentenced, and not merely different descriptions of the same offense, is constitutionally beyond the power of Congress to impose, not only Blockburger but at least the following cases would also have to be overruled: Carter v. McClaughry, 183 U. S. 365; Morgan v. Devine, 237 U. S. 632; Albrecht v. United States, 273 U. S. 1; Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640; American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U. S. 781; United States v. Michener, 331 U.S. 789; Pereira v. United States, 347 U. S. 1.
further, That if he sells such drugs in the original stamped package he shall also be sentenced to only ten years' imprisonment: And provided further, That if he sells such drugs in pursuance of a written order and from a stamped package, he shall be sentenced to only five years' imprisonment."
Is it conceivable that such a statute would not be within the power of Congress? And is it rational to find such a statute constitutional, but to strike down the Blockburger doctrine as violative of the double jeopardy clause?
In effect, we are asked to enter the domain of penology, and more particularly that tantalizing aspect of it, the proper apportionment of punishment. Whatever views may be entertained regarding severity of punishment, whether one believes in its efficacy or its futility, see Radzinowicz, The History of English Criminal Law: The Movement for Reform, 1750-1833, passim, these are peculiarly questions of legislative policy. Equally so are the much mooted problems relating to the power of the judiciary to review sentences. First the English and then the Scottish Courts of Criminal Appeal were given power to revise sentences, the power to increase as well as the power to reduce them. See 7 Edw. VII, c. 23, § 4(3); 16 & 17 Geo. V, c. 15, § 2(4). This Court has no such power.
35 Stat. 614, as amended. This provision was subsequently amended, 70 Stat. 570, 21 U.S.C. (Supp. V) § 174.
For typical expressions of the attitudes of these members of the Court, see, e.g., Horning v. District of Columbia, 254 U. S. 135, 254 U. S. 139 (dissenting opinion of Brandeis, J.); Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U. S. 465, 256 U. S. 476 (same); Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 277 U. S. 471, 277 U. S. 485 (dissenting opinions of Brandeis and Butler, JJ.); Sorrells v. United States, 287 U. S. 435, 287 U. S. 453 (separate opinion of Roberts, J., joined by Brandeis, J.); Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 291 U. S. 123 (dissenting opinion of Roberts, J., joined by Brandeis and Butler, JJ.); Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 302 U. S. 329 (dissent of Butler, J.).
This statute, amendatory of the 1914 Act, supra, introduced the "original stamped package" concept.
single statute proscribe certain conduct, and the question is whether the defendant can be punished twice because his conduct violates both proscriptions. Thus, selling liquor on a Sunday might warrant two punishments for violating a prohibition law and a blue law, but feloniously entering a bank and robbing a bank, though violative of two statutes, might warrant but a single punishment.
In every instance, the problem is to ascertain what the legislature intended. Often the inquiry produces few if any enlightening results. Normally these are not problems that receive explicit legislative consideration. But this fact should not lead the judiciary, charged with the obligation of construing these statutes, to settle such questions by the easy application of stereotyped formulae. It is at the same time too easy and too arbitrary to apply a presumption for or against multiple punishment in all cases, or even to do so one way in one class of cases and the other way in another. Placing a case in the category of "unit of offense" problems or the category of "overlapping statute" problems may point up the issue, but it does not resolve it.
Where the legislature has failed to make its intention manifest, courts should proceed cautiously, remaining sensitive to the interests of defendant and society alike. All relevant criteria must be considered, and the most useful aid will often be common sense. In this case, I am persuaded, on the basis of the origins of the three statutes involved, the text and background of recent amendments to these statutes, the scale of punishments prescribed for second and third offenders, and the evident legislative purpose to achieve uniformity in sentences, that the present purpose of these statutes is to make sure that a prosecutor has three avenues by which to prosecute one who traffics in narcotics, and not to authorize three cumulative punishments for the defendant who consummates a single sale.
(3) petitioner "facilitated the concealment and sale," which is in violation of 65 Stat. 767, 21 U.S.C. § 174.
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.
". . . in principle, and by the better judicial view, while the legislature may pronounce as may combinations of things as it pleases criminal, resulting not infrequently 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.
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.
* Regina v. Elrington, 9 Cox C.C. 86, 90, 1 B. & S. 688.
"The applicable rule is that where 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 which the other does not."
"the absence of appropriate tax-paid stamps from narcotic drugs shall be prima facie evidence of a violation of this subsection by the person in whose possession the same may be found,"
Therefore, under the statutes, proof of the single fact of possession of unstamped narcotics suffices to convict the defendant of offenses under either § 4704(a) or § 174. Since, under Blockburger, punishment under separate sections can be sustained only if "each provision requires proof of a fact which the other does not," 284 U.S. at 284 U. S. 304, the decision of the court below should be reversed.

References: § 2255
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 § 4
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 § 174
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 § 174
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 § 1060
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 § 4704
 § 174