Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/424/544
Timestamp: 2019-11-17 15:58:00
Document Index: 448872426

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113']

UNITED STATES, Petitioner, v. Bobby Gene GADDIS and Billy Sunday Birt. | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
424 U.S. 544 (96 S.Ct. 1023, 47 L.Ed.2d 222)
Argued: Dec. 15, 1975.
Respondents were indicted for entering a federally insured bank with intent to rob it by force and violence (Count 1) and robbing the bank by force and violence (Count 2), in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2113(a), with possessing the funds stolen in the robbery (Count 3), in violation of § 2113(c), and with assaulting four people with dangerous weapons during the robbery (Counts 4-8), in violation of § 2113(d), and thereafter found guilty and sentenced on all counts. The Court of Appeals reversed, and ordered a new trial on the ground that, as held in Heflin v. United States, 358 U.S. 415, 79 S.Ct. 451, 3 L.Ed.2d 407, it was plain error to allow a jury to convict the accused of receiving and possessing the same money taken in the same bank robbery, and that under Milanovich v. United States, 365 U.S. 551, 81 S.Ct. 728, 5 L.Ed.2d 773, remanding the case for a new trial was the appropriate appellate remedy. Held:
1. A person convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. 2113(a), (b), and (d) cannot also be convicted of receiving or possessing the robbery proceeds in violation of § 2113(c). Heflin, supra, 358 U.S., at 419-420, 79 S.Ct. 451. Pp. 547-548.
A federal grand jury in Georgia, returned an eight-count indictment against the respondents Gaddis and Birt, charging them with entering a federally insured bank with intent to rob it by force and violence (Count 1) and robbing the bank by force and violence (Count 2), in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2113(a);1 with possessing the funds stolen in the robbery (Count 3), in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2113(c);2 and with assaulting four people with dangerous weapons during the course of the robbery (Counts 4 to 8), in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2113(d).3 At the ensuing trial the Government's evidence showed that three armed men had on March 6, 1974, robbed the National Bank of Walton County in Loganville, Ga.,4 and that the robbers in making their getaway had engaged in an exchange of gunfire with Loganville's lone police officer. The Government's evidence further showed that two of the three robbers had been Gaddis and Birt.5 The jury found the respondents guilty on all counts of the indictment, and the trial judge sentenced each of them to aggregate prison terms of 25 years.6 In imposing the prison sentences, the judge stated:
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the judgments of conviction and ordered a new trial upon the ground that the District Judge had been in error in permitting the jury to convict the respondents on all eight counts of the indictment. Specifically, the appellate court held that this Court's decision in Heflin v. United States, 358 U.S. 415, 79 S.Ct. 451, 3 L.Ed.2d 407, had made it clear that "it is plain error to all a jury to convict an accused of taking and possessing the same money obtained in the same bank robbery," and that under this Court's decision in Milanovich v. United States, 365 U.S. 551, 81 S.Ct. 728, 5 L.Ed.2d 773, "the proper appellate remedy is to remand for a new trial." 506 F.2d 352, 354. We granted certiorari because of the discordant views in the Circuits regarding the proper application of the Heflin and Milanovich decisions.7421 U.S. 987, 95 S.Ct. 1989, 44 L.Ed.2d 476.
The Court of Appeals was correct in holding that a person convicted of robbing a bank in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2113(a), (b), and (d), cannot also be convicted of receiving or possessing the proceeds of that robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2113(c). This much was clearly settled in the Heflin case. The Court there held that "subsection (c) was not designed to increase the punishment for him who robs a bank but only to provide punishment for those who receive the loot from the robber." 358 U.S., at 419, 79 S.Ct. at 454. In "subsection (c) . . . Congress was trying to reach a new group of wrongdoers, not to multiply the offense of the bank robbers themselves." Id., at 420, 79 S.Ct., at 454. Thus, while there was in the present case a "merger" of the convictions under §§ 2113(a) and (d), Prince v. United States, 352 U.S. 2, 77 S.Ct. 403, 1 L.Ed.2d 370, the merger could not include the conviction under § 2113(c). Receipt or possession of the proceeds of a bank robbery in violation of § 2113(c) is simply not a lesser included offense within the total framework of the bank robbery provisions of § 2113. Rather, § 2113(c) reaches a different "group of wrongdoers," i. e., "those who receive the loot from the robber."
In many prosecutions under 18 U.S.C. 2113 the evidence will not, of course, be so clearcut as in the present case. Situations will no doubt often exist where there is evidence before a grand jury or prosecutor that a certain person participated in a bank robbery and also evidence that that person, though not himself the robber, at least knowingly received the proceeds of the robbery.13 In such a case there can be no impropriety for a grand jury to return an indictment or for a prosecutor to file an information containing counts charging violations of 18 U.S.C. 2113(a), (b), or (d), as well as of § 2113(c).14 If, upon the trial of the case the District Judge is satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to go to the jury upon both counts, he must, under Heflin and Milanovich, instruct the members of the jury that they may not convict the defendant both for robbing a bank and for receiving the proceeds of the robbery. He should instruct them that they must first consider the charges under § 2113(a), (b), or (d), and should consider the charge under § 2113(c) only if they find insufficient proof that the defendant himself was a participant in the robbery.15
Because the Court deems this case distinguishable from Milanovich v. United States, 365 U.S. 551, 81 S.Ct. 728, 5 L.Ed.2d 773 (1961), it sees no occasion to consider the continuing validity of that decision; and I do not read the Court's opinion as reaffirming, in addition to describing, the Milanovich rule that a new trial is required when (1) a jury is erroneously permitted to convict a defendant both of bank robbery, 18 U.S.C. 2113(a), (b), or (d), and of knowing possession of the proceeds of that robbery, 18 U.S.C. 2113(c), and (2) there is evidence to support both convictions.
The judge imposed 20-year sentences for aggravated bank robbery ( 18 U.S.C. 2113(a)), 25-year sentences for assaults in the course of the bank robbery (§ 2113(d)), and 10-year sentences for possession of the proceeds of the robbery (§ 2113(c)), all of the sentences to run concurrently.
18 U.S.C. 641, 2.
In light of Prince v. United States, 352 U.S. 322, 77 S.Ct. 403, 1 L.Ed.2d 370, the concurrent sentences under Counts 1 and 2 should also be vacated, leaving the respondents under single 25-year prison sentences for violating 18 U.S.C. 2113(d).