Title: Smith v. State
Citation: 429 So. 2d 252
Docket Number: 53507
State: Mississippi
Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court
Date: March 16, 1983

429 So. 2d 252 (1983) Ronnie Edward SMITH v. STATE of Mississippi. No. 53507. Supreme Court of Mississippi. March 16, 1983. Rehearing Denied April 13, 1983. Banks &amp; Nichols, Isaac K. Byrd, Jr., Owens &amp; Byrd, Jackson, for appellant. Bill Allain, Atty. Gen., by Frankie Walton White, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee. Before PATTERSON, BOWLING and PRATHER, JJ. *253 BOWLING, Justice, for the Court: Appellant Ronnie Edward Smith was indicted, tried and convicted in the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County for the crime of burglary. He was sentenced to serve a term of twenty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. There are a number of assignments of error, all of which we have carefully studied and considered. We find, however, that only one serious issue is raised and it needs a detailed discussion. Prior to the indictment in the case sub judice, appellant was indicted, tried and convicted of the crime of rape. [Smith v. State, 405 So. 2d 95 (Miss. 1981)]. He was sentenced to serve a term of thirty years as a result of that conviction. The prior conviction for rape and the conviction for burglary, under the present appeal, arose out of the same general set of facts that occurred on June 12, 1980, at approximately 1 o'clock a.m. The state's testimony was that appellant entered the bathroom window of a home in Jackson, Mississippi, armed with a pistol. There is some contradiction as to what occurred afterwards. The proof in both cases is that the rape prosecutrix, her father and another grown male were in the home; that the appellant bound the two men; and thereafter a rape was committed on the young female occupant of the home. On the prior conviction of rape, the indictment was under the provisions of Mississippi Code Annotated, Section 97-3-65(2) (Supp. 1982), which reads as follows: Under the latter conviction for burglary, the indictment was pursuant to MCA § 97-17-23 (1972), which reads as follows: The indictment in the present case charged that appellant Appellant contends that his trial and conviction under the burglary charge in the case sub judice exposed him to double jeopardy under the United States and Mississippi Constitutions. We have thoroughly researched this question presented under the facts, evidence and indictments resulting in appellant's convictions and are forced to the conclusion that the state was legally and constitutionally justified in indicting, trying and convicting appellant under both the rape charge and the burglary charge. The bellwether case applicable to the question before us in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S. Ct. 180, 76 L. Ed. 306 (1931). In that case the charges grew out of an essentially same set of facts that resulted in multiple indictments and convictions *254 regarding the sale of narcotics. The court, through Mr. Justice Sutherland, set out the primary principle involved in problems such as that now before us. There it was stated: In the recent case of United States v. Cowart, 595 F.2d 1023 (5th Cir.1979), the Fifth Circuit Court reiterated the rule in Blockburger and stated: We do not like to belabor opinions by mainly quoting from opinions of this Court and other jurisdictions, but we believe it is proper here to explain clearly the point of law involved, particularly, when it easily could be misunderstood, as in the case at bar. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals had this question before it in Beckley v. State, 357 So. 2d 1022 (Ala.Cr.App. 1978). There the charges were burglary and rape connected with the same incident. The burglary statute there is similar to the Mississippi statute, quoted above, and requires the following elements: The Alabama Court in discussing whether or not the prior conviction of rape growing out of the same incident barred a subsequent charge and conviction stated as follows: The Supreme Court of North Carolina in the recent case of State v. Revelle, 301 N.C. 153, 270 S.E.2d 476 (N.C. 1980), in a set of facts similar to that confronting us here, held the accused was not constitutionally barred from being convicted of larceny, rape, burglary and armed robbery, saying: The Michigan Court of Appeals in a recent discussion of the question before us in the case of People v. Flores, 92 Mich. App. 130, 284 N.W.2d 510 (Mich. App., 1979), discussed the issues involved as follows: Applying the principles in the above discussed cases and examining the burglary and rape statutes under which appellant was convicted in separate trials, we find that the essential elements of the criminal charges in each statute are entirely different. As stated in Blockburger, supra, "each of the offenses created required proof of a different element." Although most of the testimony in both trials was essentially the same, this testimony was admissible under the res gestae rule. An examination of the rape conviction reveals that appellant here did not testify; whereas, he testified in the present burglary trial. It is inescapable that when appellant, as found by the jury, broke and entered the dwelling, during the nighttime, armed with a deadly weapon, with the intent to commit a crime, he had concluded the statutory requirements under the burglary charge. We hold that a conviction under this charge was not constitutionally prohibited under the double jeopardy provisions of the Constitutions. AFFIRMED. PATTERSON, C.J., WALKER and BROOM, P.JJ., and ROY NOBLE LEE, HAWKINS, DAN M. LEE, PRATHER and ROBERTSON, JJ., concur. PATTERSON, C.J., BROOM, P.J., and ROBERTSON, J., specially concur. *258 ROBERTSON, Justice, specially concurring: I concur in the result reached in this case and in the opinion of Justice Bowling en route. I realize, however, that one unfamiliar with the last several decades worth of double jeopardy decisions, both in this Court and in the Supreme Court of the United States, may well perceive an inconsistency between this case and the Percy Lee Sanders case also released this day. 429 So. 2d 245. To emphasize that each case and each opinion faithfully adhere to established precedent, I write briefly. Ronnie Edward Smith was indicted and tried for the crime of rape arising out of an occurrence on June 12, 1980, and was thereafter indicted and tried on a charge of burglary arising out of the same general facts and circumstances. Percy Lee Sanders was indicted and tried on a charge of rape arising out of an occurrence on December 28, 1980, and was thereafter indicted and tried on a charge of burglary arising out of the same facts and circumstances. In this sense, the cases seem legally identical. The outcome determinative distinction between the two cases, however, is that Smith, in his first trial where the charge was rape, was convicted. On the other hand, Sanders, in his first trial on a charge of rape, was found not guilty. In this setting, on the authority of a long line of cases beginning with Blockburger v. United States, 287 U.S. 299, 52 S. Ct. 180, 76 L. Ed. 306 (1931), and culminating with this Court's decision in Hughes v. State, 401 So. 2d 1100 (Miss. 1981), Smith's double jeopardy plea has been correctly rejected. Suffice it to say that, by virtue of Smith's conviction at his first trial, there is no way one can say that he entered his second trial armed with a jury finding that "he was not there". Conversely, as explained in my opinion in the Sanders case, Percy Lee Sanders did enter his burglary trial armed with such a negative jury finding regarding his presence on the scene on the occasion in question. In that context, under the authority of Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S. Ct. 1189, 25 L. Ed. 2d 469 (1970) and State v. Clements, 383 So. 2d 818 (Miss. 1980), this Court was and is bound to reverse. If in the Sanders case the first jury had returned a guilty verdict, Sanders upon his subsequent conviction on the charge of burglary would have found himself in the same situation as was faced by Ronnie Edward Smith and in the Hughes case. Beyond that, if in Sanders the defense had argued two or more theories to the jury theories not necessarily logically inconsistent but nevertheless alternative so that there would be no rational way of ascertaining just what was in the jury's collective mind when it voted to acquit Sanders on the charge of rape, he would likewise not have been entitled to relief here under Ashe v. Swenson, supra. By the same token, if Ronnie Edward Smith had been acquitted at his rape trial and if at that trial he had presented to the jury a single theory of defense, e.g., that someone else was the villain, under such circumstances that a rational interpretation of the jury's verdict of not guilty on the rape charge necessarily included a finding that Smith had not broken and entered into the victim's home, the result would be different in the Smith case. I realize that all of this may be so much judicial legerdemain to the layman. The common sense of the matter, of course, is that Sanders and Smith either were, or were not, in jeopardy at their rape trials, and whether the juries returned guilty or not guilty verdicts should be determinative of nothing. Suffice it to say that I have expressed my unhappiness with the importation of the doctrine of collateral estoppel into criminal cases, although on slightly different grounds. See Section II(C)(5) of my opinion in the Sanders case. If the results in the two cases seem in conflict, I merely ask the reader to be content with the knowledge that the result in this case is the product of a faithful application of the Blockburger-Hughes line of cases, while the result in the Sanders case is *259 the product of a faithful application of the Ashe-Clements line of cases. Because both lines of cases emanate ultimately from United States Supreme Court constructions of the double jeopardy clause in the Constitution of the United States, this Court has obediently fallen in line. PATTERSON, C.J., and BROOM, P.J., join in this opinion.