Opinion ID: 2369973
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: grady v. corbin

Text: The final arrow from Ms. Apostoledes' quiver was hastily fashioned from the newest precept of double jeopardy, but it too misses the mark. Six days before this case was argued before the Court of Special Appeals, the United States Supreme Court decided Grady v. Corbin, ___ U.S. ___, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 109 L.Ed.2d 548 (1990). As a result of that decision, Ms. Apostoledes added to her other arguments a contention that, based on Grady, the State is precluded from retrying her because to do so the State would have to prove conduct for which she was previously tried. The defendant in Grady was driving while intoxicated when his automobile crossed the median and struck an oncoming vehicle causing the death of one person and the serious injury of another. He was initially charged with driving while intoxicated and failing to keep to the right of the median. He pleaded guilty to both charges and was sentenced. Two months later the case was presented to the grand jury, and the defendant was indicted for reckless manslaughter, second degree vehicular manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and third degree reckless assault. Through a bill of particulars, the State conceded that it would prove the entirety of the conduct for which the defendant was previously convicted  driving while intoxicated and failing to keep to the right of the median  in order to establish the elements of the new charges. The Supreme Court held: [T]he 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. ___ U.S. at ___, 110 S.Ct. at 2093, 109 L.Ed.2d at 564. Nowhere in its opinion did the Grady Court suggest that the Double Jeopardy Clause protects against multiple trials when one or more counts are left unresolved following an initial trial due to jury deadlock, the grant of a new trial, or reversal on appeal. Any doubt that the successive trial holding in Grady is ordinarily limited to instances where the State has failed to bring and join for trial all charges arising from a single episode is dispelled by the Court's concluding remarks: With adequate preparation and foresight, the State could have prosecuted Corbin for the offenses charged in the traffic tickets and the subsequent indictment in a single proceeding, thereby avoiding this double jeopardy question. ___ U.S. at ___, 110 S.Ct. at 2095, 109 L.Ed.2d at 566. In the instant case, the State did precisely what was urged in Grady. Therefore, the double jeopardy question at issue in Grady has been avoided. Other courts have concluded that Grady is inapplicable in the context of a single prosecution where the State has simultaneously joined and proceeded to trial on all charges arising from a criminal episode. In Detrich v. U.S., 924 F.2d 479 (2d Cir.1991), the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected an assertion that the State would have to surmount the Grady same conduct test before proceeding to retry a charge following appellate reversal. Detrich was charged with importing heroin, possession of heroin with intent to distribute, and conspiracy to possess heroin. He was convicted of importation, but acquitted of conspiracy and possession. Following an appeal and reversal of the conviction for importation based on evidentiary error, Detrich attempted to block retrial based on his contention that, under Grady, his prior acquittals constituted an adjudication of the same conduct. The federal court refused to engage in a substantive review of that issue, interpreting Grady as a test to be used to determine when principles of double jeopardy are violated by successive separate prosecutions. [ Grady ] did not purport to make its new standard applicable to separate charges within a single prosecution. Detrich, 924 F.2d at 480. In so finding, the court relied upon the line of Supreme Court precedent holding that retrial following an appellate reversal based on a procedural error does not place a defendant twice in jeopardy [1] and the absence of any indication by the Court in Grady of its intent to disturb that distinct principle of double jeopardy law. Id. See also U.S. v. Guariglia, 757 F. Supp. 259, 265 n. 1 (S.D.N.Y. 1991) (To the extent [ Grady ] supplements the Blockburger test as applied to subsequent prosecutions, that change has no relevance here, where we deal with charges in a single indictment). Grady does not remotely suggest that it was intended to disturb the principle permitting retrial following a mistrial. Anderson v. State, 570 So.2d 1101, 1102 n. 1 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1990). Ms. Apostoledes' acquittal of conspiracy to murder does not preclude her retrial on the charges of murder and use of a handgun in the commission of a felony or crime of violence. JUDGMENT AFFIRMED. COSTS TO BE PAID BY PETITIONER. McAULIFFE, Judge, concurring. I concur in the result, and in the opinion of the Court except that portion dealing with the application of Grady v. Corbin, ___ U.S. ___, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 109 L.Ed.2d 548 (1990). The Court concludes that the test articulated in Grady applies only to double jeopardy questions involved in successive prosecutions, and not to those involved in multiple punishments arising out of a single prosecution. I am not willing to say that the Supreme Court has so limited the applicability of the Grady test, or if it has, that this Court will not apply the Grady test to the determination of multiple punishment cases as part of the double jeopardy protection afforded by the common law of this State. The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no person shall be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb. This clause protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal, a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction, and multiple punishments for the same offense. Grady, supra, 110 S.Ct. at 2090; Randall Book Corp. v. State, 316 Md. 315, 323, 558 A.2d 715 (1989). The difficult question which consistently arises in the application of the Double Jeopardy Clause in all three areas of protection is the determination of what constitutes the same offense. In Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304, 52 S.Ct. 180, 182, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), the Supreme Court held that 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. Although the Blockburger case involved a question of multiple punishments, and not successive prosecutions, the Blockburger rule has been employed as a nonexclusive test in successive prosecution cases. Grady holds that the Blockburger test, when applied in its original form as a clinical comparison of elements of offenses, affords insufficient protection against successive prosecutions for the same offense. Depending upon one's interpretation of Grady, it either expanded the Blockburger test generally by requiring a practical consideration of conduct proven to establish elements of offenses, or it constructed a new test that is superimposed upon the Blockburger test in successive prosecution cases. In Gianiny v. State, 320 Md. 337, 341, 577 A.2d 795 (1990), this Court suggested that Grady had expanded the Blockburger test. The holding of Grady is simply that the expanded, or new, test must be applied to successive prosecution cases. In Grady, the Court may have implied, but did not hold, that this test should not be applied in determining what is same offense for multiple punishment purposes. The Double Jeopardy Clause and our common law of double jeopardy have their roots in very basic notions of essential fairness. It may be argued that there is little justification for having two offenses considered the same for one aspect of double jeopardy protection, but not the same for another aspect of the same basic protection. Application of the Blockburger test in its original form involves a rather sterile approach to the question of what constitutes the same offense. One simply lists in column A the elements required to prove one offense and in column B the elements required to prove the other offense. Then, considering only the elements and not the facts of the particular case, if each column contains an element that the other does not, the offenses are not the same. The Grady modification utilizes a case-oriented approach, adding as flesh to the bare bones of each essential element the conduct used to prove that element, and then comparing the lists of elements so defined. In comparing the application of the basic Blockburger test with the application of that test enhanced by the Grady approach, consider the question of whether reckless driving and failing to drive to the right of center of a highway are the same offenses. Under the sterile Blockburger approach, they are not. Reckless driving requires proof of recklessness, which the other offense does not. Failing to keep to the right of center requires proof that the defendant drove on the wrong side of the road, but this conduct is not necessarily required to prove reckless driving. On the other hand, if the Grady approach is used, and if it is clear under the facts of a particular case that the State did, or must, rely on proof that the defendant drove on the wrong side of the road in order to prove reckless driving, then the two offenses are the same for jeopardy purposes. It is still true that proof of reckless driving requires proof of an element, i.e., recklessness, that the other offense does not. It is not true, however, that proof of failing to keep to the right of center requires proof of any element not also required to prove reckless driving, under the particular facts of this case. The Blockburger test is satisfied only if each offense requires proof of an element that the other does not, and thus the test, when fleshed out by the particular conduct constituting the elements involved in the hypothetical case, is not satisfied. In effect, failing to drive to the right of center is, under the facts of the given case, a lesser included offense of reckless driving. It would seem unfair, in the absence of a demonstrated legislative intent to permit double punishment, to allow the defendant to be sentenced for the lesser included offense and then given a consecutive sentence for the greater offense. The Supreme Court has not always taken a completely sterile approach to Blockburger in multiple punishment cases. In Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 63 L.Ed.2d 715 (1980), the question was whether the defendant could be separately sentenced for the offense of felony murder and the underlying felony of rape that was used to prove the felony murder. The government argued that the felony murder statute proscribed the killing of another person in the course of committing rape, or robbery, or kidnapping, or arson, etc., and thus, employing the sterile approach of Blockburger, it was not in every instance necessary to prove rape in order to prove felony murder. The Supreme Court did not accept the argument, but looked instead to the particular circumstances of the case before it: In the present case, however, proof of rape is a necessary element of proof of the felony murder, and we are unpersuaded that this case should be treated differently from other cases in which one criminal offense requires proof of every element of another offense. Id. 445 U.S. at 694, 100 S.Ct. at 1439 (emphasis added). We need not decide in this case whether the Grady gloss to the Blockburger test applies in multiple punishment cases. We need only assume, arguendo, that it does, and then conclude, for the reasons so well stated in the Court's opinion, that conspiracy and murder are not the same offense for purposes of jeopardy even when tested under the teachings of Grady. We would then be free to consider, when the issue is squarely presented, whether the Grady approach should be utilized to resolve multiple punishment jeopardy problems.