Opinion ID: 2604674
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Any double punishment violates double jeopardy

Text: The majority opines that unless a sanction is solely for punishment, the sanction is outside the protection of the double jeopardy clause, citing Halper, 490 U.S. at 448, 109 S.Ct. at 1901-02. However this conclusion is not supported by the literal language of Halper, is inconsistent with other, and subsequent, United States and Washington Supreme Court precedents, and is overtly inconsistent with the constitutional text. Halper states: We have recognized in other contexts that punishment serves the twin aims of retribution and deterrence.... [I]t follows that a civil sanction that cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment, as we have come to understand the term.... We therefore hold that under the Double Jeopardy Clause a defendant who already has been punished in a criminal prosecution may not be subjected to an additional civil sanction to the extent that the second sanction may not fairly be characterized as remedial, but only as a deterrent or retribution. Halper, 490 U.S. at 448-49, 109 S.Ct. at 1902. (Emphasis added.) Halper holds a sanction not solely remedial is punishment for double jeopardy purposes. See Carlos F. Ramirez, Administrative License Suspensions, Criminal Prosecution, and the Double Jeopardy Clause, 23 Fordham Urb. L.J. 923, 927-38 (1996). Halper, read as a whole, demonstrates the Supreme Court is faithful to the spirit and meaning of the double jeopardy clause, which prevents double punishment even though one or both of those punishments may also be accompanied by other nonpunitive sanctions or goals. But the construction placed on this language by the majority would have the Supreme Court contradicting itself within the same paragraph. Further, the majority's reading contradicts the plain meaning of the Halper text by ignoring the words to the extent, which support the proposition that unless the sanction is solely to serve a remedial purpose it is to that extent not remedial but punitive. The majority's claim that one may be subject to multiple punishments without violating the double jeopardy clause provided only there be at least some nonpunitive sanction imposed in addition to the punishment or, in the alternative, that the punishment might also promote a nonpunitive objective, is double-talk. The Fifth Amendment forbids multiple punishments without regard to motive and without regard to the additional imposition of nonpunitive sanctions. Subsequent Supreme Court cases of Department of Revenue v. Kurth Ranch, 511 U.S. 767, 114 S.Ct. 1937, 128 L.Ed.2d 767 (1994); Austin v. United States, 509 U.S. 602, 113 S.Ct. 2801, 125 L.Ed.2d 488 (1993); and United States v. Ursery, ___ U.S. ___, 116 S.Ct. 2135, 135 L.Ed.2d 549 (1996) deal with the same or related topics and are consistent with Halper.