Opinion ID: 2042851
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Biggs and Blockburger

Text: In light of the above-stated general principles of federal and New York law, Suarez insists that his case is materially indistinguishable from Biggs, where we concluded that constitutional double jeopardy prohibited the defendant's prosecution for intentional manslaughter. The indictment in Biggs charged the defendant with two counts of first-degree murder and four counts of second-degree murder (two counts each of intentional and depraved indifference murder) in connection with the shooting deaths of two people. As we noted in our opinion, [b]efore the case was submitted to the jury, the court repeatedly advised the parties that there was insufficient evidence of intentional murder and that the evidence was consistent with a depraved act because the two people killed were not intended victims ( Biggs, 1 NY3d at 227 [emphasis added]). Consistent with his view of the evidence, the trial judge ultimately dismissed the intentional murder counts; and delivered a charge to the jury consisting of two counts of depraved indifference murder and, at defense counsel's request, two counts of second-degree (reckless) manslaughter as a lesser included offense of depraved indifference murder. When the jury reached an impasse, the judge took a partial verdict: the jury acquitted Biggs of both counts of depraved indifference murder, but deadlocked on the two counts of second-degree manslaughter. The jury resumed deliberations but could not reach a unanimous verdict on the reckless manslaughter charges (splitting seven to five for acquittal), and so the judge declared a mistrial. Biggs was subsequently arraigned on a new indictment charging him with both first-degree and second-degree manslaughter. The trial judge ruled that the new charges were not barred by double jeopardy because intentional manslaughter was not in the original indictment and was never considered by the jury. At his second trial, Biggs was convicted of both counts of first-degree manslaughter. He took an appeal. The Appellate Division affirmed Biggs's conviction, holding that because first-degree manslaughter was neither contained in the original indictment nor considered as a lesser included offense, Biggs was not implicitly acquitted of that crime as a consequence of his first trial, and therefore his prosecution for this crime was not barred by the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy ( People v Biggs, 298 AD2d 398, 399 [2d Dept 2002] [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]). Biggs also argued that the second trial violated statutory double jeopardy, which generally prohibits successive prosecutions for two offenses based upon the same act or criminal transaction (CPL 40.20 [2]). The Appellate Division concluded that this contention [was] unpreserved for appellate review, and . . . decline[d] to reach it in the exercise of . . . interest of justice jurisdiction (298 AD2d at 399 [citation omitted]). In his appeal to us, Biggs asserted that there was no plausible reading of the record that would establish that the [trial judge] was distinguishing between an intent to kill and an intent to cause serious physical injury when he expressed skepticism about the sufficiency of the evidence of intent. If that had been the case, Biggs continued, under CPL 300.30, [the court] was required to substitute manslaughter in the first degree, the `greatest lesser included offense which is supported by legally sufficient trial evidence,' for the intentional murder counts at the first trial, something that was neither requested by the People nor done sua sponte by the court. Indeed, if the People had wanted to urge this distinction, the time to do so was at the first trial, when the court could have submitted first-degree manslaughter to the jury. It cannot be the case that the prosecution is allowed, for strategic purposes, to decline to ask for an appropriate lesser-included offense and hope that the jury will convict of depraved indifference murder, and then seek a new indictment charging first-degree manslaughter  (emphasis added). We reversed. First, we concluded that the trial judge's withdrawal of the intentional murder counts from the jury's consideration on the ground [of] insufficient evidence to support those charges was an acquittal for purposes of constitutional double jeopardy analysis ( Biggs, 1 NY3d at 227, 229). Next, we decided that under the Blockburger test, intentional murder in the second degree and first-degree manslaughter are the same offense. As a consequence, since [Biggs] was acquitted of the intentional murder charges at his first trial, and manslaughter in the first degree is the same offense as murder in the second degree under Blockburger, the Double Jeopardy Clauses of both the Federal and State Constitutions precluded [his] subsequent indictment and prosecution for first degree manslaughter ( id. at 231). There is a critical difference between this case and Biggs, commanding a different outcome: here, the charge of intentional manslaughter was submitted to the jury in Suarez's first trial, [6] and the jury, having been given an acquit-first instruction and having convicted Suarez of the higher count of depraved indifference murder, never reachedi.e., did not have a full opportunity to return a verdict on ( Green, 355 US at 191)Suarez's guilt or innocence of this crime ( see People v Charles, 78 NY2d 1044, 1047 [1991] [where jury, as instructed, did not consider remaining counts after finding defendant guilty on first count, retrial on remaining counts not prohibited because jeopardy never terminated as to those counts]; Jackson, 20 NY2d at 452 [felony murder conviction at second trial proper because jury did not have full opportunity to consider felony murder at first trial]). As the Appellate Division pointed out, the circumstances in this case are analogous to a mistrial. And Suarez himself acknowledges that if, for example, the jury had acquitted him of depraved indifference murder and deadlocked on the intentional manslaughter count, he could be retried for the latter crime. There is no basis in case law or in logic for treating what happened here any differently. The major justification for permitting retrial after a jury deadlock (or appellate reversal of a conviction) is, as one commentator has put it, the practical importance of preventing every trial defect from conferring immunity upon the accused (Ponsoldt, When Guilt Should be Irrelevant: Government Overreaching as a Bar to Reprosecution under the Double Jeopardy Clause after Oregon v. Kennedy, 69 Cornell L Rev 76, 88, quoting Schulhofer, Jeopardy and Mistrials, 125 U Pa L Rev 449, 457, citing Tateo, 377 US at 466). If this societal interest is strong enough to outweigh the embarrassment, expense and ordeal and . . . continuing state of anxiety and insecurity ( Green, 355 US at 187) endured by an accused subject to retrial after a deadlockwhere the People are afforded a chance to convince a new jury to convict after having conspicuously failed to persuade the original jury to do soit surely warrants a second trial on a charge that the first jury did not reach and therefore had no opportunity whatsoever to resolve. In short, there is no doubt that we were correct when we said in Biggs that second-degree intentional murder and first-degree manslaughter are the same offense when evaluated under the Blockburger test. But this is beside the point here. We are not faced with a situation where we must compare the elements of a statutory offense of which the defendant has been convicted or acquitted (as in Biggs ) to see if they are the same as the elements of a different statutory offense that the prosecutor seeks to try against the defendant for the first time in a subsequent trial. This case unquestionably involves the identical offense in both trialsfirst-degree manslaughter; however, because the jury was charged with intentional manslaughter in the first trial and did not have a full opportunity to consider it, constitutional double jeopardy poses no impediment to Suarez's retrial for this crime.