Opinion ID: 853754
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Problem in Trying to Juggle Two Strands of Double Jeopardy

Text: The mischief that arises from confounding the two branches into one doctrine of double jeopardy is that it restricts the application of the provision in the subsequent prosecution arena where it is most needed. In my view we have ended up with the wrong rule for subsequent prosecutions in order to avoid undesired results on the multiple punishment front. The same phenomenon has occurred in federal double jeopardy jurisprudence. As Justice White put it in his separate concurring and dissenting opinion in Dixon: To focus on the statutory elements of a crime makes sense where cumulative punishment is at stake, for there the aim is simply to uncover legislative intent.... But ... adherence to legislative will has very little to do with the important interests advanced by double jeopardy safeguards against successive prosecutions. The central purpose of the Double Jeopardy Clause being to protect against vexatious multiple prosecutions, these interests go well beyond the prevention of unauthorized punishment. 509 U.S. at 735, 113 S.Ct. 2849, 125 L.Ed.2d 556 (emphasis and citations omitted). The problem of mixing multiple punishment and subsequent prosecution is highlighted by a single act that violates multiple statutes or, in violating a single statute, injures multiple victims. Under current law, everyone seems to agree that it must be possible to charge a person who kills two people with two murders. The term same offense cannot refer simply to the same statutory crime, or it would be unconstitutional to prosecute the same person for two murders committed at different times and places. But in order to reach the conclusion that we have two different crimes, we must look at the facts of the two crimes, and not only the statutes they offend. On the other hand, if the offense is solely the actions of the accused, it would be impossible to impose a greater punishment for murdering two victims by the same act, for example burning down a house and killing two inhabitants. [22] Take Timothy McVeigh, who by a single act murdered 168 victims in the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. If that occurred in this state could prosecutors charge and try McVeigh 168 times, notwithstanding multiple acquittals, until they obtain a conviction because the actual evidence of the death of a victim would be different in each case? We must also consider the possibility of a conviction in one of the earlier trials, but on a lesser included offense or resulting in a lesser sentence than the death penalty. Can the prosecution keep pursuing McVeigh until it obtains the death penalty even after multiple trials do not produce that result? I cite the McVeigh hypothetical to dramatize the point. However, the same issue arises in more commonplace scenarios with multiple victims. Should a driver accused of reckless homicide by running a red light face four separate prosecutions because there were three passengers and a driver in the car the driver hit? The actual evidence test would presumably permit all of these reprosecutions because the element of the crimea victimcould be supplied by different evidence in each case. Collateral estoppel as a nonconstitutional doctrine can bar some reprosecutions. However, I do not think persistent prosecution of the same act should be a constitutional result, and, as Griffin v. State, 717 N.E.2d 73 (Ind.1999), also decided today, demonstrates, collateral estoppel imposes only minimal restrictions on reprosecution. Because collateral estoppel is derived principally from civil litigation and is grounded in doctrines of judicial economy and fairness, its rules do not take into consideration the important concerns that underlie both Article I, Section 14 and the Fifth Amendment. [23] These include the onerous toll that is exacted by even a successful defense and a historically deep rooted apprehension that the king should not be permitted to pursue a citizen repeatedly. This is substantially the same problem that was presented in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970), where a substantial majority of the United States Supreme Court held that collateral estoppel is constitutionally grounded in the Fifth Amendment Double Jeopardy Clause. In Ashe, the Fifth Amendment was held to bar repeated prosecutions based on different victims whom the defendant allegedly robbed at the same poker game. Id. at 447, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469. It seems to me that Dixon, by retreating to Blockburger and rejecting any difference between multiple punishments and subsequent prosecutions, also implicitly rejects Ashe as a matter of federal constitutional law. 509 U.S. at 704-05, 113 S.Ct. 2849, 125 L.Ed.2d 556. Indiana cases decided after Ashe but before Dixon applied Ashe to find a bar to the use of evidence of facts necessarily decided in a prior trial. See, e.g., Kuchel v. State, 570 N.E.2d 910, 916 (Ind.1991) (citing Little v. State, 501 N.E.2d 412, 415 (Ind.1986)). A few speak of barring the reintroduction or relitigation of facts already established in the first trial. See, e.g., Boles v. State, 595 N.E.2d 272, 274 (Ind.Ct.App.1992). These Indiana authorities find collateral estoppel notions to be constitutionally based, as Ashe clearly implied. But these cases deal, at least explicitly, only with the federal constitution and do not mention the Indiana Double Jeopardy Clause. Unless they are also found to be grounded in the state constitution, Dixon seems to leave these notions without constitutional footing. The Ashe result, as followed in Kuchel, Little and other Indiana cases, is essentially the double jeopardy doctrine that I believe should be followed under the state constitution. For subsequent prosecutions, I would follow the same conduct analysis that was adopted in Grady, 495 U.S. at 508, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 109 L.Ed.2d 548, for federal double jeopardy law in the subsequent prosecution context. This is in most cases more or less the same thing as the same facts from earlier Indiana cases. The same conduct test is supported by at least some Indiana authority. For example, Clem v. State, 42 Ind. 420 (1873), which is no more isolated than several other opinions in the erratic history of double jeopardy in this State described in the majority's opinion. Cf. 717 N.E.2d at 45, 48 (citing the following cases employing analysis of both statutory elements and the conduct of the defendant: Wininger v. State, 13 Ind. 540, 541 (1859)) ([t]he question would be, is the one act included in the other?); Durke, 204 Ind. at 370, 183 N.E. at 97 (describing the identity of the offense test as whether the second charge was for the identical act as the first). [24] It is also the test embraced by Thompson although applying only common law prohibitions against multiple punishment. 259 Ind. at 592, 290 N.E.2d at 727 (facts giving rise to the various offenses must be independently supportable, separate and distinct). Grady held that mere comparison of the statutory elements was insufficient for subsequent prosecutions. Double jeopardy, in addition to requiring a comparison of the statutes, proscribed 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. 495 U.S. at 521, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 109 L.Ed.2d 548 (footnote omitted). Grady survived for only three years, however, and was rejected by Dixon in favor of an apparent return to the same elements test of Blockburger. See Dixon, 509 U.S. at 712, 113 S.Ct. 2849, 125 L.Ed.2d 556. Among the reasons offered by Justice Scalia, writing for a five-justice majority in overruling Grady, was an asserted need for doctrinal consistency between the multiple punishment and subsequent prosecution lines. If a different methodology applied to subsequent prosecutions, the phrase same offense would have more than one meaning depending on the context. Id. at 704, 113 S.Ct. 2849, 125 L.Ed.2d 556. I agree that it seems anomalous to find two different standards in the same constitutional provision depending on the context. Rather than attempt to reconcile the two under the Indiana Constitution, I would resolve multiple punishment issues by reference to the common law and statutes and remain with the Grady same conduct test for subsequent prosecutions. Indeed, as already noted, Justice Scalia in Kurth Ranch, just one year after Dixon, seemed to agree that only subsequent prosecutions trigger double jeopardy concerns. 511 U.S. at 798, 114 S.Ct. 1937, 128 L.Ed.2d 767. Although Grady is no longer the law under the federal Double Jeopardy Clause, I generally agree with the views of Justices Souter, Stevens, White, and Blackmun, who defended Grady in Dixon. See id. at 743-763, 113 S.Ct. 2849, 125 L.Ed.2d 556 (opinion of Souter, J., concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part). [25] Some analysis beyond the raw statutory elements will always be required in the subsequent prosecution context. Indeed Dixon itself seems to confirm this. [26] In sum, I believe the answer to the constitutional claims raised here is not adoption of a uniform test in the name of doctrinal consistency. Rather it is to recognize that punishment arising out of a single trial does not present a double jeopardy issue. Indeed, as noted earlier, the concern in Indiana cases going back to the rules announced in Elder and quoted in Kokenes is clearly whether a second prosecution may be pursued, not whether two crimes may be charged and convictions result in the same proceeding. [27] As a final note, I do not believe the subsequent prosecution issue can be adequately handled by other constitutional provisions. The Due Process Clause of the federal constitution has also been suggested as a bar to subsequent prosecutions for the same act. See Akhil Reed Amar, Double Jeopardy Law Made Simple, 106 YALE L.J. 1807 (1997). Although at some point repetitive prosecution may run afoul of the Due Process Clause, at least under current precedent, subsequent prosecutions for essentially the same action have been permitted to go forward without mention of due process as Elder and other cases cited in Ashe demonstrate. Moreover, due process gives little guidance to when enough is enough. Rather, invoked as a bar to subsequent prosecution, it seems akin to Justice Stewart's famous test for obscenity: we must know it when we see it. See Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197, 84 S.Ct. 1676, 12 L.Ed.2d 793 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring). Because we have a specific constitutional provision addressing precisely this issue, I would apply it according to its terms and forego reliance on judicially fashioned remedies under the much more general Due Process Clause.