Opinion ID: 712236
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Blockburger

Text: 102 Under Blockburger, two offenses are different only if each contains an element not present in the other. Dixon, 509 U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2856. When only one offense contains an extra element not found in the other, the latter is a lesser included offense of the former, and a defendant may not be charged with both in separate proceedings. See Illinois v. Vitale, 447 U.S. 410, 421, 100 S.Ct. 2260, 2267, 65 L.Ed.2d 228 (1980) (holding that, where a defendant convicted of failing to reduce speed was subsequently tried for involuntary manslaughter, remand would be necessary to determine whether under state law the former was an element of the latter); Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 168-69, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 2227, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977) (holding that a defendant could not be tried for auto theft once convicted of the lesser included offense of joyriding); Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682, 682, 97 S.Ct. 2912, 2912, 53 L.Ed.2d 1054 (1977) (per curiam) (holding that a defendant could not be tried for felony murder once convicted of the lesser included offense of robbery). 103 The situation appears to be similar here. Property is forfeit under § 881(a) whenever it has the requisite relationship to a violation of title 21, chapter 13, subchapter I. Thus, if any provision of § 881(a) defines an offense, it is one with two elements: the underlying drug violation and the use of property in connection therewith. All drug violations in subchapter I, and a fortiori their underlying elements, would therefore be contained within § 881(a) as lesser included offenses of the forfeiture offense. Under Harris and its progeny such an offense may not be prosecuted once a jeopardy for the lesser included offense has occurred. 104 Against this reading of § 881(a), the government argues that the forfeiture provision passes the Blockburger test because, unlike the drug crime, it has no mens rea element, does not require proof of an individual claimant's unlawful conduct, and may give rise to a forfeiture when there are no claimants at all. Of course, these arguments tend to undermine the government's basic position by suggesting that § 881 does not define an offense at all. In addition, they overlook the fact that the government must show mens rea and unlawful conduct on someone's part, or the forfeiture will fail for lack of an underlying drug crime. But more fundamentally, these arguments apply Blockburger at too abstract a level. The government's argument is that forfeiture in general need not be based on any particular past offense by a particular claimant, so forfeiture does not punish the same offense when in a particular case it is based squarely on such a past offense. However, in applying Blockburger, courts are not so free to ignore the facts on which prosecutions are based. For example, felony murder need not be based on any particular felony, yet in Harris the Court considered a felony murder conviction to bar prosecution for the underlying felony of robbery. 433 U.S. at 682, 97 S.Ct. at 2912. Similarly, in Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 63 L.Ed.2d 715 (1980), the Court held that a District of Columbia statute codifying Blockburger made rape a lesser offense included within the offense of felony murder. Id. at 694 n. 8, 100 S.Ct. at 1439 n. 8. Thus, where commission of one of a certain class of offenses is a necessary element of another offense, and where the identical conduct or unit of prosecution is the factual basis of both, each offense within the class is a species of lesser-included offense in relation to the greater offense. Vitale, 447 U.S. at 420, 100 S.Ct. at 2267. For purposes of the government's Blockburger argument, we conclude that the crimes for which Mr. May was previously convicted constitute a species of lesser-included offense in relation to the civil forfeiture, which is therefore barred under the cases discussed above. 105