Opinion ID: 1958935
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Double jeopardy applied

Text: Bearing in mind the Blockburger same offense test as a constitutionally established rule of statutory construction, we turn to examine whether it was a violation of double jeopardy for appellant to receive separate sentences for aggravated assault, resisting arrest, prohibited offensive weapons, and carrying a firearm on the streets of Philadelphia. We conclude that it was not. The aggravated assault charge was submitted to the jury under 18 Pa.C.S. § 2702(a)(1) & (2). These provisions state in pertinent part:  (a) Offense defined.  A person is guilty of aggravated assault if he: (1) attempts to cause serious bodily injury to another . . . (2) attempts to cause . . . serious bodily injury to a police officer making or attempting to make a lawful arrest. . . . (Emphasis ours). The crime of resisting arrest of which appellant was found guilty is defined at id. § 5104: A person commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if, with the intent of preventing a public servant from effecting a lawful arrest or discharging any other duty, the person creates a substantial risk of bodily injury to the public servant or anyone else, or employs means justifying or requiring substantial force to overcome the resistance. Initially, a comparison of the elements of these two crimes reveals that each requires proof of a fact that the other does not. The aggravated assault charge lodged against appellant required proof that he attempted to cause serious bodily injury to Officer Moriarity. Serious bodily injury is defined in the Crimes Code as Bodily injury which creates a substantial risk of death or which causes serious, permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ. Id. § 2301. To prove this element of the assault, the Commonwealth had to prove the actual intentional discharging of the shotgun at Moriarity. This particular fact was not crucial to the resisting arrest charge. Resisting arrest does not require an attempt to cause serious bodily injury to a police officer. Here, evidence that appellant brandished the shotgun, threatened the officers with it, and used it to escape would alone have been sufficient to prove that he created a substantial risk of bodily injury (defined as impairment of physical condition or substantial pain, id. ), or that he put up resistance requiring a policeman to use substantial force to overcome it. Any of these lesser degrees of force employed by appellant in turn would have sufficed to prove resisting arrest. Of course, the actual firing of the gun also could have supported a conviction for resisting arrest. Nevertheless, resisting arrest does not thereby become a lesser included offense of aggravated assault, because by definition resisting arrest also has an additional element not required for aggravated assault: proof that the perpetrator specifically intended by his resistance to prevent an officer from effecting an arrest or discharging a duty. An aggravated assault charge, even if pressed under subsection 2702(a)(2), does not require the Commonwealth to prove such specific intent. All it requires is an attempt to cause serious bodily injury to a police officer making or attempting to make a lawful arrest. To convict under 2702(a)(2), a jury need not find that assaultive conduct against an officer making an arrest was specifically intended to thwart the arrest. General hatred for policemen, malice against a particular officer, misconceived notions of self-defense, jealousy, wanton cruelty, any of a rogues' gallery of vile motives could account for someone's attempt to seriously injure a police officer engaged in the process of arrest. Williams could have been convicted for violating 2702(a)(2) under any of these theories, without regard to his specific purpose for discharging the shotgun. It would have been no defense, for example, for him to prove lack of awareness that a lawful arrest was under way, thereby negating any possible intention to prevent arrest. Thus, the aggravated assault and resisting arrest charges brought against appellant each required proof of an additional fact not included in the other: aggravated assault required an attempt to cause serious bodily injury to Officer Moriarity; resisting arrest required intent to prevent a lawful arrest. Despite a substantial overlap in the evidence used at trial to prove these two crimes, they were not the same offense for double jeopardy purposes. See Illinois v. Vitale, supra ; Iannelli v. United States, 420 U.S. 770, 785 n. 17, 95 S.Ct. 1284, 1293-94 n. 17, 43 L.Ed.2d 616, 627 n. 17 (1975); cf. Jordan v. State, (Ala.Crim.App. No. 6 Div. 421, filed Jan. 22, 1985) (in homicide prosecution, vehicular homicide not lesser included offense of murder). The firearms offenses appellant committed are defined at 18 Pa.C.S. § 908 (Prohibited offensive weapons) and id. § 6108 (Carrying firearms on public streets or public property in Philadelphia). As pertinent here, the crime of prohibited offensive weapons was made out by appellant's simple use or possession of a specific weapon, a sawed-off shotgun, id. § 908(a), (c); see Commonwealth v. Walls, 303 Pa.Super. 284, 449 A.2d 690 (1982) (allocatur denied); Commonwealth v. Gatto, 236 Pa.Super. 92, 344 A.2d 566 (1975), whereas the firearms offense under Section 6108 required proof that appellant carried a firearm in the City of Philadelphia, see Commonwealth v. Whelton, supra . Precisely the same act on Williams's part established both crimes; nevertheless they are not the same offense for double jeopardy purposes because each requires proof of a fact that the other does not. Cf. id. The charge of carrying a firearm in Philadelphia required proof that appellant possessed the firearm in a particular location, namely, on a public street in Philadelphia. This element of location was not relevant to a conviction under Section 908, which proscribes the possession anywhere of a certain class of prohibited weapons. To prove a violation of Section 908, on the other hand, the Commonwealth had to establish that a particular type of weapon belonging to the prohibited class was involved. See Commonwealth v. Jackson, 336 Pa.Super. 609, 486 A.2d 431 (1984). This element was established here by proof that the firearm in appellant's possession was indeed a sawed-off shotgun. 18 Pa.C.S. § 908(c). Proof of the exact type of weapon was not necessary under Section 6108, which was satisfied once the Commonwealth proved that appellant carried any firearm, rifle or shotgun in Philadelphia. Each firearms offense, therefore, was a discrete offense under the Double Jeopardy Clause. From the foregoing discussion of the elements of the various crimes charged, it is also apparent that the firearms charges were not constitutionally the same offense as aggravated assault or resisting arrest. Thus, there was no double jeopardy violation in sentencing appellant separately for each offense.