Opinion ID: 463376
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Menna and Blackledge

Text: 105 The trial court, unlike the majority, found that Menna v. New York, 423 U.S. 61, 96 S.Ct. 241, 46 L.Ed.2d 195 (1975) was not applicable here. By analogy, the same rationale would apply to Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21, 94 S.Ct. 2098, 40 L.Ed.2d 628 (1974), which case was not addressed by the trial court. I agree with the trial court's analysis. Thus, I conclude that Menna and Blackledge do not apply to the case at bar. 106 Significantly, in both Menna and Blackledge, the double jeopardy challenge was posited (like Beachner ) prior to trial. I recognize that this is not always conclusive, but it weighs heavily here. It was not of significance in Menna because plainly--without the need of an evidentiary hearing--Menna had been twice placed in jeopardy: Menna had initially been incarcerated on a contempt charge for refusal to obey a court order to appear and testify before the grand jury. Thereafter, following denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment for refusal to answer questions before the same grand jury, he entered a guilty plea thereto and was sentenced. The Supreme Court logically held that Menna's earlier conviction for contempt was a criminal conviction for the same crime as the one charged in the instant indictment.  423 U.S. at 62, n. 1, 96 S.Ct. at 242, n. 1 (emphasis supplied). No evidentiary hearing involving the fact-finding process was required to arrive at that logical conclusion. 107 In Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21, 94 S.Ct. 2098, 40 L.Ed.2d 628 (1974), again there was no fact-finding evidentiary hearing required in order for the Supreme Court to conclude that after Blackledge had been charged, tried and convicted by the state authorities on a misdemeanor charge that he could not subsequently be charged, tried and convicted by those same state authorities on a felony charge involving the identical facts and circumstances. The Supreme Court held that the felony charge was lodged against Blackledge in retaliation to his filing of a petition for trial de novo of his misdemeanor conviction, constituting a deprivation of due process of law. Neither Menna nor Blackledge involve the rule at the heart of the case at bar: absent a statutory impediment (i.e., lack of subject matter jurisdiction) or a Due Process deprivation (i.e., filing a subsequent charge in retaliation to a defendant taking appeal from an earlier conviction), the rule in this circuit has long been--and continues to be after Menna and Blackledge --that an accused waives his claim of double jeopardy to a subsequent criminal charge if the crimes charged, on their faces, are separate and distinct and if the evidence necessary to establish guilt as to one charge differs from that necessary to establish guilt as to another. In such case, we have held that the right not to be placed in jeopardy twice for the offense is a personal right which may be waived by a guilty plea. Caballero v. Hudspeth, 114 F.2d 545 (10th Cir.1940); Cox v. Crouse, 376 F.2d 824 (10th Cir.1967); Cox v. State of Kansas, 456 F.2d 1279 (10th Cir.1972); United States v. Rich, 589 F.2d 1025 (10th Cir.1978); Meyer v. State, 47 Md.App. 679, 425 A.2d 664; 24 A.L.R.4th 1313. 108 These cases are consistent with Judge O'Connor's reliance on Kerrigan v. United States, 644 F.2d 47 (1st Cir.1981). This is the only case, in the course of our research, which closely fits the niche of the facts of the instant case. Kerrigan pled guilty and was sentenced under two indictments, both of which charged him with conspiracy to transport stolen goods in interstate commerce. Thereafter, Kerrigan brought a habeas corpus action contending that his sentence should be vacated on the ground that it violated his Fifth Amendment rights not to be twice placed in jeopardy for the same offense. The court of appeals affirmed the district court's denial of relief and pertinently observed: 109 Menna and Launius do indeed indicate that a double jeopardy claim may lie notwithstanding a guilty plea, but in neither case did the double jeopardy claim depend upon a repudiation of the allegations in the indictment to which the plea had been entered. These cases do not hold, as Kerrigan suggests, that a defendant who pleaded guilty may later contest the factual and theoretical foundations of the indictment to which he pleaded, so as to show that, in fact, he committed only a single conspiracy. The court in Launius explicitly and correctly stated that By pleading guilty the appellants admitted the facts alleged in the information. Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 748 [90 S.Ct. 1463, 1468, 25 L.Ed.2d 747] ... (1970); Willard v. United States, 445 F.2d 814, 816 (7th Cir.1971). Kerrigan's claim of double jeopardy must be evaluated under the version of facts stated in the indictment, not against an alternative version of events which Kerrigan now claims is more accurate. Evaluated in this way, Kerrigan's claim is quite different from that asserted in Launius; far from being facially multiplicitious, as in Launius, Kerrigan's indictments sufficiently describe two separate and distinct offenses, for which Kerrigan could be constitutionally sentenced to two separate terms of imprisonment. 110 644 F.2d at 49 (emphasis supplied). 111 Consistent with the logic of Kerrigan, it is my view that the only effect that can be firmly placed on Beachner is that following the filing of that opinion, all subsequent rosecutions in the District of Kansas or elsewhere in this circuit involving the identical factual bid-rigging scenario would be controlled by our holding in Beachner: that the scheme constituted a single, on-going, continuous conspiracy. To that extent and only to that extent the Government should be collaterally estopped from relitigating the precise, identical issue in subsequent criminal prosecutions. This is simply the application of the principle of issue preclusion. See, Bullock v. Pearson, 768 F.2d 1191 (10th Cir., 1985). Thus, there is no analogy between Broce and the double jeopardy bar found in Blackledge based upon a due process deprivation of a fundamental nature. 112 The majority opinion does, as the Government contends, (a) encourage defendants to challenge their sentences long after their guilty pleas are entered, effectively undermining the effectiveness of the criminal justice system and the finality of convictions, and (b) discourage federal prosecutors from entering into plea bargaining with all advantages cast on the side of the defendant and the government realistically inviting deprivation of its benefits under the plea bargain. 113 The analogy between the instant case and Kerrigan, in the double jeopardy context, is strikingly clear: Evaluating the allegations in the indictment both from a factual viewpoint and applicable law existing at the time of the Broce plea, the double jeopardy claim must fail. Notwithstanding Judge Saffels' finding of fact in Beachner that the various highway contractors entered into a single, ongoing conspiracy to rig highway construction bids, this was not a binding rule of law when the Broce pleas were entered, voluntarily and upon advice of competent counsel. This court did not affirm Judge Saffels' Beachner finding/conclusion (single versus multiple conspiracies) until more than two years after the Broce guilty pleas had been entered admitting the facts alleged, i.e., that each separate highway bid rigged contract constituted a separate, single, conspiracy. 114 Caballero v. Hudspeth, supra, was an appeal from the district court's denial of habeas corpus relief. We there held on appeal, that the defendant's guilty plea to a two count indictment involving violation of the White Slave Act was improper (but not invalid) because the emphasis of the statute is on the interstate transportation and in this case there was but one trip, and that the one transportation involved but one offense. The defendant had been charged and pled guilty to two counts involving transportation of one Elise Herbert: one count charged that the defendant intended to compel her to engage in prostitution; the second count charged that the defendant intended to unlawfully cohabit with her. This court held, however, that the charges were facially valid and that the defendant was not subjected to double jeopardy because he entered the guilty plea voluntarily, while represented by competent counsel, and did not object to the charges at any stage of the proceeding. Under these circumstances, we held that the right not to be placed in jeopardy twice is a personal right which may be waived by a plea of guilty. 115 In Cox v. State of Kansas, supra, Cox, a state prisoner, appealed a district court denial of his petition for federal habeas corpus relief. Cox had been convicted, following his guilty plea in 1966, to a charge of second degree kidnapping. Cox relied on Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969). There, Benton had been tried in a Maryland state court for burglary and larceny. He was acquitted of larceny but found guilty of burglary. Because the jury had been selected under an invalid Maryland constitutional provision, Benton was given the option of demanding re-indictment and retrial. He was re-indicted for both larceny and burglary. Prior to retrial, Benton moved to dismiss the larceny charge on the ground of double jeopardy. The motion was denied and Benton was subsequently convicted of both larceny and burglary. The Supreme Court struck down the larceny conviction because of his acquittal of this charge in the first trial. There was no contention made that the charges (larceny and burglary) were facially invalid and other than separate, distinct offenses. Cox, unlike Benton, did not challenge the indictment prior to trial. In denying Cox federal habeas relief this court quoted Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 757, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 1473, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970): [A] voluntary plea of guilty intelligently made in the light of the then applicable law does not become vulnerable because later judicial decisions indicate that the plea rested on a faulty premise. 116 Menna discloses the double jeopardy bar on the face of the charges involved. Blackledge discloses a prosecutorial intent to deny Blackledge due process of law by initiating felony proceedings arising out of the same acts and circumstances as those involving a misdemeanor conviction he was appealing. The due process deprivation was that of retaliation for Blackledge's appeal from the misdemeanor conviction. Neither case, I submit, involved the situation presented here: the Broce pleas were to charges contained in indictments alleging separate, distinct conspiracies on their face; there was no statutory impediment creating lack of subject matter jurisdiction; there was no substantive due process violation by the prosecution; and there were no judicial opinions then in being and controlling dictating that the indictments to which Broce pled guilty were duplicitous. Judge Seth, in his Broce dissent, logically dissected Menna: 117 Virtually all the courts of appeal since Menna have continued to hold that the defense is waived if not raised in some way before trial as it was in Menna. This is a perfectly reasonable construction of Menna where the defense was so raised. The Court in Menna stated that a plea of guilty removes the issue of factual guilt from the case. The Court also there stated: 118 We do not hold that a double jeopardy claim may never be waived. We simply hold that a plea of guilty to a charge does not waive a claim that--judged on its face--the charge is one which the State may not constitutionally prosecute. 119 The indictments in the case before us do on their faces allege separate offenses. By the guilty pleas the defendants admitted the recitations in the indictments, and these are the facts to be used in evaluating the double jeopardy claims. Kerrigan v. United States, 644 F.2d 47 (1st Cir.1981). These facts recite separate offenses. 120 The case which upholds appellants' position that Menna precludes waiver, and it may be the only case, is Launius v. United States, 575 F.2d 770 (9th Cir.1978). The post-Menna cases with contrary holdings (or which consider situations where the defense was raised at or before trial and so hold no waiver) include: United States v. Pratt, 657 F.2d 218 (8th Cir.1981); United States v. Broussard, 645 F.2d 504 (5th Cir.1981); United States v. Gaertner, 583 F.2d 308 (7th Cir.1978); United States v. Inmon, 568 F.2d 326 (3rd Cir.1977); United States v. Wild, 551 F.2d 418 (D.C.Cir.1977).... 121 753 F.2d 811, 824 (10th Cir.1985) (emphasis at the end of the first paragraph supplied).