Opinion ID: 358732
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Choice Between the 2-Year Sentence and the 5-Year Sentence

Text: 4 Because Section 1202 was part of a last minute amendment that was hastily passed, with little discussion, no hearings, and no report (United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 344, 92 S.Ct. 515, 520, 30 L.Ed.2d 488), it has posed several difficult problems of interpretation. See, E. g., United States v. Bass, supra; Stevens v. United States, 440 F.2d 144 (6th Cir. 1971). The problem posed here is that both 18 U.S.C.App. § 1202(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 922(h) prohibit one who has been convicted of a felony from receiving a firearm that previously traveled in interstate commerce but provide different penalties for that offense. 5 Section 922(h), reenacted as part of Title IV State Firearms Control Assistance of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, provides: 6 It shall be unlawful for any person 7 (1) who is under indictment for, or who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year; 8 to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate commerce. 9 Section 924(a) of the same statute provides for violations of Section 922 a maximum fine of $5,000 and a maximum imprisonment term of five years; defendant received the five-year maximum sentence. 10 18 U.S.C.App. § 1202(a), passed for the first time as Title VII Unlawful Possession or Receipt of Firearms of the same Omnibus Act, provides: 11 Any person who 12 (1) has been convicted by a court of the United States or of a State or any political subdivision thereof of a felony,    and who receives, possesses, or transports in commerce or affecting commerce, after the date of enactment of this Act, any firearm shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned for not more than two years, or both. 13 Defendant's argument is that two statutes that proscribe the same offense and require identical proof 2 cannot subject an offender to different penalties. Apparently this argument has two dimensions, one based on statutory interpretation and the other based on potential constitutional impediments. We consider each in turn and conclude that it is impermissible to sentence a defendant for five years under Section 922(h) when he could receive only a two-year maximum sentence under Section 1202(a).
14 Section 922(h) had its origin in Section 2(f) of the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 1250, 1251. Section 5 of that statute made the penalty a $2,000 maximum fine or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both. 52 Stat. 1252. See 1968 U.S.Code Congressional and Administrative News pp. 2112, 2205, 2207 (1968). The statute was included as part of the Act that eventually was passed under the title of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. 15 Although Section 922(h) was a part of that Act from its introduction in the House in 1967 through June of 1968 when the Act passed both Houses and was signed into law, Section 1202 was, as the Supreme Court described, a product of a last-minute amendment. See generally Stevens v. United States, 440 F.2d 144 (6th Cir. 1971). After the Act had passed the House and had been reported to the Senate by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, on the day the Senate version of the Act passed the Senate Section 1202 was offered from the floor as an amendment by Senator Long. 114 Congressional Record 14775 (1968). No specific mention of Section 922 was made in the brief debate that followed, but one general reference to Title IV does appear. Senator Dodd asked whether Senator Long's amendment was a substitute for Title IV and Senator Long replied (Id. at 14774): 16 Mr. Long of Louisiana. This amendment would take nothing from the bill. I applaud what the committee did. This would add to the fine work the committee did in this area. 17 After the Act passed the Senate, the House reconsidered it in light of the Senate's changes before the bill, including both Sections 922(h) and 1202(a), was signed into law in June of 1968. In explaining Senator Long's amendment to the House, Congressman Machen said that this provision is necessary to a coordinated attack on crime and also (is) a good complement to the gun control legislation contained in Title IV. Id. at 16286. 18 This brief legislative history leaves a perplexing problem of statutory construction. While it could be argued that the legislators' comments indicate that Congress intended the two titles to coexist, it is hard to imagine, and nothing in the history suggests, that the legislators if they were focusing upon these Sections could have considered Section 1202 a good complement to Section 922. Because we therefore find the legislative history inconclusive, 3 our determination of what meaning to give to two inconsistent provisions in the same Act rests on the application of three general principles of statutory construction. First is the principle, recently reaffirmed in United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 347-349, 92 S.Ct. 515, 30 L.Ed.2d 488, and applied in a discussion of these same two titles of the hastily amended Omnibus Act, that ambiguity concerning the interpretation of criminal legislation should be resolved in favor of lenity. 4 While this principle usually is applied to the interpretation of individual statutes whose phrasing is ambiguous, it also seems helpful when as here two separate parts of the same Act arguably contradict each other and therefore leave the intent of the legislators ambiguous. See 2A Sutherland's Statutory Construction § 47.02. 19 To the extent that the individual sections of the Omnibus Act instead are regarded as separate enactments, a second principle of statutory construction comes into play: that a later-enacted statute can under certain circumstances serve as an implied repeal of an earlier statute. Applying this principle, it can be argued that Senator Long's amendment Section 1202(a) is Congress' last word on the issue of penalty because it was added to the bill after Section 922 and because it was first enacted in 1968 while Section 922 dates back 30 years earlier. While implied repeals are disfavored particularly in the absence of a manifest intent to repeal, the conflict between the two sections and the broad coverage of Section 1202 lend some support under these circumstances to the notion that the penalty in Section 1202 should predominate. See generally Radzanower v. Touche Ross & Co., 426 U.S. 148, 154, 96 S.Ct. 1989, 48 L.Ed.2d 540. 20 Although these first two principles cannot be applied to these facts without some difficulty, the third and in this case most important principle seems to apply with full force. That principle is that when a serious doubt of constitutionality is raised, it is a cardinal principle that this Court will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 62, 52 S.Ct. 285, 296, 76 L.Ed. 598. See United States ex rel. Attorney General v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U.S. 366, 408, 29 S.Ct. 527, 53 L.Ed. 836. Because, as outlined in the next part of this opinion, the constitutionality of inconsistent penalties is open to serious question, this third principle, together with whatever persuasive force can be drawn from the first two principles, leads us to construe the Omnibus Act as limiting imprisonment to a maximum of two years for the offense of receiving a firearm by a convicted felon. 5 Accord, United States v. Hairston, 437 F.Supp. 33 (N.D.Ill.1977).
21 Justice Black's forceful dissenting opinion in Berra v. United States, 351 U.S. 131, 76 S.Ct. 685, 100 L.Ed. 1013, joined by Justice Douglas, touches on several important constitutional protections implicated by a prosecutor's power to select one of two statutes that are identical except for their penalty provisions. Assuming that the protection against vague criminal legislation extends to the punishment provision (see United States v. Hairston, 437 F.Supp. 33, 35 (N.D.Ill.1977)), the statutes may be void for vagueness under the Fifth Amendment. As Justice Black suggested, (a) basic principle of our criminal law is that the Government only prosecutes people for crimes under statutes passed by Congress which fairly and clearly define the conduct made criminal and the punishment which can be administered. 351 U.S. at 139, 76 S.Ct. at 690. At least in the absence of published guidelines by the prosecutor (see Hutcherson v. United States, 120 U.S.App.D.C. 274, 281, 345 F.2d 964, 971 (1965)) (Bazelon, J., dissenting), certiorari denied, 382 U.S. 894, 86 S.Ct. 188, 15 L.Ed.2d 151, a second type of constitutional protection implicated is the due process and equal protection interest in avoiding excessive prosecutorial discretion and in obtaining equal justice. In Justice Black's words (351 U.S. at 140, 76 S.Ct. at 691): 22 The Government's contention here also challenges our concept that all people must be treated alike under the law. This principle means that no different or higher punishment should be imposed upon one than upon another if the offense and the circumstances are the same. 23 Tying these constitutional claims together are the basic concepts of separation of powers and delegation of authority. There is strong evidence that partially in order to avoid such vague penalties, excessive executive discretion and unequal justice, it is Congress' constitutional responsibility in defining a criminal offense to affix a scheme of punishment. See United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch 32, 11 U.S. 32, 34, 3 L.Ed. 259; Berra v. United States, 351 U.S. 131, 139-140, 76 S.Ct. 685, 100 L.Ed. 1013 (Black, J., dissenting); cf. United States v. Evans, 333 U.S. 483, 68 S.Ct. 634, 92 L.Ed. 823. Although, apart from Justice Black's opinion in Berra we have found no Supreme Court opinions explicitly dealing with this precise question, the Court has emphasized that the legislature cannot shift its task of fixing punishment either to the courts (United States v. Evans, 333 U.S. 483, 486, 68 S.Ct. 634, 92 L.Ed. 823; cf. Giaccio v. Pennsylvania, 382 U.S. 399, 86 S.Ct. 518, 15 L.Ed.2d 447) 6 or apparently to administrative agencies, particularly in the absence of guidance or a clear delegation. See United States v. Grimaud, 220 U.S. 506, 516, 31 S.Ct. 480, 55 L.Ed. 563; see generally W. LaFave & A. Scott, Criminal Law 103 (1972); L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 110 (1965). 7 It is our conclusion that at best Congress would have no more power to delegate the selection of punishment to the Attorney General than it does to the courts or to administrative agencies. 8 Because this statutory scheme, if interpreted to give meaning both to Sections 922 and 1202, would affix two separate and inconsistent punishments rather than one scheme of punishment (compare United States v. Evans, 333 U.S. 483, 68 S.Ct. 634, 92 L.Ed. 823), we have serious doubts about the constitutionality of that construction. See Berra v. United States, 351 U.S. 131, 139-140, 76 S.Ct. 685, 100 L.Ed. 1013 (Black, J., dissenting). 24 Consistent with the assertedly settled rule that the prosecutor can select which of two overlapping statutes to apply to a defendant (United States v. Ruggiero, 472 F.2d 599, 606 (2d Cir. 1973), certiorari denied, 412 U.S. 939, 93 S.Ct. 2772, 37 L.Ed.2d 398), the Government's response to defendant's challenge is to cite several cases stating that a defendant has no constitutional complaint if he is charged under a statute like Section 922 instead of one like Section 1202. E. g., Mauney v. United States, 454 F.2d 273 (6th Cir. 1972); United States v. Fournier, 483 F.2d 68 (5th Cir. 1973); United States v. Phillips, 522 F.2d 388 (8th Cir. 1975); United States v. Panetta, 436 F.Supp. 114, 129 n. 31 (E.D.Pa.1977); United States v. Raddatz, No. 77 CR 325 (N.D.Ill. Feb. 6, 1978). Contra, United States v. Hairston, 437 F.Supp. 33 (N.D.Ill.1977). 25 Our reading of the cases cited by defendant, as well as those that have established the settled rule allowing prosecutorial choice, however, is that as applied to the choice between two statutes that have identical substantive elements they are either unpersuasive or inapplicable. Some of the opinions (E. g., United States v. Mauney, supra; Hutcherson v. United States, 120 U.S.App.D.C. 274, 278, 345 F.2d 964, 968 (1965) (Burger, J., concurring), certiorari denied, 382 U.S. 894, 86 S.Ct. 188, 15 L.Ed.2d 151) offer only an assertion that the issue was decided by the majority in Berra v. United States, supra. While Berra refused to disturb the conviction in a case apparently involving two identical statutes 9 with different penalties, the defendant on appeal in Berra contended only that the jury should have been given a lesser-included offense instruction. Significantly, the Supreme Court majority expressly noted the question of the validity of petitioner's conviction and sentence, because of the assumed overlapping but emphasized that (no) such questions are presented here. 351 U.S. at 135, 76 S.Ct. at 688. It was only Justice Black's dissent that reached the issue, and he argued that the Court should have decided the propriety of the sentence rather than, as the Court apparently had done, require that the defendant raise the issue in a Section 2255 proceeding. 351 U.S. at 137 n.4, 76 S.Ct. 685. 26 While the issue involved in this case thus was arguably present but not reached in Berra (except by the two Justices who would have vacated the sentence), in the other cases relied upon by the Government (E. g., United States v. Fournier, supra ), this issue was not present. Those cases either are or rely without explanation upon cases in which the two overlapping statutes at issue did not have the same elements or standards of proof. 10 This distinction, which was first suggested by the Court in United States v. Beacon Brass, 344 U.S. 43, 45, 73 S.Ct. 77, 97 L.Ed. 61, is significant because overlapping statutes and the resulting delegation of discretionary authority are unavoidable and thus a necessity in dealing with the wide variety of acts that Congress makes criminal, but there is no necessity for such a delegation when two statutes prohibit exactly the same conduct. 11 Put another way, Congress cannot be said to have abandoned its responsibility to set a penalty when it sets different penalties in overlapping statutes because in doing so it has set a different penalty for each legally distinguishable offense, but it has abandoned that responsibility, when as here, different penalties are applied to statutes prohibiting identical acts. Cf. United States v. Evans, 333 U.S. 483, 68 S.Ct. 634, 92 L.Ed. 823; United States v. Petrillo, 332 U.S. 1, 7-8, 67 S.Ct. 1538, 91 L.Ed. 1877; Note, 109 U.Pa.L.Rev. 67, 95 (1960). Because we therefore find the reasoning of other circuits cited by the Government to be inapplicable, we decline to follow those cases here 12 and are left with serious doubts about the constitutionality of two statutes that provide different penalties for identical conduct. 13 Fortunately we need not reach a final conclusion on these difficult constitutional questions because, having found a possible ambiguity when the Omnibus Act is read as a whole, we can give the Act a clearly constitutional reading by requiring that defendant's sentencing be governed by Section 1202(a).