Opinion ID: 1958935
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Heading: Constitutional limitations on multiple punishments

Text: One of the guarantees found in the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution is protection against more than one punishment for the same offence. U.S. Const. amend. V; Ex parte Lange, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 163, 21 L.Ed. 872 (1874). The Fifth Amendment proscription on multiple punishments for the same offense has of late been made binding on the State governments by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Const. amend. XIV. See North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969). Pennsylvania has its own constitutional provision making it unlawful for any person to be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense. Pa. Const. art. 1, § 10. As our State Supreme Court recently reaffirmed, however, in the multiple punishments context the double jeopardy guarantee contained in Article 1, § 10 is coextensive with its counterpart in the Fifth Amendment. Commonwealth v. Goldhammer, 507 Pa. 236, 247-248 n. 4, 489 A.2d 1307, 1313 n. 4 (1985); accord, Commonwealth v. Bostic, 500 Pa. 345, 350-51 n. 4, 456 A.2d 1320, 1322 n. 4 (1983). Thus, in determining whether multiple punishments have been unconstitutionally inflicted for the same offense, our State courts simply apply the rules used to effectuate the Fifth Amendment guarantee against double jeopardy. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Houtz, 496 Pa. 345, 437 A.2d 385 (1981); Commonwealth v. Tarver, 493 Pa. 320, 426 A.2d 569 (1981). In Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304, 52 S.Ct. 180, 182, 76 L.Ed. 306, 309 (1932), the Supreme Court set forth the definitive test for determining when conduct in violation of more than one statute must be treated as the same offense for double jeopardy purposes: The applicable rule is that where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each provision requires proof of a fact which the other does not. That is, more than one offense may be found and punished in any given act or transaction only where each offense requires proof of an element not contained in the other(s). Id. The Blockburger same offense test is the same one that traditionally has been used to determine whether one offense is a constituent or lesser included offense of another. See Tarver, supra ; see also Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 493, 104 S.Ct. 2536, 81 L.Ed.2d 425 (1984); Commonwealth v. Pemberth, 339 Pa.Super. 428, 489 A.2d 235 (1985). The test depends solely on a comparison of the elements of the crimes charged, not on the similarity or even the identity of the evidence introduced at trial to establish their commission. See United States v. Woodward, 469 U.S. ____, 105 S.Ct. 611, 83 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985); Commonwealth v. Maddox, 307 Pa.Super. 524, 453 A.2d 1010 (1982). Only when all the elements of one crime are also elements of the other may they be classified as the same offense. See, e.g., Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682, 97 S.Ct. 2912, 53 L.Ed.2d 1054 (1977); see and compare Black's Law Dictionary 812 (5th ed. 1979) (Lesser included offense); cf. also 18 Pa.C.S. § 109(1) (when prosecution barred by former prosecution for the same offense). Although it is frequently overlooked, it cannot be overemphasized that the same offense test of double jeopardy does not prohibit cumulating punishments at a single trial for multiple statutory offenses simply because they all arise from the same act or transaction. Even a single, indivisible act may support more than one punishment under separate statutory provisions if each provision requires proof of a fact that the other does not. Thus, in Woodward, supra, a unanimous Supreme Court held that the defendant's solitary act of checking off the no box on a customs form supported double punishments for making a false statement to a federal agency and failing to report currency, because each statutory offense required proof of an element not contained in the other. See also Commonwealth v. Whelton, 319 Pa.Super. 42, 465 A.2d 1043 (1983) (single, undifferentiated act of possessing one gun supported two discrete sentences for separate firearms violations without offending double jeopardy). Same offense refers, in the strict sense, to a greater and its necessarily included lesser offense; one must involve the other not only in the factual context of the case, but also by definition of the crimes charged. For two crimes arising from the same transaction to be the same offense, a comparison of their statutory elements must reveal that proof of one offense will necessarily prove the other. See Illinois v. Vitale, 447 U.S. 410, 100 S.Ct. 2260, 65 L.Ed.2d 228 (1980). Classic examples of one offense being necessarily included in another are the greater and lesser offenses of rape and fornication, and robbery and theft. See Commonwealth ex rel. Moszczynski v. Ashe, 343 Pa. 102, 21 A.2d 920 (1941); Commonwealth v. Mitchell, 319 Pa.Super. 170, 465 A.2d 1284 (1983); Commonwealth v. Jellots, 277 Pa.Super. 358, 419 A.2d 1184 (1980). To use another example that has recently come to prominence, in a felony-murder prosecution the underlying felony is a lesser included offense of, and therefore the same offense as, the felony-murder itself, because proof of felony-murder ipso facto proves all the elements of the underlying felony; indeed, proof of the underlying felony is necessary to establish that a killing was in fact felony-murder. Tarver, supra ; see also Harris, supra ; Maddox, supra . Cf. People v. Robideau, 419 Mich. 458, 355 N.W.2d 592 (1984) (plurality opinion) (suggesting crimes like felony-murder/underlying felony are not true greater/lesser included offenses, but compound and predicate crimes). The final principle of double jeopardy law which must be stated here is that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not restrict the legislature's ability to prescribe more than one punishment for the same offense. It serves only to restrain courts from imposing and prosecutors from seeking more than one punishment under a particular legislative enactment, and to prevent the court from exceeding its legislative authorization by imposing more than one punishment for the same offense. Bostic, supra ; Tarver, supra ; see also Albernaz v. United States, 450 U.S. 333, 101 S.Ct. 1137, 67 L.Ed.2d 275 (1981); Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977). For double jeopardy purposes, the Blockburger same offense test is merely a rule of statutory construction to be employed where the legislature has not explicitly authorized separate punishments for a single offense. The assumption underlying the rule is that Congress ordinarily does not intend to punish the same offense under two different statutes. Accordingly, where two statutory provisions proscribe the `same offense,' they are construed not to authorize cumulative punishments in the absence of a clear indication of contrary legislative intent. Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 691-92, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 1437-38, 63 L.Ed.2d 715, 723-24 (1980) (emphasis added). Where . . . a legislature specifically authorizes cumulative punishment under two statutes, regardless of whether those two statutes proscribe the same conduct under Blockburger, a court's task of statutory construction is at an end and the prosecutor may seek and the trial court or jury may impose cumulative punishment under such statutes in a single trial. Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 368-69, 103 S.Ct. 673, 679, 74 L.Ed.2d 535, 544 (1983) (emphasis added). Thus, in Hunter, and again in Bostic, supra, where a legislative intention to do so was clearly spelled out, cumulative punishments could be imposed for a felony and for the use of a firearm in commission of that felony, even though one was necessarily involved in the other and both therefore amounted to the same offense as defined in Blockburger.