Opinion ID: 2103748
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 24

Heading: Death Aggravator as Double Jeopardy

Text: The defendant contends that his rights under the double jeopardy clauses of both the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 14 of the Indiana Constitution [7] were violated by allowing the State to support its death penalty request by utilizing the greater offense of robbery as an aggravating circumstance after he had been prosecuted and convicted of the lesser included offense of theft based on the same conduct. This claim rests upon the premise that the sentencing phase of a single prosecution constitutes a successive prosecution for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause. Conceding that the theft conviction and sentence may be vacated as a lesser included offense in violation of the prong of the double jeopardy rule barring multiple punishments for the same offense, the State maintains that the guilt phase and the penalty phase together make a single proceeding rather than a successive prosecution. This question was recently answered in the negative by the United States Supreme Court in Schiro v. Farley (1994), ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 783, 790, 127 L.Ed.2d 47, 57. As in Schiro, neither the prohibition against a successive trial on the issue of guilt nor the prohibition against a second capital sentencing proceeding is implicated here. This is simply a single sentencing hearing in the course of a single prosecution. The State is entitled to `one fair opportunity' to prosecute a defendant, and that opportunity extends not only to prosecution at the guilt phase, but also to present evidence at an ensuing sentencing proceeding. Schiro, ___ U.S. at ___, 114 S.Ct. at 790, 127 L.Ed.2d at 57 (citation omitted). We therefore find that it is improper to impose multiple punishments upon the defendant for the same conduct in the form of the sentence imposed for the theft charged in Count IV and the death penalty based upon the robbery aggravator. The appropriate remedy is that the conviction and sentence for the lesser offense of theft be vacated. Woods, 547 N.E.2d at 795. Because the capital sentencing phase was an integral component of a single prosecution, however, the death penalty proceeding against the defendant did not constitute a separate subsequent prosecution for the same conduct, in violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause.