Court Opinion

ID: 9473594
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:33:49.968578+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:37.056230
License: Public Domain

NELSON, Circuit Judge, with whom SNEED, Circuit Judge, joins, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. On the facts of this case — Palafox’s drug sample distribution followed by possession of the retained quantity with intent to distribute it — I feel that two crimes were committed, and that two convictions and two sentences were warranted.
A person who has been found guilty of violating two statutory provisions is, as a general rule, legally subject to two criminal convictions and two punishments. Courts have recognized only two narrow classes of exceptions to this rule: (1) where both violations result from a single act and the two statutory provisions are related in a special way which indicates that Congress has not authorized punishment for both violations in such a situation, compare, e.g., Ball v. United States, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 1668, 84 L.Ed.2d 740 (1985) (double punishment not permitted); and Albernaz v. United States, 450 U.S. 333, 101 S.Ct. 1137, 67 L.Ed.2d 275 (1981) (same); with, e.g., United States v. Rosales-Lopez, 617 F.2d 1349 (9th Cir.1980) (two acts violating two related statutory provisions; double punishment permitted), aff'd, 451 U.S. 182, 101 S.Ct. 1629, 68 L.Ed.2d 22 (1981); United States v. Mehrmanesh, 682 F.2d 1303 (9th Cir.1982) (multiple acts violating same statutory provision; same); United States v. Woodward, — U.S.-, 105 S.Ct. 611, 83 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985) (per curiam) (single act, but provisions not related in the necessary way; same), or (2) where the two violations are of the types “x-with-intent-to-y” and an immediately subsequent and contiguous “y” (e.g., possession of a controlled or counterfeit substance with intent to distribute it, and distribution; entry into a bank with intent to rob, and bank robbery). See, e.g., United States v. Oropeza, 564 F.2d 316 (9th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1080, 98 S.Ct. 1276, 55 L.Ed.2d 788 (1978) (Drug Act); Prince v. United States, 352 U.S. 322, 77 S.Ct. 403, 1 L.Ed.2d 370 (1957) (Federal Bank Robbery Act).
The present case falls into neither of these categories, and the majority does not and cannot establish otherwise. Its opinion apparently aims to bring Palafox under the second exception, in that it purports to rely upon Prince and the Oropeza line of Drug Act decisions. These Drug Act (and bank robbery) cases, however, are inapplicable to the present case because, as the majority points out, they concerned situations in which “a single act of distribution form[ed] the basis for both the charge of distribution and the charge of possession with intent to distribute.” Maj. Op. at 562. As conceded by the majority, id. at 563, this is not the situation presented here. It was a second contemplated act of distribution which was never consummated, and which was distinct from the earlier sample distribution, which formed the basis for Pala-fox’s possession charge. Thus, under Oropeza Palafox could not have been convicted and sentenced separately for possession had he actually carried out the distribution of the bulk of the heroin; but because his possession never ripened into a second distribution, there is no consummated distribution offense which can subsume Palafox’s possession charge in the way contemplated by the Drug Act cases cited by the majority.
The actual order of events, then, is of crucial importance in deciding whether to except a defendant from the ordinary “two conviction, two punishment” rule. An “x-with-intent-to-y” offense logically must merge into the “y” rather than vice versa; on remand, the district court presumably must vacate and stay Palafox’s conviction and sentence on the possession count rath*574er than the distribution count. Yet this is unsatisfactory, because an “x-with-intent-to-y” offense cannot logically merge into a preceding “y” offense. And, furthermore, it certainly makes no sense for a defendant’s possession with intent to distribute the bulk to merge into his prior distribution of the sample. In addition to the obvious flaw in such a result, it will often pervert the penalty received by the guilty defendant, because 21 U.S.C. § 841(b) prescribes heavier penalties for drug offenses involving larger drug amounts and a possession offense such as Palafox’s may exceed the threshold while distribution of a sample does not.
In needing to overrule United States v. Mehrmanesh, 682 F.2d 1303 (9th Cir.1982), the majority reveals the weakness of its reasoning. Mehrmanesh persuasively and straightforwardly established that the Drug Act treats each delivery of a controlled substance to be a separately punishable act of “distribution,” and rejected an alternative approach which would have focused upon broader “transactions” as providing the units for conviction and punishment. Even the present majority opinion cites Mehrmanesh’s rejection of a transaction approach. Maj. Op. at 560. Later, however, and in ad hoc fashion, the majority feels compelled to overrule the doctrine of Mehrmanesh, although apparently only for situations where the sample and bulk distributions occur at the same time, in the same place, and between the same parties. The majority would not have needed to create such unnecessary legal complications had it been able to achieve its desired result by following the Oropeza and Prince lines of authority. But the result in this case cannot be reached by either exception to the “two conviction, two punishment” general rule alone; consequently, the majority must strain to create a new hybrid exception, whereby not only does Palafox’s possession merge into the subsequent distribution which never occurred (under Oropeza) but also this second distribution merges with the prior sample distribution (under the overruling of Mehrman-esh ). In pursuing its questionable ends in this one case, the majority has found itself forced to undermine well-reasoned precedent and to confuse a previously settled area of the law.
The majority’s reaching for the illusory support of the first exception to the multiple punishment rule is obvious not only from its treatment of Mehrmanesh, but also from its repeated reference to Pala-fox’s single criminal “undertaking.” Employing a spatiotemporal definition of transaction rather than the commercial one explicitly rejected in Mehrmanesh, the majority apparently endeavors to treat Pala-fox’s conduct as constituting essentially one act. While this innovation is itself quite problematic, as discussed below, a more immediate flaw in the majority’s reasoning is that even if we assume that Pala-fox’s two violations arose from a single “act,” the two statutory provisions which he violated do not stand in the relationship necessary to justify a “one conviction, one punishment” result. Where one act violates two different statutory provisions, the appropriate test of legislative authorization for multiple punishments is the one outlined in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932). Ball, 105 S.Ct. at 1672. Yet under this test, as Judge Poole correctly points out, a defendant whose single act has violated the two provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) involved in this case may be separately convicted and punished for both offenses. Thus, the majority’s result is incorrect, one “undertaking” or not.
The broad new “undertaking” approach taken in the majority opinion is rather troubling in other ways, as well. The majority purports to have extracted a “theme” from prior precedents, maj. op. at 562, but in fact has created an entirely novel doctrine. The complexities, confusions, and subleties of this doctrine, combined with the imprudently expansive manner in which it has been stated in the majority’s opinion, do not augur well for the clear and consistent development of the criminal law of this Circuit. Although the majority’s rule is stated even more broadly elsewhere in its *575opinion, id. at 563, we may take the following statement of the rule as the controlling one:
when more than one offense arises under § 841(a)(1) from a single criminal undertaking involving drugs, and each offense is committed at virtually the same time, in the same place, and with the same participants, the punishments should not be compounded.
Id. at 562. This rule will create substantial problems of application, most of which are no doubt not even foreseeable at this time. Most obviously, because section 841(a)(1) prohibits manufacturing, distribution, dispensing, and possession with intent to do any of these, double convictions and sentences will no longer be permitted even for the drug dealer who manufactures a controlled substance in the presence of a customer and thereupon distributes the product to that customer. There is absolutely no indication that Congress authorized such a result, especially in light of the harsh legislative purposes acknowledged by the majority to lie behind the Drug Act.
Other outcomes and difficulties in implementation can be anticipated which provide similar cause for concern. The majority reasons, id. at 563, that a drug dealer who distributes, say, 5 grams to one buyer and retains 95 for sale to other buyers is subject to two convictions and two punishments, one for the distribution and one for the possession with intent to distribute the remainder. This is unobjectionable. Suppose, however, that the first buyer, immediately after paying for his 5 grams, impulsively decides to purchase 5 more and the dealer, after deliberating briefly, agrees to another sale. Would he be subject to an additional conviction and punishment? It is no wonder that the panel in Palafox’s companion case, United States v. Gonzalez, 715 F.2d 1411 (9th Cir.1983), rejected arguments of Palafox’s wife identical to those offered by Palafox and, like the court in Mehrmanesh, “chose not to emphasize the passage of time or the different locations between deliveries, but rather to relieve courts of the burden of examining such factors by flatly rejecting the defendant’s transactional approach.” 715 F.2d at 1412.
Moreover, the majority is simply mistaken in its notion that distribution of a drug sample is part of the same criminal act as the subsequent distribution of the bulk. It is clear that going through with a bulk distribution requires a separate and additional impulse of action on the part of a drug dealer, because he always retains the option, even after distributing a sample, of backing out of the final deal (or perhaps backing out partially, by deciding to sell only part of the bulk to this buyer and to retain the rest for other buyers). Undoubtedly, many drug sales follow this course, whether due to dissatisfaction over the proposed payment, to an uneasy suspicion on the part of the seller that the buyer may not be who he says he is, to a new-found personal dislike of the buyer, to some other change in circumstances, or simply to the mixture of fear and conscience called “cold feet.” In the present case, Palafox’s decision to replace the bulk in its hiding place in his automobile bespoke his realization, obviously well-founded in this case, that his drug transfer plans might not reach their fruition even though the sample had already changed hands.
Consequently, it would hardly be unjust to doubly punish a drug trafficker who has persisted in distributing the bulk after a sample has been distributed and tested. Nowhere in its opinion does the majority explain why courts should bend over backwards to accommodate such sophisticated and determined drug dealers, especially when Congress has sought to deal as harshly as it has with drug offenders.
In fact, in only one place in its opinion does the majority really attempt to provide a reasoned justification for the lenient rule it adopts:
Permitting separate punishments in the present case could lead to potentially ludicrous results. Government agents, for example, could ask for repeated samples, and turn one intended delivery into a theoretically infinite number of crimes, *576each punishable with a maximum of fifteen years. Such results were not intended ...
Maj. Op. at 563. Yet even this argument cannot justify the majority’s novel approach. First, the problem envisioned by the majority is inherently self-limiting, as government agents are undoubtedly extremely careful not to arouse the suspicion, violence, and/or flight of dangerous and already-wary drug traffickers by requesting an excessive number of samples. Second, why should punishment depend upon such marginally relevant factors as whether the government agent asked for the final distribution to take place in five minutes or two hours, or to take place here or around the block? In fact, it is not even clear in the present case that Palafox’s distribution of the bulk, after the sample had been tested, was to have occurred “at virtually the same time, in the same place, and with the same participants” as his distribution of the sample. The majority’s rule may discourage government agents from wrapping up drug investigations with the speed, security, and safety that was present in Palafox’s case, and may lead them to extend their operations riskily in order to shift the ultimate bulk distribution to a different scene or time. And this points up a third failing with the majority’s argument: its own rule does not solve the problem it raises. For government agents will still be able to multiply the number of offenses by requesting multiple samples in ways which will not fall under the majority’s narrow exception. And, samples aside, an enforcement agent will in no way be restrained by the majority’s decision from simply extending his buyer-seller relationship with the dealer so that it encompasses “a theoretically infinite number” of distinct drug sales and distributions, each of which will still be separately punishable under the majority’s ruling.
Of course, the close relationship between two criminal acts may be a legitimate mitigating factor to be considered by the sentencing judge. But this cannot alter the fact that the two criminal acts of distribution and possession of the remainder with intent to distribute may be punished separately, and it does not justify the doctrinal innovations of the majority’s opinion. Pa-lafox’s two convictions and two punishments should not be disturbed.