Court Opinion

ID: 9643235
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:23:24.646646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:58.623512
License: Public Domain

Moylan, J.,

dissenting:

Respectfully, I dissent from the opinion of the Court. I further dissent from the judgment of the Court as to case number 523 as it affects the appellant Whitfield. I concur in the judgment of the Court in case number 523 as it affects the appellant Baker and in the judgment of the Court in case number 540.
I have no quarrel with the perceptive tracing in the majority opinion of the historic development of our present constitutional law on the question of double jeopardy. The basic proposition is clear that a defendant may not twice be placed in jeopardy. Since 1824, it is also clear that the prohibition is not an absolute but will *103yield to a “manifest necessity.” When a first trial ends in a mistrial, it is clear that jeopardy has once attached. Justice Story pointed out in United States v. Perez, 22 U. S. (9 Wheat.) 579, however, that such former jeopardy will not bar placing the defendant again in jeopardy where there was a “manifest necessity” for aborting the earlier trial.
Our constitutional law since 1824 has consisted simply of tracing the contours of Justice Story’s “manifest necessity.”
The ultimate issue is: By what constitutional standard do we measure whether a trial court exercised proper discretion in determining whether “manifest necessity” existed? As the majority opinion points out, the voice of the Supreme Court in this regard is not clear. The most recent expression from the Supreme Court is United States v. Jorn, 400 U. S. 470. There was, of course, no majority opinion. Justice Harlan wrote for four members of the Court, with two others joining simply in the judgment. I concur in and applaud the following principle of constitutional law enunciated by the majority opinion in this case, hoping that it will dutifully be remembered where we agree with plurality opinions of the Supreme Court as well as where we disagree with them:
“Thus there was a majority of six joining in the judgment but only a plurality of four joining in the opinion delivering the judgment. That opinion is therefore not that of the Court and because it is not the opinion of the Court none of its findings, conclusions and views are constitutionally the ‘Supreme Law’ of Maryland nor are the ‘Judges of this State, and all the People of this State * * * bound thereby.’ In other words, the opinion of the plurality of four Justices is no more controlling in this State than is the dissenting opinion of the three Justices. Therefore, we may look at the Harlan opinion and the Stewart opinion only in the frame of reference of their persuasiveness.”
*104In the absence of a clear commandment and with the option of alternative constitutional interpretations before us, we are free, in the words of Justice Holmes, to “legislate interstitially.” I part from the majority in that I find the opinion of Justice Harlan more persuasive than that of Justice Stewart. I find its reasoning to be sounder; its logic to be more compelling; ancl its effect more directly aimed at serving the fundamental purpose of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
In judging whether there has been an adequate finding of “manifest necessity” to dislodge the protection against double jeopardy, the authoritative starting point is, of course, Perez. The words of Justice Story are classic:
“. . . We think, that in all cases of this nature, the law has invested Courts of justice with the authority to discharge a jury from giving any verdict, whenever, in their opinion, taking all the circumstances into consideration, there is a manifest necessity for the act, or the ends of public justice would otherwise be defeated. They are to exercise a sound discretion on the subject; and it is impossible to define all the circumstances, which would render it proper to interfere. To be sure, the power ought to be used with the greatest caution, under urgent circumstances, and for very plain and obvious causes; and, in capital cases especially, courts should be extremely careful how they interfere with any of the chances of life, in favor of the prisoner. But, after all, they have the right to order the discharge; and the security which the public have for the faithful, sound, and conscientious exercise of this discretion, rests, in this, as in other cases, upon their responsibility of the judges, under their oaths of office . . . .” 22 U. S. (9 Wheat.) at 580.
Sitting in a lower federal court in United States v. *105Coolidge, (C. C. Mass.) 2 Gall 364, F. Cas. No. 14858, Justice Story further expounded that the discretion to discharge a jury before it has reached a verdict is to be exercised “only in very extraordinary and striking circumstances.”
The competing interpretations of Justice Harlan and Justice Stewart of the meaning of “manifest necessity” are written essentially on a clean slate, following Perez and its legitimate progeny, to be sure, but not constricted by Gori v. United States, 367 U. S. 364. In Jorn, Justice Harlan viewed Gori as a possible “variation on . . . [the] theme” of Perez. It could, indeed, be viewed as an aberration on the theme of Perez. At the trial of Gori in the Eastern District of New York for receiving goods stolen in interstate commerce, the trial judge precipitously aborted the trial. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit characterized the action as “overassiduous” and criticized it as premature. It, nevertheless, refused to consider it as a bar to a second prosecution. The Supreme Court did not attempt to pass judgment on the propriety of the declaration of mistrial but, inter alia, showed great deference to the decision of the Court of Appeals. It said, at 367:
“Certainly, on the skimpy record before us it would exceed the appropriate scope of review were we ourselves to attempt to pass an independent judgment upon the propriety of the mistrial, even should we be prone to do so — as we are not, with due regard for the guiding familiarity with district judges and with district court conditions possessed by the Courts of Appeals.” 1
*106Justice Frankfurter, writing for the five-man majority in Gori, did go on to hold, at 367:
“In this state of the record, we are not required to pass upon the broad contentions pressed, respectively, by counsel for petitioner and for the Government. The case is one in which, viewing it most favorably to petitioner, the mistrial order upon which his claim of jeopardy is based was found neither apparently justified nor clearly erroneous by the Court of Appeals in its review of a cold record. What that court did find and what is unquestionable is that the order was the product of the trial judge’s extreme solicitude — an overeager solicitude, it may be — in favor of the accused.”
He summarized that holding, at 369:
“Suffice that we are unwilling, where it clearly appears that a mistrial has been granted in the sole interest of the defendant, to hold that its necessary consequence is to bar all retrial.”
The law prior to Gori had been clear. If a trial judge, faced with “manifest necessity,” declared a mistrial, he had properly exercised his discretion; if a trial judge, absent “manifest necessity,” declared a mistrial, he had abused his discretion. Gori would seem to say: Even if a trial judge abuses his discretion by declaring a mistrial in the absence of “manifest necessity,” the defendant may not claim double jeopardy just so long as the trial judge thought he was acting for the benefit of the defendant. There was no discussion as to whether a defendant should have some election as to whether to be thus a beneficiary.
As a beacon light upon Jorn, however, Gori may well have been superseded two years later by Downum v. United States, 372 U. S. 734. In a narrow sense, Downum might be distinguished because it involved a mistrial that had been declared for the benefit of the prosecution. The *107broad discussion of principle, however, resonates with pre-Gon language. It refers to “manifest necessity” in terms of “an imperious necessity” and in terms of “very extraordinary and striking circumstances.” As an articulation of philosophical guidelines, its language is significant, at 736:
“At times the valued right of a defendant to have his trial completed by the particular tribunal summoned to sit in judgment on him may be subordinated to the public interest — when there is an imperious necessity to do so. Wade v. Hunter, supra (336 U. S. 690) .... Harassment of an accused by successive prosecutions or declaration of a mistrial so as to afford the prosecution a more favorable opportunity to convict are examples when jeopardy attaches. Gori v. United States, supra (367 U. S. 369). But those extreme cases do not mark the limits of the guarantee. The discretion to discharge the jury before it has reached a verdict is to be exercised ‘only in very extraordinary and striking circumstances,’ to use the words of Mr. Justice Story in United States v. Coolidge (C C Mass.) 2 Gall 364, F. Cas. No. 14858. For the prohibition of the Double Jeopardy Clause is ‘not against being twice punished; but against being twice put in jeopardy.’ United States v. Ball, 163 U. S. 662, 669, 41 L. Ed. 300, 302, 16 S. Ct. 1192.”
To the extent that the philosophical emphasis is different, realistically the main difference between Gori and Downum is that in the two-year interim, Justice Goldberg had replaced Justice Frankfurter on the Court and the four-man minority in Gori had become the five-man majority in Downum. The rhetoric of the two cases is, in my opinion, offsetting2 so that Justice Harlan and Jus*108tice Stewart in Jorn were essentially writing upon a clean slate.
Justice Harlan, at the very outset of his argument, establishes the fundamental and underlying purpose intended to be served by the constitutional, protection against double jeopardy. He recites that:
“. . . society’s awareness of the heavy personal strain which a criminal trial represents for the individual defendant is manifested in the willingness to limit the Government to a single criminal proceeding to vindicate its very vital interest in enforcement of criminal laws.” 400 U. S. at 479.
He reiterates the clear statement ringing down from Ex parte Lange, (U. S.) 18 Wall. 163, through Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, to Benton v. Maryland, 395 U. S. 784:
“ ‘The common law not only prohibited a second punishment for the same offence, but it went further and forbid a second trial for the same offence, whether the accused had suffered punishment or not, and whether in the former trial he had been acquitted or convicted.’
“The underlying idea, one that is deeply ingrained in at least the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence, is that the State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty.” Green, supra, 187-188.
It is clear that the harm guaranteed against is the very act of standing trial a second time. Being placed in jeopardy, ipso facto, is the prejudice. The prejudice con*109sists not in being placed in greater jeopardy but in being placed in the same jeopardy again. This statement of fundamental purpose is the star on which Justice Harlan fixes his gaze without deviation/ His opinion proceeds in rectilinear directness to the best effectuation of the fundamental purpose, permitting abridgement not when arguably necessary but only when manifestly necessary.
Justice Harlan forcefully argues his position, at 484-485:
“. . . where the judge, acting without the defendant’s consent, aborts the proceeding, the defendant has been deprived of his ‘valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal.’ See Wade v. Hunter, 336 U. S. at 689, 98 L. Ed. at 978.
“If that right to go to a particular tribunal is valued, it is because, independent of the threat of bad-faith conduct by judge or prosecutor, the defendant has a significant interest in the decision whether or not to take the case from the jury when circumstances occur which might be thought to warrant a declaration of mistrial. Thus, where circumstances develop not attributable to prosecutorial or judicial overreaching, a motion by the defendant for mistrial is ordinarily assumed to remove any barrier to re-prosecution, even if the defendant’s motion is necessitated by prosecutorial or judicial error. In the absence of such a motion, the Perez doctrine of manifest necessity stands as a command to trial judges not to foreclose the defendant’s option until a scrupulous exercise of judicial discretion leads to the conclusion that the ends of public justice would not be served by a continuation of the proceedings.”
He summarizes, at 486:
“. . . in the final analysis, the judge must al*110ways temper the decision whether or not to abort the trial by considering the importance to the defendant of being able, once and for all, to conclude his confrontation with society through the verdict of a tribunal he might believe to be favorably disposed to his fate.”
Conversely, I find the opinion of Justice Stewart permits its focus to wander from the fixed star of the fundamental purpose to be served. Its reasoning is circular. It begins with lip service to the fundamental protection against prejudice, discusses the exceptions to that protection, and ends by defining “abuse” in terms of “prejudice.” In the course of tracing the circle, however, “prejudice” shifts its meaning. “Prejudice,” in the first instance, contemplated the very act of standing trial or being placed in jeopardy; “prejudice,” in the second instance, contemplates being placed at a disadvantage or in a position of greater peril upon the retrial. Justice Stewart articulates his test, at 492:
“The real question is whether there has been an ‘abuse’ of the trial process resulting in prejudice to the accused, by way of harassment or the like, such as to outweigh society’s interest in the. punishment of crime. It is in this context, rather than simply in terms of good trial practice, that the trial judge’s ‘abuse of discretion’ must be assessed in deciding the question of double jeopardy.”
Implicit in the Stewart opinion, as well as explicit in Gori, is the proposition that if the mistrial was declared with the intention of benefiting the defendant, the defendant may claim no prejudice.
I agree with Justice Harlan’s criticism of that position expressed at 488:
“. . . we think that a limitation on the abuse-of-discretion principle based on an appellate court’s assessment of which side benefited from the mistrial ruling does not adequately satisfy *111the policies underpinning the double jeopardy provision. Reprosecution after a mistrial has unnecessarily been declared by the trial court obviously subjects the defendant to the same personal strain and insecurity regardless of the motivation underlying the trial judge’s action.”
In a nutshell, Justice Harlan would lift the bar against double jeopardy only for “manifest necessity.” Justice Stewart would lift the bar not only for “manifest necessity,” but even where there had been an abuse of discretion just so long as the abuse had been motivated by solicitude for the defendant. I subscribe to Justice Harlan’s position.
There is, in my judgment, fundamental and abiding value in trying to save the damaged trial as long as there is a real possibility of salvation — in not permitting the ship to be abandoned prematurely — in not aborting for light or transient cause. The captain faced with a possible judicial shipwreck, in performing his duty of exercising sound discretion, is commanded to exhibit not only good faith and generous motivation but also a resourceful perseverance and a steadfast resolve to salvage the salvageable. It is not enough to assuage an aggrieved defendant by assuring him that the trial judge thought he was doing him a favor. It is no undue encumbrance upon the trial court to explore at least with the defendant the question of whether the defendant wishes such a favor. “Manifest necessity” is a tightly circumscribed limitation upon the defense of double jeopardy. I cannot agree that unsolicited solicitude for a defendant is a limitation upon the limited operation of that limitation.
I proceed to apply Justice Harlan’s yardstick to the cases at bar.
In appeal number 540, I have no hesitation in holding that there was “manifest necessity” for the trial judge to abort the proceedings. The clear subornation of perjury, perpetrated before the judge’s eyes in open court, while the prosecutor was giving his opening statement, made such a decision virtually mandatory. Indeed, I feel *112that the rationale of the Gori case or of Justice Stewart in Jorn only makes unnecessarily complicated the clear resolution of this case. In my judgment, there was “manifest necessity” for the trial judge’s action here even if his clear intent had been to benefit the State or to benefit the witness, regardless of whether any benefit was intended for the defendant or not.
Nor do I have difficulty with the contention of the appellant Baker in appeal number 523. A fair reading of the entire exchange between court and counsel immediately preceding the declaration of the mistrial makes patent that the appellant Baker was, in effect, requesting a mistrial. That is dispositive against him of any claim of having later been placed twice in jeopardy.
It is clear, on the other hand, that the co-defendant Whitfield made no motion formally or informally for a mistrial and, indeed, opposed such a move. The trial court was admittedly faced with an awkward situation when two co-defendants pulled in separate directions. It did not, however, in my judgment, persevere sufficiently in exploring whether the juror in question had heard any argument at all or, even in that eventuality, had heard such argument as would be likely to prejudice him against the defendants. It did not explore with defense counsel the possibility of seating an alternate juror. The trial court indicated that it foreswore this possibility out of solicitude for the two black defendants, since the replacement would have worked to remove the only black juror on the panel. I believe that the appellant Whitfield should have been permitted the option of weighing whatever advantage he thought that black juror might have been to him versus the disadvantage of having his trial aborted and having to go through the entire procedure again. Nor do I feel that the trial court gave sufficient consideration to the possibility of severing the two defendants and proceeding with the trial of Whitfield, notwithstanding the mistrial as to Baker. In short, I feel that'the trial judge acted precipitously and thereby abused his discretion. Accordingly, I would reverse the order denying the motion to dismiss the indictments as to Whitfield.

. The great deference shown by all American courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, toward the decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the court through the late 1950’s of Learned Hand, Augustus Hand and J eróme Frank, and at that time still containing Henry Friendly and Edward Lumbard, is legendary. See Schick, Learned Hand’s Court (1970).

. For the irreconcilability of Gori and Downum, see Note, “Double Jeopardy: The Reprosecution Problem,” 77 Harv. L. Rev. 1272, 1277-1281 (1964).