Court Opinion

ID: 9458674
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:58:57.199738+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:51.434761
License: Public Domain

DUNIWAY, Circuit Judge
(concurring and dissenting).
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but solely on the ground that the concurrent sentence rule does not require that we reverse.
1. Value of the stolen travelers checks at the time that they were stolen.
I agree with the result reached by the majority, but the question is not as easily disposed of as the majority would make it appear. In each of the four cases cited by the majority, the charge was not stealing travelers checks or money orders, but receiving or possessing them. In United States v. Carter, 8 Cir., 1971, 448 F.2d 1245, the charge was unlawful possession of stolen money orders. The court relied upon the fact that the blank *926money orders had been filled in thereby giving them the necessary value. See 448 F.2d 1246-1247. In Churder v. United States, 8 Cir., 1968, 887 F.2d 825, the charge was concealing and retaining stolen United States Postal Money Orders. The court relied upon testimony that the money order forms, when not filled in, had a value on the “thieves’ market” sufficient to meet the statutory requirement. 387 F.2d at 832. In United States v. Kramer, 2 Cir., 1961, 289 F.2d 909, the charge was receiving, concealing and retaining post office money orders that were blank when stolen. The court relied on the fact that they had been filled in, thereby imparting to them a value sufficient to meet the statutory requirement. See 289 F.2d 920-921. In United States v. Evans, 8 Cir., 1971, 446 F.2d 998, the charge was unlawful possession of stolen blank money orders. The court relied upon testimony that blank money order forms had a value on the “thieves’ market” sufficient to meet the statutory requirement. 446 F.2d at 1000. Moreover, it also relied upon the fact that the money order had been filled in when the defendant received it so that it then had a value in excess of the statutory requirement. 446 F.2d 1001.
The question posed in this case, under count I of the indictment, is the value of blank travelers checks when they were taken from the bank. There is no testimony in this ease dealing expressly with the “thieves’ market” value as there was in two of the cases that the majority cites. There is, however, testimony of two bank officials, the substance of which is that such blank forms are in fact worth their face value because of the nature of travelers checks. Any person having possession of a blank check can negotiate it for its face value by filling in his name at the top and then, when he cashes the check, filling in his name again at the bottom. On this' basis, the bank officials testified that the blank papers were worth their face value. I think that this testimony is sufficient to support a finding that the value, when stolen, was in excess of $100, even though I may suspect that the price at which such blanks could be sold without their being filled in would probably be less than the face value.
2. The Heflirir-Milcmovich question.
The majority’s attempted distinction of Milanovich v. United States, 1961, 365 U.S. 551, 81 S.Ct. 728, 5 L.Ed.2d 773, will not hold water. A case does not decide only the exact factual question that it presents; it decides that question on the basis of a reason — a ratio decidendi — and it is authority in every other case in which that ratio decidendi is applicable. Nor does it make the slightest difference that Milanovich is a 5 to 4 decision. The inferior federal courts are just as much bound by such a decision as they are by a unanimous one. We do not sit to correct or limit what we may think to be erroneous decisions of the Supreme Court. Our duty is to follow them. The only court that can correct them is the Supreme Court itself. No decision of that court has overruled Milanovich. We should not undertake to do so under the disguise of distinguishing it. Nor should we try to accomplish the same result by purporting, contrary to its rationale, to confine it to its facts, when the Supreme Court has not done so.
The full effect of Milanovich cannot be understood without consideration of the principal case upon which it relied, Heflin v. United States, 1959, 358 U.S. 415, 79 S.Ct. 451, 3 L.Ed.2d 407. There, Heflin had been convicted of bank robbery (18 U.S.C. §. 2113(d)) and of receiving property stolen in the robbery (18 U.S.C. § 2113(c)), in addition to a conspiracy count. His sentences were: on the robbery conviction, ten years; on the receiving count, one year and one day; on the conspiracy count, three years. All sentences ran consecutively. On his motion to correct the sentences, the Court held that he could not be cumulatively sentenced for both taking and *927receiving the same property, basing its decision on the legislative history of the Act. What is crucial is the Court’s reasoning.
The Court could have relied upon the rationale of Prince v. United States, 1956, 352 U.S. 322, 77 S.Ct. 403, 1 L.Ed.2d 370. There, Prince had been convicted, under a two-count indictment for violating 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) by (1) robbing a fedei’ally-insured bank and (2) entering the bank with intent to commit a felony. He was sentenced to 20 years for the robbery and 15 years for the entering, the sentences to run consecutively. The Court held, as a matter of statutory construction based upon Congressional intent, that the crime of entering merged with the crime of robbery when the latter was consummated. A person could be convicted of one or the other, but not of both. Congress had added the entering crime to the bank robbery statute to close loopholes and to insure that one who stole money from a federally-insured bank could be prosecuted for some federal crime, even though he did not display any force or violence or put anyone in fear — “necessary elements of the crime of robbery.” 352 U.S. at 326, 77 S.Ct. at 405. The Court refused to interpret the statute as creating two completely independent offenses, of both of which a single robber could be convicted. “It is unnecessary to do so in order to vindicate the apparent purpose of the amendment.” 352 U.S. at 327, 77 S.Ct. at 406.
In Heflin, the Court could easily have held that taking and receiving were part of a single offense, as it had held, in substance, that entering and robbing were a single offense in Prince; but it did not so hold. Instead, in Heflin the Court held that taking and receiving were two completely separate and independent crimes which are committed by separate and discrete sets of persons. The taking and entering provisions, involved in Prince, were directed toward one class of persons — the thieves — and the question became simply which crime did that person commit. The taking and receiving crimes were directed toward two different classes of persons with no members in common — (1) the thieves, and (2) those who receive or possess the stolen loot but did not take it. One person could be a thief or a receiver but never both, not because the crimes take place at the same time and are inherently inconsistent, as the majority suggests. The Court specifically rejected that rationale in its holding: “It may be true that in logic those who divide up the loot following a robbery receive from robbers and thus multiply the offense.” 358 U.S. 415, 419, 79 S.Ct. 451, 454. Rather, the articulated basis for the holding was that Congress intended the amendment adding the crimes of receiving, possessing, concealing, storing, bartering, selling, or disposing of the stolen bank loot to apply to an entirely new class of wrongdoers, and not to the bank robbers. Thus there is no basis for distinguishing between receiving and possessing in this regard: both are part of the amendment which the Supreme Court held was not applicable to the robber. That receiving and possessing may be qualitatively different — in that possessing is a “continuing crime” — is completely irrelevant.
I note particularly three features of Heflin. First, it dealt with the very statute here involved — § 2113(c). Second, Heflin was not charged only with receiving. The charge was that he “did ‘receive, possess, conceal, store and dispose’ ” (358 U.S. at 416, 79 S.Ct. at 452 (emphasis added)). Third, on this question the decision was unanimous.
Milanovich, supra, merely reiterated the Heflin position and applied it to a direct appeal of convictions for stealing government property (10-year sentence) and receiving and concealing the same property (5-year sentence) in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641. The Court held that the convictions must be reversed, even though the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction on either count. Milanovich was entitled to a jury in*928struction that she could not be convicted of both taking and receiving. “[S]inee it is now impossible to say what verdict would have been returned by a jury so instructed, and thus impossible to know what sentence would have been imposed, a new trial is in order.” 365 U.S. 551 at 555, 81 S.Ct. 728 at 730.
That the majority is rejecting the rationale of Heflin and Milanovich is clear from, inter alia, its quotation of Justice Frankfurter to the effect that stealing and receiving are contemporaneous and coincidental and constitute one transaction in life and in law. Justice Frankfurter was speaking for the minority in Milanovich, not for the majority, whose theory he rejected. As a member of the Supreme Court, Justice Frankfurter was free to reject the majority’s rationale. As an inferior court, we are not.
The majority is not alone in its distaste for Milanovich or in its unwillingness to follow its rationale. It cites several Courts of Appeals decisions in support of its position. To these I now turn.
First, five cases are cited to indicate that there has been a great deal of discussion on the Milanovich problem. Four of the five did concern the Federal Bank Robbery Act. However, three of the five are constructions of Prince (dual convictions for robbery and entering with intent to rob) and did not involve the Milanovich problem at all. These are United States v. Corson, 3 Cir., 1971, 449 F.2d 544; United States v. White, 5 Cir., 1971, 440 F.2d 978; and McMillen v. United States, 1 Cir., 1967, 386 F.2d 29. One other involved the common law doctrine of merger as applied to various kinds of homicide. Fuller v. United States, 1968, 132 U.S. App.D.C. 264, 407 F.2d 1199, cert. denied 393 U.S. 1120, 89 S.Ct. 999, 22 L.Ed.2d 125. In the only case of the five which did involve Milanovich, Jenkins v. United States, 10 Cir., 1966, 361 F.2d 615, the court reversed for a new trial.
The majority next mentions three Supreme Court decisions, United States v. O’Brien, 1968, 391 U.S. 367, 380, 88 S. Ct. 1673, 20 L.Ed.2d 672; Gore v. United States, 1958, 357 U.S. 386, 78 S. Ct. 1280, 2 L.Ed.2d 1405, and Blockburger v. United States, 1932, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306, to support the proposition that Congress has the power to make separate elements of a single transaction distinct and independent crimes. That is undoubtedly true, but it is irrelevant to the question of whether or not Congress exercised that power — a question of statutory construction on which Milanovich is based, and our sole concern here.
Next comes a series of cases which purport to distinguish Milanovich on various grounds. However, they are all inapposite. The Milanovich rule was found to be inapplicable in all of them, and correctly so, but the reasons given for that inapplicability are often muddled or plain erroneous. The reason that Heflin and Milanovich are inapplicable in those cases is that in each a totally different statute was involved. Heflin and Milanovich involved 18 U.S.C. § 2113 and § 641, in which Congress amended the basic larceny provisions in order to reach a new class of wrongdoers. None of the cases cited by the majority involved either of those statutes. United States v. Ploof, 464 F.2d 116, 2 Cir., 1972, and the five cases cited in the excerpt quoted from that case by the majority interpret the Dyer Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2312 and 2313. Milanovich was held not to bar dual convictions for transporting a stolen vehicle in interstate commerce and for concealing such a vehicle. However, Congress never amended the Dyer Act to close any loopholes or to bring within the Act’s purview a new and distinct set of wrongdoers, as it did in the case of § 2113 and § 641. Both Dyer Act crimes were included in the original act of October 29, 1919, c. 89, § 4, 41 Stat. 325; and nothing in the legislative history of §§ 2312-2313 indicates, as it does in the *929case of § 2113 and § 641, that one person was not to be convicted and sentenced for committing both crimes. Judge Friendly recognized and articulated the real reason for the inapplicability of Milanovich in Ploof. After stating that the Milanovich rule was one of statutory construction, he said: “In the instant case, aside from the fact that the Dyer Act, quite a different statute, is involved . . . appellants here were convicted of only one substantive offense —receiving and concealing a stolen motor vehicle.” Fn. 6. The cases that he cites agree. The Fourth Circuit distinguished Milanovich in a Dyer Act case on the ground that “entirely different and unrelated statutes are being construed.” United States v. Lankford, 4 Cir., 1961, 296 F.2d 34. And Justice Stewart, who wrote the majority opinion in Milanovich, said the same thing as a circuit judge in distinguishing Prince: § 2113 and §§ 2312-2313 are completely different statutes. Woody v. United States, 1957, 6 Cir., 258 F.2d 535, 536, aff’d by equally divided court, 1959, 359 U.S. 118, 79 S.Ct. 721, 3 L.Ed.2d 673. Thus Ploof and the other Dyer Act cases provide no ground for distinguishing Milanovich in this § 2113 case.
The other set of cases which are said to provide a basis for distinguishing Heflin and Milanovich from this § 2113 case all involve § 659 — theft of goods from interstate commerce and possession thereof. Like the Dyer Act, and unlike the Federal Bank Robbery Act, § 659 has no legislative history to suggest that both crimes are not to be applied to one person where the same goods are involved. The theft and possession crimes were both part of the original act of February 13, 1913, c. 50, §§ 1, 2, 37 Stat. 670. Milanovich did not apply in the cases cited by the majority because a different statute with a different legislative history was being interpreted. Unlike Judge Friendly in Ploof, however, the judges who wrote the various opinions distinguishing Milanovich in the § 659 cases did not always articulate the correct reasons for the distinction. For example, Judge Powell in D’Argento v. United States, 9 Cir., 1965, 353 F.2d 327, stressed supposed inherent differences between the acts of receiving and possessing:
“There [Milanovich] the defendant was charged with larceny and with receiving the same property taken. The distinction between that case and this one is that the second offense here is the possession of the stolen goods. The two offenses of larceny and the receiving of the stolen property would occur at the same time and would tend to merge. Here possession of the stolen property would be a continuing offense. No cases have been called to our attention holding that possession and receiving in this context are entitled to the same treatment. We do not consider Milanovich supra to be applicable here.” 353 F.2d at 334-335.
But Heflin and Milanovich hold explicitly that the 1940 amendment to the Federal Bank Robbery Act and the 1875 amendment to § 641 which added both the receiving and possessing crimes, were intended to reach an entirely new and separate class of wrongdoers and could not therefore be applied to the thief himself. Whatever the differences in the inherent natures of the two crimes (if there are any) they are irrelevant to the Heflin-Milanovich rule, based as it is upon the Congressional intent with respect to the amendments involved.
In my view, the Heflin-Milanovich rule is clearly applicable here. This court has twice followed and applied Milanovich. United States v. O’Neil, 9 Cir. 1970, 436 F.2d 571; Keating v. United States, 9 Cir., 1969, 413 F.2d 1028. It is equally applicable here. Like the majority, I commend government counsel for calling it to the attention of the trial court and of this court.
*9303. The concurrent sentence doctrine.
I agree with the court that even though, in my opinion, the case clearly falls within the Heflin-Milanovich rule, we can and should affirm on the basis of the concurrent sentence doctrine. In Heflin, supra, there were consecutive sentences. In Milanovich, supra, there were concurrent sentences, but the sentence under the first paragraph of 18 U.S.C. § 641, was ten years, the sentence under the second paragraph of that section, dealing with receiving, concealing, or retaining, was five years. The concurrent sentence doctrine obviously did not apply in Heflin. The court required a new trial in Milanovich because the two sentences were not equal, and it was impossible to know on which count, if either, the jury might have convicted had it been properly instructed. Thus the court felt, quite properly, I think, that the concurrent sentence doctrine could not be applied because one could not tell whether on retrial Milanovich would be convicted of the more serious offense under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(b) or the less serious offense under section 2113(c). 365 U.S. 551 at 555, 81 S.Ct. 728, 5 L.Ed.2d 773. Our case is different. Here equal and concurrent sentences were imposed. This is the usual situation in cases where the concurrent sentence doctrine is applied and the doctrine necessarily assumes that, had the defendant been convicted on one count rather than two, the same sentence would have been imposed because the court, in fact, imposed the same sentence on each count and made the two concurrent with each other. Our decisions in O’Neil, supra, and Keating, supra, are not to the contrary. In each, as in Milanovich, a heavier sentence was imposed under the robbery count than under the § 2113(c) count or under the retaining and receiving count under § 641. On the other hand, in D’Argento, supra, as an alternative ground, we did apply the concurrent sentence rule where the sentences were apparently equal. This case, in my opinion, falls within the concurrent sentence rule and for that reason I concur in the affirmance of the judgment.