Court Opinion

ID: 9652390
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:23:15.345132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:50.970365
License: Public Domain

BISHOP, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully disagree with the majority on the third issue — whether possession with intent to distribute and *660distribution merge. The majority has concluded that they do merge. A careful reading and evaluation of Art. 27, § 286(a) causes me to reach the opposite conclusion.
There are four different crimes contained in § 286(a): manufacture, distribute, dispense or possess a “sufficient quantity to reasonably indicate ... an intent to ... distribute____” We are interested only in distribution and possession with intent to distribute. To distribute does not require any quantitative element, whereas, possession with intent to distribute requires a sufficient quantity to reasonably indicate the intent. To possess with intent does not require actual distribution, whereas, of course, distribution does require the actual distribution. I would chart this as follows:
Distribution
Possession with Intent
1. Any quantity — sufficient quantity not required.
1. Sufficient quantity to indicate intent.
2. Actual distribution required.
2. Actual distribution not required — possession is sufficient.
Distribution does not require proof of any quantity; possession does require proof of a specific quantity. Distribution requires proof of actual distribution; possession does not require actual distribution.
In Dillsworth v. State, 308 Md. 354, 357, 519 A.2d 1269 (1987) the Court reiterated:
“Required” evidence is not to be confused with “actual” evidence. Under an actual evidence approach, offenses would merge whenever the evidence actually adduced at trial is substantially the same for both offenses. We have explicitly rejected the actual evidence test as our general standard for determining merger. Brooks [v. State of Maryland], 284 Md. [416] at 420-21, 397 A.2d [596] at 598 [1979]. We there said that “the cases in this Court have consistently taken the position that the general test for determining merger of offenses, as well as for deciding whether two offenses should be deemed the *661same for double jeopardy purposes, is the required evidence test.” In Brooks we said that the required evidence test
“focuses upon the elements of the two crimes rather than upon the actual evidence adduced at trial. The ‘required evidence’ refers to that evidence needed, as a matter of law, to prove the crimes. This was explained in Thomas v. State, 277 Md. 257, 267, 353 A.2d 240 (1976):
‘The required evidence is that which is minimally necessary to secure a conviction for each statutory offense. If each offense requires proof of fact which the other does not, or in other words, if each offense contains an element which the other does not, the offenses are not the same for double jeopardy purposes even though arising from the same conduct or episode.’ ”
284 Md. at 420, 397 A.2d at 598 (emphasis in original; citations omitted).
When I focus “upon the elements of the two crimes,” supra, I conclude that “each offense does require proof of a fact which the other does not” and that “each offense contains an element which the other does not” and, therefore, “the offenses are not the same for double jeopardy purposes even though arising from the same conduct or episode.” Id. at 357, 519 A.2d 1269.
Based on the above I do not agree with the holding of the majority in Part III. I would hold that there was no merger.