Court Opinion

ID: 9474774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:08:25.052367+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:19.583061
License: Public Domain

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent because, unlike my brothers, I would not extend the opinion in Garrett v. United States1 and because I understand the double jeopardy clause to afford greater protection against successive prosecutions than they allow it. Successive prosecutions raise double jeopardy concerns that multiple punishments imposed at a single trial do not.2 When conviction of a greater crime cannot be had without proving every element of a lesser crime, the double jeopardy clause bars a separate prosecution of the lesser crime after conviction of the greater one.3
In Garrett, the defendant had in March, 1981 pleaded guilty to, and been convicted of, importing marijuana. He was later indicted for participating in a continuing criminal enterprise (CCE) in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 848 which requires, inter alia, proof of a series of three or more drug-related offenses. The marijuana offense to which Garrett pleaded guilty was included in the CCE indictment as one of the necessary predicate offenses. The criminal enterprise, however, was alleged to have continued from January 16, 1976, to July 16, 1981, encompassing predicate offenses that occurred after the guilty plea.
After discussing the double jeopardy question at length, the Garrett plurality states, as my brothers note, that it has “serious doubts as to whether the offense to which Garrett pleaded guilty in Washington was a ‘lesser included offense’ within the CCE charge so that the prosecution of the former would bar a prosecution of *362the latter.”4 The Court did not, however, decide that question, for it continued:
But we may assume, for purposes of decision here, that the Washington offense was a lesser included offense, because in our view Garrett’s claim of double jeopardy would still not be sustainable.5
The plurality then rested its holding on an entirely different ground, the reasoning of the 1912 opinion, Diaz v. United States.6 In that case, the Court had rejected the double jeopardy claim of a defendant convicted of assault, then tried a second time for murder when the victim died after the first trial had concluded. Because the murder charge could not have been brought at the time of the assault trial, the opinion concluded, the defendant had not been twice in jeopardy. The Garrett plurality followed the same course:
In the present case, as in Diaz, the continuing criminal enterprise charged against Garrett in Florida had not been completed at the time that he was indicted in Washington.
# # * # * *
We think this evidence not only permits but requires the conclusion that the CCE ... was under Diaz a different offense from that charged in the Washington indictment.7
The Garrett plurality opinion, therefore, concluded that the CCE prosecution of Garrett “does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause under the facts of this case____”8 Neither the words nor the logic of the opinion imply that a predicate offense would not be considered a lesser included offense within a CCE charge once the CCE had been completed.
Justice O’Connor’s concurrence rested on a similar analysis:
Where the defendant continues unlawful conduct after the time the Government prosecutes him for a predicate offense, I do not think he can later contend that the Government is foreclosed from using that offense in another prosecution to prove the continuing violation of § 848.
# * # * # *
Moreover, I note that we do not decide in this case whether a defendant would have a valid double jeopardy claim if the Government failed in a later prosecution to allege and present evidence of a continuing violation of § 848 after an earlier conviction for a predicate offense. Certainly the defendant’s interest in finality would be more compelling where there is no indication of continuing wrongdoing after the first prosecution.9
My brothers correctly note that the plurality stopped short of the result they now reach. Taking the carefully chosen words of Justice O'Connor’s concurrence into account, even though she ultimately joined in the plurality opinion, I think their willingness to further limit the double jeopardy clause is unwarranted. The continuing criminal enterprise with which Guthrie was charged had ended before his acquittal. The Morgan City smuggling charge that Guthrie now protests was relied upon as a predicate offense to prove the CCE charge: It was the centerpiece of the government’s case, involving eight witnesses and hundreds of pages of testimony, all of which must now be repeated in an attempt to prove a second time that Guthrie committed the same criminal act.
The government denies prosecutorial misconduct, asserting that it could not have charged the Morgan City offense in the CCE indictment because venue for that offense was improper in Florida where the *363CCE and conspiracy charges were brought. This rationalization does not withstand analysis. First, venue is not a jurisdictional limitation but a privilege that may be waived by the defendant.10 The government was free to include the Morgan City offense in the Florida indictment, leaving to Guthrie the choice of objecting to the improper venue or of waiving the venue question and defending himself from all charges in a single proceeding. More important, venue for the offenses tried in Florida was also proper in Louisiana, where the Morgan City episode took place, because that episode was included as a predicate offense in both the conspiracy and the CCE charges.11 Thus, all charges could have been brought in Louisiana at a single trial, and respect for proper venue did not necessitate successive prosecutions.
The concern expressed by the Garrett plurality, that in some circumstances a criminal might insulate himself from CCE charges by pleading guilty in advance to a single minor predicate offense, has no basis when the CCE prosecution is brought first. The government then has full control. If, with full knowledge of the facts, it chooses — as it did with Guthrie — to prosecute first for the CCE and not then to include separate charges for each of the predicate offenses, the government should be held to its choice. Otherwise the government might prosecute a defendant for CCE and then, if he were acquitted, as Guthrie was, or if the government were dissatisfied with his sentence, it might prosecute him not only for one but for each of the predicate offenses seriatim. More than collateral estoppel bars this kind of governmental manipulation. This is precisely the kind of peril the double jeopardy clause was designed to prevent. The Constitution does not permit prosecutors so much rope for repeated attempts to string up the accused. Guthrie should not be forced to defend himself a second time against a crime that was relied upon as a necessary element of proof in an earlier trial at which the prosecution was unsuccessful.

. — U.S. —, 105 S.Ct. 2407, 85 L.Ed.2d 764 (1985).

. See Jordan v. Virginia, 653 F.2d 870, 873 (4th Cir. 1980).

. See Id.; Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682, 682-683, 97 S.Ct. 2912, 2913, 53 L.Ed.2d 1054 (1977).

. Id., — U.S. at —, 105 S.Ct. at 2418, 85 L.Ed.2d at 779.

. Id.

. 223 U.S. 442, 32 S.Ct. 250, 56 L.Ed. 500 (1912).

. — U.S. at —, 105 S.Ct. at 2418, 85 L.Ed.2d at 779.

. Id., — U.S. at —, 105 S.Ct. at 2419, 85 L.Ed.2d at 780.

. Id., — U.S. at —, 105 S.Ct. at 2420, 2422, 85 L.Ed.2d at 784 (O'Connor J., concurring).

. United States v. Marcello, 423 F.2d 993, 1001-06 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 398 U.S. 959, 90 S.Ct. 2172, 26 L.Ed.2d 543 (1970); 2 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure: Criminal § 306 (2d ed.1982).

. See United States v. Fry, 413 F.Supp. 1269, 1273 (E.D.Mich.1976), aff’d mem., 559 F.2d 1221 (6th Cir. 1977); 2 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure: Criminal § 303 at 205 (2d ed.1982); United States v. Diaz, 685 F.2d 252, 255 (8th Cir.1982); Downing v. United States, 348 F.2d 594, 598 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 901, 86 S.Ct. 235, 15 L.Ed.2d 155 (1965).