Court Opinion

ID: 9683554
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:31:15.671302+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:48.738814
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
This cause represents one of the few cases to reach the Court since the demise of the carving doctrine in Ex Parte McWilliams, 634 S.W.2d 815 (Tex.Cr.App.1982) (Opinion on State’s motion for rehearing), that calls upon us to decide the number of allowable units of prosecution that may be derived from a single transaction in which more than one victim is involved. The Court today repeats mistakes it made in its first treatment of this issue in Ex Parte Rathmell, 717 S.W.2d 33 (Tex.Cr.App.1986). I therefore dissent.
I.
The carving doctrine was a substantive jeopardy principle "which allowfed] the prosecutor to carve as large an offense out of a single transaction as he can, yet he must cut only once.” Simco v. The State, 9 Tex.App. 338, at 349 (1880). Under the carving doctrine the outcome of this case would be clear, for the doctrine originated and evolved in factual settings analytically indistinguishable from the one at bar. See, e.g., Wilson v. The State, 45 Tex. 76 (1876); Quitzow v. The State, 1 Tex.App. 47 (1876); Addison v. The State, 3 Tex.App. 40 (1877); Hudson v. The State, 9 Tex.App. 151 (1880); Simco v. The State, supra; Wright v. The State, 17 Tex.App. 152 (1884); Wright v. State, 37 Tex.Cr.R. 627, 40 S.W. 491 (1897); Davidson v. State, 40 Tex.Cr.R. 285, 49 S.W. 372 (1899); Ratcliff v. State, 118 Tex.Cr.R. 616, 38 S.W.2d 326 (1931). As long as the carving doctrine was in vogue, it was this Court that decided the question of allowable units of prosecution for theft, as a matter of substantive jeopardy law, according to when one “transaction” was completed and another had begun.1
The carving doctrine was abandoned in 1982 in Ex Parte McWilliams, supra. Since that time we have continued to insist, of course, that constitutional double jeopardy protections prohibit multiple prosecutions for the “same” offense. However, under post-McWilliams jeopardy analysis, the question of what constitutes the “same” offense, and of what are “allowable units of prosecution,” is no longer purely a substantive jeopardy question, as it was under the carving doctrine. As the majority discerns, the question today is largely one of statutory construction. *130Spradling v. State, 773 S.W.2d 553 (Tex.Cr.App.1989). Whether conduct constitutes one or more violations of a statute under current jeopardy analysis depends upon how the Legislature has defined the offense. See Sanabria v. United States, 437 U.S. 54, at 69-70, 98 S.Ct. 2170, at 2181-82, 57 L.Ed.2d 43, at 57 (1978). Therefore, whether a single act or course of conduct that adversely affects more than one individual justifies more than one prosecution — whether it is more than one offense — is a question to be addressed in the first instance by the Legislature. This Court’s role now is to discern what the Legislature has provided with respect to allowable units of prosecution, if in fact it has provided anything at all.
Here, as was true in Rathmell and Spra-dling, the tests announced in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), and Grady v. Corbin, 495 U.S. 508, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 109 L.Ed.2d 548 (1990), are inapposite. Those tests determine when jeopardy will and will not permit multiple prosecutions where two distinct statutes are violated by the same conduct. Here, as in Ex Parte Rathmell, supra, the issue is whether double jeopardy is violated when an accused is prosecuted more than once under the same statutory provision. The root question is whether the Legislature intended as many prosecutions as there are “victims” — or, as the majority holds today, as many prosecutions as there are “owners.” I believed in Rath-mell with respect to the involuntary manslaughter statute, as I believe today with respect to the theft statute, that the majority has contrived a legislative intent where none may justifiably be found.
II.
To begin with, as a purely historical matter it is anomalous to attribute any intention on the part of the Legislature even to have addressed the question of multiple units of prosecution from a single theft transaction in 1974, when the new Penal Code was promulgated. At that time carving was still extant. To hold that the Legislature meant to authorize multiple theft prosecutions from a single transaction is to presume it intended what this Court had unequivocally declared unconstitutional as violative of state and federal jeopardy provisions. Under former Article 5429b-2, § 3.01, V.A.C.S., now V.T.C.A. Government Code, § 311.021, “[i]n enacting a statute, it is presumed that ... compliance with the constitutions of this state and the United States is intended[.]” That this Court subsequently changed its approach to substantive jeopardy analysis in McWilliams does not alter the fact that at the time the. new Penal Code was “enacted,” the Legislature, aware of this Court’s carving caselaw, would not have considered itself at liberty to allow more than one conviction from a single theft transaction. Under the circumstances we would do well not to attribute any legislative intent at all vis-a-vis allowable units of prosecution.
Nevertheless, the majority today finds indicia of legislative intent in the definition of “owner” found in Y.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 1.07(a)(24). Its approach is reminiscent of that in Ex Parte Rathmell, supra, in which the Court found some significance in the phrase “an individual” in the involuntary manslaughter statute. I cannot subscribe to this kind of invention.
In Ex Parte Rathmell, supra, the applicant, driving while intoxicated, struck another car, causing two deaths. A bare majority of the Court observed that “the Legislature has determined and intends that the offense of involuntary manslaughter (as defined in [V.T.C.A. Penal Code,] Section 19.05(a)(2) [ ...]) is completed with the death of a single individual.” 717 S.W.2d at 35. Because the involuntary manslaughter statute makes it an offense to, inter alia, cause the death of “an individual,” the majority concluded, the Legislature must have intended an allowable unit of prosecution for each “individual” whose death was caused, irrespective of the severability of the conduct which caused the deaths. The majority bolstered its conclusion by citing a host of decisions from other jurisdictions — as if foreign jurisdictions had some authority or aptitude to construe the intent of the Texas Legislature!
*131Today the majority holds, similarly, that the prosecutor can prosecute as many discrete offenses as he can identify “owners” of property taken, under § 1.07(a)(24), supra. Indeed, it is a logical extension of the majority’s holding today, and a more perfect analog to Bathmell, to say that a prosecutor could prosecute as many “thefts” for the appropriation of any given property as he can identify “owners” of that property under the broad definition of § 1.07(a)(24), supra. Presumably, then, the State in this cause could have prosecuted yet a third indictment, consistent with the majority opinion, alleging theft of a fur coat and stereo of which Robert LaVaye was an “owner,” since he had actual possession. Surely the Legislature never contemplated such a scenario.
A simplistic response to the majority’s holding — as simplistic as the approach taken in Bathmell itself — would be to point out that, unlike the involuntary manslaughter statute, which makes it a crime to cause the death of “an individual,” the theft statute, V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 31.03, makes it an offense to appropriate property without the effective consent of “the owner” and with intent to deprive “the owner” of the property.2 It is arguable that use of the definite article implies the Legislature intended that the State be allowed to prove only one “owner” for each theft perpetrated, and that the number of allowable units of prosecution is not a function of the number of owners of property that can be identified under § 1.07(a)(24). But this is to do battle with Bathmell on its own preposterous terms. I do not believe that legislative use of such language tells us anything useful, one way or the other, about the legislative intent regarding allowable units of prosecution. Pursuant to V.T.C.A. Government Code, § 311.012(b), in construing the Penal Code we are to understand that “[t]he singular includes the plural and the plural includes the singular.” I take this to mean simply that we are to place no particular significance on the fact that in drafting a code provision the Legislature chose to use either the singular or the plural form of a word. For example, in the context of the involuntary manslaughter statute the fact that a drunk driver causes two deaths does not absolve him of criminal liability because the statute proscribes causing the death of “an individual.” Conversely, had the statute proscribed causing the death of “individuals” by drunk driving, it would not be a defense to prosecution that an accused killed only one. Use of the singular rather than the plural form, or of the definite rather than an indefinite article, simply has no bearing on the question of how many units of prosecution the Legislature meant to allow.3 Bathmell erred to presume it did.
I perceive no intent on the part of the Legislature that allowable units of prosecution for theft should depend upon the number of “owners” that can be identified under § 1.07(a)(24), supra. It is clear that the 1974 Penal Code defines theft more broadly than had prior penal codes, wherein theft had been “directed primarily toward interference with rights to possession[.]” Practice Commentary, 3 V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 31.03, at 17 (1989). Article 1410, V.A.P.C. (1925), and its predecessors, defined theft as, inter alia, “the fraudulent taking of corporeal personal property belonging to another from his possession, or from the possession of some person holding it for him[.]” Had the facts before us been prosecuted under former Article 1410, supra, the State could have alleged that the fur coat and stereo system belonged “to another,” viz: Valerie LaVaye, and that it was taken “from the possession” of Robert LaVaye, who was “holding the same for [her.]” As to the pistol and typewriter, the State could have alleged they belonged “to another,” viz: Robert LaVaye, and were *132taken “from his possession[.]” Alternatively, the State could have alleged that Robert LaVaye was possessor and “owner” of all the property, pursuant to Article 21.08, V.A.C.C.P., and its predecessors, which have provided at least since 1879 that “ownership ... may be alleged to be in either” the title owner or one in possession of the property.4 See Bailey v. The State, 18 Tex.App. 426 (1885). In any event, although the State could have alleged and proved the taking of all the property as a single offense, Ratcliff v. State, supra, it could not have “carved” out more than one without violating substantive jeopardy law in effect under the 1925 penal code.
Currently § 1.07(a)(24), supra, provides that “owner means a person who has title to the property, possession of the property, whether lawful or not, or a greater right to possession of the property than the actor.” The effect of this more expansive definition is “that the new theft offense protects a deprivation of another’s title in the property whether or not the owner possesses the property.” Practice Commentary, supra. Thus, it is no longer incumbent upon the State in every case to plead and prove deprivation of a possessory interest in property to establish theft. As applied to the facts of this case, it appears the State could allege Valerie as “owner” of the fur coat and stereo system, those items of property to which she is title owner. Alternatively, the State could allege Robert as “owner” of all the property, since he was title owner of some, and, at any rate, had apparent possession — “actual care, custody, control, or management[,]” V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 1.07(a)(28) — of all of the property.5 That the Legislature has apparently provided a choice of “owners” to the State under some fact scenarios,6 however, is no indication of an intent to allow successive prosecutions under every available choice.7 Considering that the Legislature would not have perceived itself to be at liberty to allow such a thing, under carving, it is strange to find it intended to. In my view the definition of “owner” is not dispositive of the question of allowable units of prosecution.8
*133III.
What we are left with is a statute that is, at best, ambiguous as to whether the State may make the circumstance of multiple “owners” a basis for multiple prosecution. The Legislature simply has not said with any degree of clarity that the number of prosecutable thefts is a function of the number of “owners” stolen from. Nevertheless we cannot avoid answering the substantive jeopardy question. In the absence of legislative guidance, we can only devise, as a matter of decisional law, a default position. We do know that the Legislature intends nothing to be an offense that has not been defined as such. V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 1.03(a). In view of this precept it seems to me that the appropriate default position must be that where the Legislature has failed to indicate that a single transaction involving several “victims”/“owners” be considered multiple offenses, the presumption must be it intended only one.
Of persuasive authority is the opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81, 75 S.Ct. 620, 99 L.Ed. 905 (1955). There the accused was charged with separate violations of the Mann Act, which proscribes transportation in interstate commerce of “any woman or girl” for immoral purposes. It was conceded that Bell “transported the two women on the same trip in the same vehicle.” 349 U.S. at 82, 75 S.Ct. at 621, 99 L.Ed. at 909-910. The federal circuits were split on the question of how many units of prosecution Congress intended on these facts. The Government contended that the statutory language provides for multiple prosecutions; Bell argued it does not. The Supreme Court, through Justice Frankfurter, resolved the conflict thus:
“It is not to be denied that argumentative skill, as shown at the Bar, could persuasively and not unreasonably reach either of the conflicting constructions. About only one aspect of the problem can one be dogmatic. When Congress has the will it has no difficulty in expressing it — when it has the will, that is, of defining what it desires to make the unit of prosecution and, more particularly, to make each stick in a faggot a single criminal unit. When Congress leaves to the Judiciary the task of imputing to Congress an undeclared will, the ambiguity should be resolved in favor of lenity. * * * [I]f Congress does not fix the punishment for a federal offense clearly and without ambiguity, doubt will be resolved against turning a single transaction into multiple offenses, when we have no more to go on than the present case furnishes.”
349 U.S. at 83, 75 S.Ct. at 622, 99 L.Ed. at 910-11.9 See also United States v. Universal C.I.T. Credit Corp., 344 U.S. 218, at 221-22, 73 S.Ct. 227, at 229, 97 L.Ed. 260, at 264 (1952) (“[W]hen choice has to be made between two readings of what conduct Congress has made a crime, it is appropriate, before we choose the harsher alternative, to require that Congress should have spoken in language that is clear and definite.”).
A like rule of statutory construction has long been recognized in Texas. Similar to current § 1.03(a), supra, provisions in for*134mer penal codes have provided that “no person shall be punished for an offense which is not made penal by the plain import of the words of the law.” E.g., Article 7, V.A.P.C. (1925). In this context, quoting from United States v. Clayton, 2 Dill. 219, 25 P.Cas. 458, the Court of Appeals in 1886 remarked:
“the doctrine is fundamental in English and American law that there can be no constructive offenses; that, before a man can be punished, his case must be plainly and unmistakably within the statute, and, if there be any fair doubt whether the statute embraces it, that doubt is to be resolved in favor of the accused.”
Murray v. State, 21 Tex.App. 620, at 633, 2 S.W. 757, at 761 (1886).10 When constitutional protections against double jeopardy are also implicated, this Court should be even more diligent to prevent multiple prosecutions where there is doubt that “the statute embraces it.” For in that context, more than just the will of the Legislature is at issue.
Because we cannot say with any assurance that the Legislature intended as many prosecutable theft offenses as there are identifiable “owners” under § 1.07(a)(24), supra, we must presume it did not intend ownership to be a measure of allowable units of prosecution.11 The majority errs to conclude otherwise. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

. See, e.g., Hudson v. The State, supra, at 156-57, wherein the Court of Appeals took pains to clarify the parameters of the carving doctrine in a multiple theft context, viz;
“But we must not be understood as holding that different articles taken from different persons and from different places, as from different rooms of a house occupied by different persons, would necessarily be one transaction; but, on the contrary, that property thus situated would, on proper averments and proof, support different prosecutions. For example, if a thief should enter the room of one lodger at a hotel, and should there perpetrate a theft, and should then pass to the room of another lodger and there commit another theft, these would be different thefts, and each might be prosecuted separately, and a conviction or an acquittal for the one would be no bar to the prosecution for the other."

. All emphasis supplied unless otherwise indicated.

. Indeed, by its own methodology Rathmell can be proven wrong. Under V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 6.01, "a person commits an offense only if he voluntarily engages in conduct, including an act _” If we are to attribute significance to use of the singular form, then by this provision the Legislature has clearly indicated that there can be only one offense for every voluntary act, regardless of the multiplicity of results, e.g., the number of deaths caused thereby.

. Indeed, that the Legislature has long provided, and still provides, that "ownership” may be alleged "in either” a title owner or one in possession, Article 21.08, supra, is some indication it does not intend the fact of multiple ownership to be a measure of allowable units of prosecution.

. It is at least arguable under the new Penal Code that the theory of ownership the Legislature contemplated would be applicable in a given theft prosecution depends upon the theory of “appropriation” alleged. See V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 31.01(5). Thus, where appropriation is effectuated by transfer of title, the title owner should be alleged. Where appropriation is effectuated by acquiring or otherwise exercising control, the person in possession (or with a greater right to possession than the actor, where both have some possessory interest, see Compton v. State, 607 S.W.2d 246 (Tex.Cr.App.1980) (Opinion on State’s motion for rehearing) (Clinton, L, concurring in part and dissenting in part)), should be alleged as owner, whether he is the title owner or another. The theory of prosecution in this cause, as alleged in the indictment, is that appellant appropriated the property by acquiring it or otherwise exercising control over it, rather than by bringing about a transfer or purported transfer of title to or other nonpossessory interest in it. By this understanding of "ownership,” it would be clear the Legislature intended that Robert LaVaye be alleged as owner of all the property in this cause.

* But see n. 5, ante.

. Actually, this "choice” has always been available to the State. See Bailey v. The State, supra, at 433. The only difference is that specific dispossession of property need not be shown if the State alleges a title owner under § 1.07(a)(24), supra.

. The majority belatedly insists it has not authorized successive prosecution under every identifiable owner; that instead, its “opinion merely permits the State to successively prosecute a defendant for the discrete number of items stolen, asserting the requisite ownership in those items as permitted by law." Majority Opinion at 128, n. 7. This assumes that the number of discrete items stolen defines allowable units of prosecution. But there is no more indication that the Legislature meant for the number of items stolen to determine allowable units of prosecution than that it meant for the number of “owners" to do so. Certainly the word “property’ in § 31.03(a), supra, can provide no indication of legislative intent as to allowable units of prosecution. For even under a Rathmell analysis, "property” is at best ambiguous, inasmuch as it may refer to one discrete item of personalty, or many. The definition in § 31.-01(6), supra, does not resolve the ambiguity.

. In Spradling v. State, supra, the defendant invoked Bell v. United States, supra, as the operative test for determining whether his failure to stop and render aid to two individuals whom he had struck at the same time with his car constituted one offense or two. This Court rejected this argument because Bell and other cases applying the principle of lenity "were not based upon the jeopardy clause of the United States Constitution^]” 773 S.W.2d at 555. Ironically, the Court proceeded next to recognize that the jeopardy question before it is to be resolved according to legislative intent; that whether conduct violates a statute once or more than once is a question of how the Legislature has defined the offense, citing Sanabria v. United States, supra. On authority of Rathmell the Court found the intent of the Legislature clear. The statute creates a duty to "render to any person injured in such accident reasonable assistance." (Emphasis in Spradling). To the majority this signified as many allowable units of prosecution as persons injured. Of course, that signification is far from clear. Spradling v. State, supra (Clinton, J., dissenting). It is even less clear that the theft statute manifests a legislative intent that ownership should define allowable units of prosecution, as the majority confidently, but without explanation, assures us it does. Majority Opinion at 127, n. 5. It seems to me that demonstrably it does not. See Part II., ante. Therefore, Bell is hardly "inapposite.”

. Emphasis in the original.

. Because it is just as uncertain that the Legislature intended as many prosecutable thefts as discrete items of "property” stolen, see n. 8, ante, we must likewise presume it did not intend discrete items of property to be a measure of allowable units of prosecution.