Court Opinion

ID: 9465355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:44:15.87895+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:08.495122
License: Public Domain

LOGAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in this case only because I am bound by the decisions in United States v. Thompson, 579 F.2d 1184 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 99 S.Ct. 257, 58 L.Ed.2d 243 (1978) and United States v. Fritz, 580 F.2d 370 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, -U.S.-, 99 S.Ct. 340, 58 L.Ed.2d 338 (1978). I still adhere to the views expressed in Chief Judge Seth’s dissent in the Thompson case in which I joined, and in my dissent in the Fritz case, on the Petite policy issue.
This case almost perfectly illustrates the dilemma of the state prosecution-federal prosecution double jeopardy decisions in Abbate v. United States, 359 U.S. 187, .79 S.Ct. 666, 3 L.Ed.2d 729 (1959) and Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121, 79 S.Ct. 676, 3 L.Ed.2d 684 (1959), and the reasons for the development of the Petite policy. The defendant here was charged in state court on six counts of trafficking in heroin. He ultimately pleaded guilty in all counts. A lawyer in the state prosecutor’s office, apparently involved in the case in state court, became an Assistant United States Attorney and brought before a Federal grand jury the same transactions, securing indictments for the same acts previously charged in state court. The sole witness at the federal trial was a member of the Albuquerque, New Mexico Police Department who was involved in the gathering of evidence in the state case. It is hard to imagine another situation where the law permits what appears on its face to be such an apparent injustice, making a defendant answer twice for the same acts. This is permitted simply because of the dual sovereignty concept in the American system, that both the state and federal governments are entitled to punish the acts under their own laws.
*486The case also demonstrates the other side of the dilemma. Here the state court imposed deferred sentences with three years’ probation on all the counts. Thus if double jeopardy had attached the federal sovereign would be forced to accept the state court’s punishment, which on its face appears to be unusually lenient for such a serious crime, as all that could be given for violation of an important federal law. Certainly the rationale which most sensibly supports the conclusion that there is not double jeopardy in the dual prosecution situation, is the interest of the federal government in making its own determination whether the punishment meted out by the state court, which happened to try the defendant first, satisfies the policy expressed by the federal legislation.
This case also illustrates why it is wrong not to apply the Petite policy here. It appears to be the state prosecutor’s frustration with the sentence given defendant by the state court which led him, in his new capacity as an Assistant United States Attorney, to seek the federal indictment. The purpose of the Petite policy is to have this decision made at a higher level, so that an individual who has been prosecuted in state court may not be punished again at the whim of a local prosecutor disappointed with the result of the state court proceeding, who as here, has power to initiate a federal prosecution. The interest of society itself that a defendant not have to stand trial twice for the same crime in the absence of compelling necessity dictates, it seems to me, that this decision be made at a level where it can be said there is some impartiality and distance from the emotions which are naturally generated by personal involvement in a case.
The instant situation shows precisely why the government should be required to follow the Petite policy, and why a defendant should be entitled to use its failure to do so in his own defense.