Court Opinion

ID: 9677209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:46:10.83832+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:18:54.102824
License: Public Domain

John Mauzy Pittman, Judge, concurring. I concur in the decision to affirm appellant’s convictions. However, I do not join that part of the majority opinion that applies McLennan v. State, 337 Ark. 83, 987 S.W.2d 668 (1999), and holds that appellant’s convictions and sentences for both Class Y terroristic act and second-degree battery do not violate the prohibition against double jeopardy. I do not think that it is necessary for us to reach the merits of that question. Appellant argues under section (C) of his first point that the trial court erred in submitting both alleged offenses to the jury, and in ultimately entering judgments of conviction and sentences for both, because the battery was a lesser-included offense of the ter-roristic act. Both the timing and content of appellant’s objections and motions at trial show that they were directed at forcing the State to elect between the two offenses before submission of the case to the jury and to prevent the jury from being instructed on both offenses.1 However, appellant was entitled to neither form of relief. It was only if and when the jury returned guilty verdicts on both offenses that the trial court would be required to determine whether convictions could be entered as to both. See Ark. Code Ann. § 5-1-110(a)(1) (Repl. 1997); Hill v. State, 314 Ark. 275, 281-82, 862 S.W.2d 836, 839-40 (1993) (trial court’s decision to deny motions, made both prior to and during trial, to dismiss one of two charges on double-jeopardy grounds “was eminently correct as the issue was presented”; State may charge and prosecute on multiple offenses in single prosecution without offending prohibition against double jeopardy); see also Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 493, 500 (1984) (even where Double Jeopardy Clause of federal constitution bars cumulative punishment for a group of offenses, “the Clause does not prohibit the State from prosecuting [the defendant] for such multiple offenses in a single prosecution”). Here, after the jury returned with guilty verdicts on both offenses, appellant said nothing. Nor did he thereafter move to set aside one of the convictions. Therefore, to the extent that appellant now argues that the jury should not have been instructed on both offenses, he is wrong. To the extent that he argues that the trial court should not have entered judgments of conviction and imposed sentences as to both offenses, it is my opinion that the issue is not preserved for appeal,2 and I express no opinion on the question.   Appellant’s first statement on the subject at trial came at the close of the State’s case-in-chief and began, “[W]e are at the point in this trial where the State must choose whether it’s going forth with battery . . . [or] terroristic act.” His last comments came at the close of Iris own case-in-chief, before the jury was instructed, and concluded, “ [I] t’s unfair to the defendant to - to have it submitted to the jury on both counts, when he could be convicted of both counts, when, in reality, it’s one set of facts and one act and one act only.”    It is important to note that the supreme court in Hill reversed Hill’s conviction on different grounds, not on the double-jeopardy argument. Indeed, had the supreme court found reversible error on double-jeopardy grounds, it would have reversed and dismissed the conviction and sentence for the less serious offense. See Akins v. State, 278 Ark. 180, 644 S.W.2d 273 (1983); Wilson v. State, 277 Ark. 219, 640 S.W.2d 440 (1982); compare State v. Montague, 341 Ark. 144, 14 S.W.3d 867 (2000) (conviction affirmed and double-jeopardy argument not addressed on appeal where no timely and appropriate objection was made in the trial court; court of appeals reversed). The discussion in Hill of the procedure to follow on remand regarding the double-jeopardy issue appears only because there was going to be a new trial on account of the other grounds, there was a possibility that multiple findings of guilt might again occur, and the supreme court was providing “guidance [to] the trial court upon retrial.” Hill, 314 Ark. at 279, 862 S.W.2d at 838. While the dissenting judges maintain that Hill does not support the position that appellant’s double-jeopardy argument is procedurally barred, they offer no explanation for how the trial judge’s decision to deny the motions could be “eminently correct,” as the supreme court found in the comparable case of Hill, and at the same time constitute reversible error, as the dissenting judges in this case would hold.