Court Opinion

ID: 9490089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:32:24.349914+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:53.403580
License: Public Domain

WELLFORD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The facts in this case, as set out in Judge Martin’s opinion, are not in dispute. In fact, in his brief Rashad specifically incorporated the defendant’s version of the “Statement of the Case.” The discovery of the very large quantity of cocaine and several bundles of heroin from the car, as well as a weapon and Rashad’s identification, occurred some two weeks after discovery of about five kilos of cocaine in Rashad’s basement storage area. There was a separate indictment and conviction on the contraband drugs found pursuant to a search warrant in the home.
At issue in this appeal was the subsequent indictment and conviction of Rashad on the drugs that were eventually found in a separate stash in a hidden compartment of Rash-ad’s car, which had actually been seized from his driveway during the search of the home.1 Finding that “the location of the drugs in the car does not indicate a separate crime from that indicated by the drugs in the house,” the majority concludes that the “second prosecution did violate double jeopardy principles.” I disagree and, therefore, dissent.
The significant factor to the majority was that both separate charges — possession for intent to distribute cocaine — were the same. Yet, there are other important factors in the double jeopardy equation that are equally significant, in my view. The drugs were located in different places; some was located in the basement of defendant’s home while the other was located a considerable distance away in defendant’s ear. The drugs were also located at different times — more than a two week interval occurred. Furthermore, two separate quantities of contraband were found by different police officers acting pursuant to separate search warrants at entirely different locations. There were even separate narcotics dogs involved in the two separate seizures. Also, a different informant alerted the police to the second cache of drugs. All of this indicates to this writer that the seizures and resulting charges were separate, distinct, and not inexorably interrelated.
More than that, I think it significant that the Michigan state courts also considered these same circumstances and factors and determined that there was no double jeopardy violation. The Michigan Court of Appeals found:
[T]he cocaine confiscated from the Lincoln, supports the independent goal of transporting or delivering that cocaine to an *683unknown destination. Furthermore, it was never established that the cocaine found in the Lincoln was part of the same cocaine found in the house. The facts indicate that the defendant’s possession of the cocaine in the home was simultaneous to his possession of the cocaine in the vehicle and not one unitary and continuous criminal episode. [People v.] Jackson, 153 Mich.App. [38] at 50, 394 N.W.2d 480 [(1986)]. Finally, the police did not get a search warrant for the Lincoln until an informant told police that the vehicle contained contraband.
People v. Rashad, No. 118136, 11877, 124060, at p. 4 (Mich.App. June 23, 1992). Accordingly, the Michigan court concluded that there was no “meaningful factual connection between the cocaine found in defendant’s home and that found several days later in the quarter panel of defendant’s vehicle,” and thus no double jeopardy violation. I find myself entirely in agreement with the Michigan courts that denied relief to Rashad.
It seems clear to me that there were separate offenses in this case, discovered at different times and at different places. I find no basis to conclude, as does the majority, that what was involved here was “prosecuto-rial expediency” or “strategic maneuvering.” Jordan v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 653 F.2d 870 (4th Cir.1980), relied upon by the majority is not even close on its facts to the instant case. Defendant Jordan committed the offenses in controversy “over a period of a few minutes” — one for obtaining a drug by forged prescription and one for possession of that drug. This was obviously “closely related conduct.” Id. at 871, 872. Evidence used to convict on the first offense “would totally have sufficed to sustain the later felony conviction.” Id. at 874. It was also, in Jordan, a “continuing offense.” Id. at 875. The case under consideration in this appeal is vastly different.
In re Nielsen, 131 U.S. 176, 9 S.Ct. 672, 33 L.Ed. 118 (1889), also mentioned by the majority, is similarly of no help to Rashad’s cause, in my view. Nielsen involved two charges occurring one day apart: (1) unlawful cohabitation with more than one woman, and (2) adultery with one of the women involved in the first charge. The Supreme Court, on those entirely different facts, found a double jeopardy violation. That ease simply cannot be a basis for finding a double jeopardy violation for separate caches of drugs, separate and divergent times and places of discovery, and by different police officers after an intervening informant’s intelligence.
Nor is Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977), really applicable to support the majority in this case. The two charges found to involve double jeopardy in Brown were stealing an automobile following conviction for the lesser-included offense of operating the same vehicle without the owner’s consent. The majority, in the instant case, finds “the Blockburger test” to be “insufficient” on these facts, yet Brown relied principally upon Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 302, 52 S.Ct. 180, 181, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), as controlling. In Brown, joyriding and auto theft were “the same offense” involving the same ear. I point to its language that “[a]n exception may exist where the State is unable to proceed on the more serious charge at the outset because the additional facts necessary to sustain that charge have not occurred or have not been discovered despite the exercise of due diligence.” Id. at 169, n. 7, 97 S.Ct. at 2227, n. 7 (emphasis added). In our case, the additional facts — the additional large quantity of drugs in the car — had not been discovered until two weeks later after the police found cocaine in the house.
In sum, I find the authority cited by the majority for its position to be easily distinguishable and the cases from other circuits cited by the majority2 to be supportive of this dissent. Accordingly, I would conclude that double jeopardy principles were not violated by the separate charges and convictions *684of defendant by state officials, and I would, therefore, deny the writ of habeas corpus.

. The police executing the search warrant for the home found a trace of cocaine only in the car following an alert by a narcotics dog. Some time later, an informant notified the police that there were narcotics in the automobile. A second search warrant authorized the subsequent successful car search.

. United States v. Johnson, 977 F.2d 1360, 1374 (10th Cir.1992), cert. denied sub nom. Behrens v. United States, 506 U.S. 1070, 113 S.Ct. 1024, 122 L.Ed.2d 170 (1993); United States v. Maldonado, 849 F.2d 522, 524 (11th Cir.1988); United States v. Blakeney, 753 F.2d 152, 154-55 (D.C.Cir.1985); United States v. Palacios, 835 F.2d 230, 233-34 (9th Cir.1987).