Court Opinion

ID: 9474439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:57:18.2139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:05.169349
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur fully in part I of the majority’s opinion. I join in part II of the majority opinion insofar as it remands to the trial court to give it the first opportunity to consider that issue. I do so reluctantly because I believe the matter is clear enough on the record before us to establish as a matter of law that the second indictment charging the defendant with violation of the Sherman Act in connection with a conspiracy to rig bids on another Kansas highway construction project violates the double jeopardy clause. I base this conclusion upon my agreement with this court’s panel opinion in the instant case, authored by Judge Bohanon. United States v. Broce, 753 F.2d 811 (10th Cir.1985). In that opinion, this court stated:
Facts therefore now appearing in this record lead to the conclusion that the defendants have been twice punished for their participation in a single continuing conspiracy. Because their double jeopardy rights have been so violated, the judgment and sentence entered under the second indictment below were illegal and the defendants’ Rule 35(a) motion must be granted.
Accordingly, the judgment and sentence entered by the district court on March 15, 1982 in case No. 83-2558 is hereby vacated.
Id. at 823.
My views are based, as were Judge Bo-hanon’s, on the similarity between the two indictments with which the defendants were charged, along with the lack of specificity of those indictments. As Judge Bo-hanon aptly stated:
The indictments state approximate beginning dates for the conspiracies but give no conclusion dates, stating merely that they were “continuing.” Nothing in the first indictment would preclude a finding that the conspiracy alleged therein was “continuing” throughout the period encompassed by the second indictment. The indictments do not even specify with definiteness who was involved in the alleged conspiracies. Nothing would preclude a finding that all of the people participating in the first alleged conspiracy were also participants in the second. And finally, as noted previously, there is nothing in the first indictment to indicate that the agreement and conspiracy described therein with regard -to Project No. 23-60-RS-1080(9) did not also encompass other projects and and [sic] other bid-letting dates. Indeed, nothing in either indictment is definitely inconsistent with the view that the conspiracies they allege are in fact identical, and, further, are identical with the ongoing conspiracy to rig bids, extending over a period exceeding a quarter century....
Id. at 820.
The rationale behind my view that this court should vacate the judgment and sentence entered in Case No. 83-2558 can be *799found in Short v. United States, 91 F.2d 614 (4th Cir.1937):
Blanket charges of “continuing” conspiracy with named defendants and with “other persons to the grand jurors unknown” fulfill a useful purpose in the prosecution of a crime, but they must not be used in such a way as to contravene constitutional guarantees. If the government sees fit to send an indictment in this general form charging a continuing conspiracy for a period of time, it must do so with the understanding that upon conviction or acquittal further prosecution of that conspiracy during the period charged is barred, and that this result cannot be avoided by charging the conspiracy to have been formed in another district where overt acts in furtherance of it were committed, or by charging different overt acts as having been committed in furtherance of it, or by charging additional objects or the violation of additional statutes as within its purview, if in fact the second indictment involves substantially the same conspiracy as the first. And, if two indictments charging continuing conspiracy and covering the same period in whole or in part are drawn with blanket coverage “with other persons to the grand jurors unknown,” a plea of former jeopardy should be submitted to the jury if there is proof that the same partnership in criminal purposes is prosecuted by both, even though the appearance of identity of offenses may have been avoided in the indictment by charging a different place of conspiracy, or by joining additional defendants, or by charging different overt acts, or by charging the violation of additional statutes as being among the objects of the conspiracy. The constitutional provision against double jeopardy is a matter of substance and may not be thus nullified by the mere forms of criminal pleading.
Id. at 624. I, along with Judge Bohanon, believe that “the government cannot be allowed to evade the Double Jeopardy Clause by using vague indictments, facially distinguishable only by their reference to different overt acts, here, the submission of rigged bids on different construction projects." Broce, 753 F.2d at 822. Accordingly, while I do not believe that this case needs to be resubmitted to the trial court for determinations of fact, I have no objection to joining in giving the trial court the first opportunity to review the issue. I therefore join in the judgment to remand.
SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge,