Court Opinion

ID: 9487450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:16:55.157976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:16.686197
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Ray Eugene McDaniel, a young black male, was convicted of aggravated robbery by an all-white jury in Arkansas state court. Even though he obtained less than $300 and a set of keys in the robbery, he was sentenced to forty years imprisonment. He has served eight years of that sentence. The learned district court granted McDaniel ha-beas relief; we should do the same.
The majority does not reach the merits of McDaniel’s double jeopardy claim because it concludes that technically McDaniel has not shown he is “actually innocent” of two of the three counts of aggravated robbery. I would address the merits because, in my view, McDaniel has made a clear and convincing showing that, absent a double jeopardy violation, no reasonable juror would have found him guilty of three separate counts of robbery under Arkansas law. See Ruff v. Armontrout, 993 F.2d 639, 642 (8th Cir.1993) (actual innocence standard). McDaniel therefore is entitled to the relief he seeks.
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment protects defendants against multiple punishments in the same proceeding for the same offense. U.S. Const, amend. V; United States v. Cavanaugh, 948 F.2d 405, 414 (8th Cir.1991). In a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 proceeding, “a federal court should defer to a state court’s interpretation of state law in determining whether an incident constitutes one or more than one offense for double jeopardy purposes.” Mansfield v. Champion, 992 F.2d 1098, 1100 (10th Cir.1993). Although not' bound by a state court’s legal conclusion as to when a double jeopardy violation occurs, this court is bound to accept Arkansas’s construction of its state statutes. See Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 368, 103 S.Ct. 673, 679, 74 L.Ed.2d 535 (1983).
The Arkansas Supreme Court has addressed the precise issue of whether a course of conduct like McDaniel’s warrants multiple aggravated robbery counts. See Wheat v. State, 297 Ark. 502, 763 S.W.2d 79, 80 (1989) (per curiam). In Wheat, the court held that the defendant committed only one aggravated robbery, not three, when he entered a pharmacy and forced two clerks to lie on the floor at gunpoint while he forced a pharmacist to gather money and drugs. The court concluded Wheat threatened all three employees, but “he neither took nor manifested any intention of taking property individually from each of them.” Id. Thus, double jeopardy principles and Arkansas law prohibited Wheat’s three separate robbery counts for each person he threatened. Id.
The record in this case clearly shows McDaniel sought and obtained only the restaurant’s money, which he took off a desktop in the back room. McDaniel did direct a manager to give him keys, which he used to enter the back room. There was no evidence that he attempted to take property from the personal possession of any other employees. *388Because McDaniel did not manifest an intent to take property individually from each person, he should not have been convicted of three separate counts. The majority’s attempt to distinguish Wheat is unavailing — it is undisputed both here and in Wheat that the defendant threatened more than one person. The missing element in both cases is not the absence of threat or injury toward each individual, but the lack of manifestation of intent to commit theft toward each individual. In my view, Wheat is wholly analogous to this ease and directs the conclusion that McDaniel committed only one count of aggravated robbery under Arkansas law. Double jeopardy principles prohibit McDaniel’s three separate convictions for this single offense. See Cavanaugh, 948 F.2d at 414.
McDaniel’s showing of actual innocence lifts the procedural bar. See Ruff, 993 F.2d at 642. For the same reasons McDaniel has shown actual innocence, he has in my view demonstrated the merit of his underlying claim. Accordingly, I would affirm the district court’s order requiring the state to re-sentence McDaniel for one count of aggravated robbery within 120 days or, absent timely resentencing, issuing the writ of habeas corpus.