Court Opinion

ID: 9482448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:50:54.129434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:00.420281
License: Public Domain

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Because the offenses with which Mildred Coppins was charged were petty, I would not afford her the right to a jury trial. Simply because the offenses were tried together or on one charging document is, in my judgment, irrelevant to the constitutional inquiry.
The facts are simple and reveal that a short, minor scuffle took place between Coppins and the guards at the gate of the military base in North Carolina wheré she was employed. When a dispute over an expired gate pass developed, Coppins pushed one guard’s shoulder and swung her purse, striking a second. Coppins was charged with three separate misdemeanor charges, one for trespass, one for assault by beating of one guard, and one for simple assault of the other guard. None of the offenses subjected Coppins to a possible sentence of more than six months. If, however, the maximum sentences authorized by statute were required to be served consecutively, she could receive, in the aggregate, 15 months imprisonment.
In response to Coppins’ request for a jury trial, the magistrate judge ruled that the offenses were petty and she was not entitled to a jury trial because none of the offenses authorized a penalty of more than six months. The judge pointed out that defendant would be entitled to a jury trial only if she could “ ‘demonstrate that any additional statutory penalties, viewed in conjunction with the maximum authorized period of incarceration, are so severe that they clearly reflect a legislative determination that the offense in question is a “serious” one’ ” (quoting Blanton v. City of North Las Vegas, 489 U.S. 588, 548, 109 S.Ct. 1289, 1293, 103 L.Ed.2d 550 (1989)). Following a bench trial Coppins was acquitted of the trespass charge, found guilty of the two assault charges, and sentenced for each offense to pay a fine of $75 and a special assessment of $10. No incarceration or probation was imposed.
On appeal, the district court affirmed the conviction and denied a new trial. The court noted that at that stage, because punishment on retrial would be limited to the $170 which had already been imposed, see North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 725-26, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 2080-81, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969) (applying a presumption of vindictiveness when an enhanced sentence is imposed on retrial), any retrial would be, almost by definition, for a petty offense for which Coppins would not be entitled to a jury trial. The court reasoned therefore that the issue was moot.
The majority opinion has now ordered a new trial for Coppins because she was denied the constitutional right to a jury trial based on the application of a strict formula that requires adding together the maximum authorized sentences of the individual petty offenses. Because application of that formula exposes Coppins to potential sentences totalling 15 months, the majority determines that she is automatically entitled to a jury trial. See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 159-62, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 1452-54, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968) (Only petty offenses may be tried without a jury.) and Baldwin v. New York, 399 U.S. 66, 69, 90 S.Ct. 1886, 1888, 26 L.Ed.2d 437 (1970) (plurality opinion) (An offense is not petty when the term of imprisonment authorized is more than six months.). I respectfully dissent from the adoption of a principle which permits a jury trial solely because offenses are tried together, when, if they were tried separately, no jury trial would be permitted.
In determining whether a criminal defendant is charged with a “serious” offense, for which the defendant is entitled to a jury trial, or a “petty” one for which no jury trial right exists, we focus on objective criteria which reflect the seriousness with which society regards the offense. See District of Columbia v. Clawans, 300 U.S. 617, 628, 57 S.Ct. 660, 663, 81 L.Ed. 843 (1937). The most relevant criterion, although not the exclusive one, is found in the maximum authorized penalty for the *92offense. See Frank v. United States, 395 U.S. 147, 148, 89 S.Ct. 1503, 1505, 23 L.Ed.2d 162 (1969); Duncan, 391 U.S. at 159-61, 88 S.Ct. at 1452-53. Without exploring here other criteria that may also be relevant, because it is not necessary to the discussion to do so, I proceed on the basis that the maximum authorized sentence is the relevant determining criterion in this case. That brings us to the question of whether multiple charges, each of which is petty in light of its maximum authorized penalty, somehow create a serious offense when charged or tried together so as to entitle the defendant to a jury trial. I respectfully submit that trying petty offenses together, as a procedural efficiency, does not elevate their seriousness.
No legitimate policy urges that the maximum sentences of petty offenses charged in one charging document be aggregated so as to conclude that a “serious offense” has been charged. If each petty offense were charged in a separate charging document and tried separately, the defendant would be tried by the court each time, even if the sentences on each were imposed consecutively. The administrative convenience of trying separate offenses on the same day or even on a single charging document does not change the seriousness of the offenses or the risk to the defendant. The fact remains that the defendant is charged with separate, petty offenses, each constituting a crime for which the defendant would not be entitled to a jury trial. The meaningful constitutional object of inquiry is the offense with which the defendant is charged, not the accumulation of offenses tried on a given day or on a given charging document. Judicial efficiency imposed at no greater risk to the defendant should not change the standard for determining whether the defendant is given a jury trial. This is the case where multiple zeros still add up to zero.
In some circumstances, a defendant cannot be prosecuted separately for multiple offenses because of double jeopardy constraints. Because of a particular overlapping in the proofs of separate offenses a prosecutor may be constrained to try multiple charges in one prosecution. See Grady v. Corbin, 495 U.S. 508, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 2093, 109 L.Ed.2d 548 (1990). Arguably, that circumstance might, at one level of analysis suggest that when petty offenses cannot be tried separately they must somehow be merged to create a single serious offense. Conceptually, that analysis fails because it focuses on conduct rather than on the offense. If the defendant committed multiple offenses, he or she can receive multiple sentences. Their procedural aggregation, for whatever reason, does not elevate the seriousness of any one offense. Even when the offenses charged overlap so completely that one is a lesser included offense of the other, and the defendant cannot properly be sentenced for all offenses charged, see Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682, 97 S.Ct. 2912, 53 L.Ed.2d 1054 (1977) (per curiam) (“the Double Jeopardy Clause bars prosecution for the lesser crime after conviction for the greater one”), the analysis is the same. The defendant is entitled to a trial by jury only if any one of the offenses carries a maximum authorized sentence of more than six months.
Only when one charge is elevated in seriousness by the existence of the other, such as under a recidivism statute, would multiple charging cause the elevation of the seriousness of a single offense. See United States v. Raynor, 939 F.2d 191, 194 (4th Cir.1991) (holding that conviction on second firearms offense, even though charged in the same indictment as the first, gives rise to enhanced sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)). And in those cases, the statutorily enhanced sentence resolves the analysis.
Coppins was charged with three separate petty offenses, each of which depends on separate proof, even though arising from a single scuffle. They could undoubtedly be charged and tried separately, in which case there is no dispute that she would not be entitled to a jury trial. Their parallel processing in one trial does not, by operation of some undefined principle, transform them to the level of a single “serious offense” for which a jury trial would be permitted. I would conclude, therefore, *93that the defendant is not entitled to a trial by jury and the sentences should be affirmed. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.