Court Opinion

ID: 9461469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:15:06.251118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:04.612273
License: Public Domain

ROSENN, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
Although I concur in the majority’s affirmance of defendant’s conviction, I would vacate his sentence and remand for sentencing on only one count.
The statute under which defendant was convicted provides in part:
Whoever utters or publishes as true any such false, forged, altered, or counterfeited writing, with intent to defraud the United States, knowing the same to be false, altered, forged, or counterfeited [shall be fined or imprisoned].
18 U.S.C. § 495 (1970). The Government relies upon the word “any” in the statute for its contention that each check uttered constituted a separate offense. I believe this reliance is misplaced. The representation that the check endorsements were true and authorized constituted only a single transaction, and thus only one offense.
In United States v. Driscoll, the defendant was convicted on six counts under a statute making it unlawful to cause the interstate transportation of “any falsely made, forged, altered, or counterfeited securities . . ..” 454 F.2d 792 (5th Cir. 1972); 18 U.S.C. § 2314 (1970). Although six checks were placed in evidence, the defendant passed these checks on only three separate occasions. 454 F.2d at 801. The court concluded that only three violations of section 2314 occurred and the Government apparently so conceded. Id.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Bell v. United States, although dealing with a criminal statute in a different substantive area, lends strong support to the position adopted in Driscoll. 349 U.S. 81, 75 S.Ct. 620, 99 L.Ed. 905 (1955). The defendant in Bell was convicted of two counts under the Mann Act for transporting two women on the same occasion. The Mann Act provides in part:
Whoever knowingly transports in interstate or foreign commerce . any woman or girl .
18 U.S.C. § 2421 (1970). The Supreme Court held that only one offense had been committed.
It is not to be denied that argumentative skill, as was shown at the Bar, could persuasively and not unreasonably reach either of the conflicting constructions. About only one aspect of the problem can one be dogmatic. When Congress has the will it has no difficulty in expressing it — when it has the will, that is, of defining what it desires to make the unit of prosecution and, more particularly, to make each stick in a faggot a single criminal unit. When Congress leaves to the Judiciary the task of imputing to Congress an undeclared will, the ambiguity should be resolved in favor of lenity. And this not out of any sentimental consideration, or for want of sympathy with the purpose of Congress in proscribing evil or antisocial conduct. It may fairly be said to be a presupposition of our law to resolve doubts in the enforcement of a penal code against the imposition of a harsher punishment. This in no wise implies that language used in criminal statutes should not be read with the saving grace of common sense with which other enactments, not cast in technical language, are to be read. Nor does it assume that offenders against the law carefully read the penal code before they embark on crime. It merely means that if Congress does not fix the punishment for a federal offense clearly and without ambiguity, doubt will be resolved against turning a single transaction into multiple offenses, when we have no more to go on than the present case furnishes.
349 U.S. at 83-84, 75 S.Ct. at 622.
I am unable to distinguish the present case from either Driscoll or Bell. Both *996section 495 which is involved here arid the statutes construed in Driscoll and Bell contain the word “any” in the same syntactical context. As was the statute in Bell, section 495 is criminal in nature. Thus, because we are confronted with an expression of congressional intent no more clear than in Bell, we should resolve the ambiguity concerning punishment “in favor of lenity” and hold that defendant committed only one offense.
Because defendant could have been convicted of but one offense, the district court erred in sentencing him under each of the eight counts. The majority, however, would treat any such error as harmless since the sentences pronounced by the district court are to run concurrently. I cannot agree that the error in sentencing was harmless.
The so-called concurrent sentence “doctrine,” if it ever was recognized, has been eroded substantially in recent years. The Supreme Court decided in Benton v. Maryland that concurrent sentencing on multiple counts does not preclude, as a matter of jurisdiction, consideration of errors alleged on one count if another count leads to a valid conviction. 395 U.S. 784, 787-91, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969).
It may be that in certain circumstances a federal appellate court, as a matter of discretion, might decide (as in Hirabayashi) [320 U.S. 81 (1943)] that it is “unnecessary” to consider all the allegations made by a particular party. The concurrent sentence rule may have some continuing validity as a rule of judicial convenience.
Id. at 791, 89 S.Ct. at 2060 (footnote omitted).
In the Fifth Circuit, one line of cases has employed the “discretionary” concurrent sentence rule since Benton. United States v. Hendrix, 487 F.2d 893 (5th Cir. 1973) (per curiam); United States v. Lee, 483 F.2d 968 (5th Cir. 1973) (per curiam); United States v. Payne, 467 F.2d 828 (5th Cir. 1972); United States v. Dumenigo, 444 F.2d 253 (5th Cir. 1971) (per curiam); United States v. Varner, 437 F.2d 1195 (5th Cir. 1971) (per curiam). Only Varner cites Benton. 437 F.2d at 1197. Other cases in the Fifth Circuit, however, have held that concurrent sentencing does not cure conviction on more than the permissible number of counts. United States v. White, 440 F.2d 978, 981 & n. 4 (5th Cir. 1971); Holland v. United States, 384 F.2d 370, 371 (5th Cir. 1967) (pre-Benton); see United States v. Mori, 444 F.2d 240, 245 (5th Cir. 1971) (dictum).
I agree with Judge Goldberg, writing in Driscoll, that multiple sentencing is prejudicial. 454 F.2d at 801.
[S]everal sentences arising from what should have been a lesser number of offenses, even if the sentences are concurrent, would be prejudicial to the defendant by reducing his opportunities for earlier parole or pardon ....
Id. This harm was recognized prior to Driscoll in the White and Holland cases, supra.
I would vacate the sentences imposed by the district court and remand the case for resentencing on one count.