Court Opinion

ID: 9462046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:30:30.814787+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:22.470197
License: Public Domain

McCREE, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in the determination of the court that in the legislation under which the indictment was brought, the Congress did not intend to permit a defendant to be punished twice for a single act prosecuted as two separate offenses. However, I disagree with its resolution that results, not in the setting aside of one of the convictions, but only in the vacating of one of the two sentences that were imposed.
The sentence, not the pronouncement of guilt either by the jury or by the court, is the final judgment in a criminal case. See Pollard v. United States, 352 U.S. 354, 77 S.Ct. 481, 1 L.Ed.2d 393 (1957) and Miller v. Aderhold, 288 U.S. 206 at 210, 53 S.Ct. 325, 77 L.Ed. 702 (1933). To fail to enter a final judgment (i. e. sentence) with reference to one count of an indictment would leave the unresolved count pending for an indefinite period of time.
Since we have determined that Congress did not intend to turn a single transaction into multiple offenses, I would require the prosecution to elect between the counts upon which a verdict of guilty was returned. The court would then set aside the conviction on the count not elected by the prosecution and would impose a sentence only upon the remaining one.
Although I have found no cases discussing this particular point, the Supreme Court in Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81, 75 S.Ct. 620, 99 L.Ed. 905 (1955), reversed the defendant’s conviction in a similar situation. The Court in Bell held that the lower court erred in permitting two convictions to be based on a single transaction. As a result of its determination that Congress did not intend to permit dual punishment for one transaction, the Court held that the single transaction was not a proper basis for the prosecution of more than one offense. Although the Court did not discuss the proper remedy, I read its reversal as requiring the overturning of the improper second conviction.
The same result is required here. Simply vacating one of the sentences is not adequate. Further, failure to reverse the improper second conviction may later expose the defendant to additional punishment under an habitual offender statute. This result would clearly be contrary not only to the rationale of Bell but also to the concern of the majority in this appeal to avoid multiple punishment.