Court Opinion

ID: 9479680
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:25:24.743177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:11.991743
License: Public Domain

HARRY T. EDWARDS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part and concurring in part:
I dissent to express my strong disagreement with the majority’s conclusion that application of the double jeopardy clause in the conspiracy setting turns on the character of the Government’s proof. I would reverse the judgment of the District Court because it is plainly at odds with Supreme Court precedent. I would also remand the case to allow the Government to proceed with prosecution unimpeded by the double jeopardy clause.
Like the majority, I conclude that Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), supplies the proper analysis in successive-prosecution cases. Supreme Court precedent makes it abundantly clear that whether two offenses are the “same” for double jeopardy purposes hinges on their statutory definition, not on the evidence presented at trial.
Unlike the majority, however, I do not believe that a different rule applies when one of the offenses in question happens to be conspiracy. The Supreme Court has “long and consistently recognized ... that the commission of [a] substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit it are separate and distinct offenses.” Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 643, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 1182, 90 L.Ed. 1489 (1946) (emphasis added). It follows inescapably that the double jeopardy clause poses no bar to convicting a defendant for both conspiracy and a substantive offense, “even when prosecuted separately under separate indictments, and when the same evidence proves both offenses.” United States v. Marden, 872 F.2d 123, 125 (5th Cir.1989) (citations omitted) (emphasis added). Until today, every circuit court considering this question has adhered to this view. To suggest otherwise is to obscure one of the few clear teachings of the Supreme Court’s double jeopardy jurisprudence, and unnecessarily to create a split between this court and our sister circuits.
I. Background
The facts underlying this case are addressed in the majority opinion and need be restated only briefly here. Appellees Susan Rosenberg, Timothy Blunk and Alan Berkman (collectively “the appellees”) all stand indicted for multiple counts of violating 18 U.S.C. § 844(f) (Supp. V 1987) for their alleged participation in a series of *1420bombings carried out in Washington during 1983 and 1984. See Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) 194-97.1 All three have been previously convicted in federal court for conspiracy to possess unregistered firearms, explosive devices and false identification documents — Rosenberg and Blunk in a trial conducted in the District of New Jersey (“the New Jersey trial”), and Berkman in a trial conducted in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (“the Pennsylvania trial”). See J.A. 64, 85, 513-14.2 The appellees now maintain that, insofar as appellant United States (“the Government”) proposes to rely on the same evidence introduced in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania trials, the double jeopardy clause bars the instant prosecution. The District Court agreed and dismissed the indictment. See United. States v. Whitehorn, 710 F.Supp. 803, 843-52 (D.D.C.1989).
The issue on appeal is whether successively prosecuted offenses are the “same” for double jeopardy purposes merely because they arise out of a common factual transaction. Because Supreme Court precedent conclusively establishes that the identity of two offenses turns on the elements of the statutes in question rather than on the evidence adduced at trial, and because conspiracy by this test is a separate offense from destruction of government property by bombing, I would reverse the District Court and permit the instant prosecution to go forward unimpeded by the double jeopardy clause.
II. The DISTRICT Court’s Application of an “Actuau-EvidenCe” Test is Wrong as a Matter of Law
Since at least as early as the 1911 case of Gavieres v. United States, 220 U.S. 338, 31 S.Ct. 421, 55 L.Ed. 489 (1911), the Supreme Court has made clear that whether two offenses are the “same” for double jeopardy purposes is a matter of statutory definition, not a matter of the evidence alleged in the indictment or adduced at trial. The defendant in Gavieres challenged his convictions for insulting a public official and for drunk and disorderly conduct, arguing that he could not be prosecuted successively under different statutes for a single course of conduct. The Court rejected this claim:
It is true that the acts and words of the accused set forth in both charges are the same; but in the second case it was charged, as was essential to conviction, that the misbehavior in deed and words was addressed to a public official. In this view we are of opinion that while the transaction charged is the same in each case, the offenses are different.
Id. at 342, 31 S.Ct. at 422 (emphasis added).
It is from the Gavieres Court’s distinction between factual transaction and statutory offense that the so-called “Blockburger test” derives. See Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304, 52 S.Ct. 180, 182, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932). A multiple punishment case, Blockburger upheld the defendant’s convictions under separate sections of a federal law regulating the sale of narcotics. Citing Gavieres, the Court announced that, “where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each provision requires proof of a fact which the other does not.” Id. The Court repeatedly has indicated that this test looks only to the elements of the statutes in question, not to the evidence alleged in the indictment or relied upon at trial. See, e.g., Albernaz v. United States, 450 U.S. 333, 337-38, 101 S.Ct. 1137, 1141-42, 67 L.Ed.2d 275 (1981); Iannelli v. United States, 420 U.S. 770, 785 n. 17, 95 S.Ct. 1284, 1293 n. 17, 43 L.Ed.2d 616 (1975). See also United *1421States v. Coachman, 727 F.2d 1293, 1301-02 (D.C.Cir.1984). Moreover, because the test is designed merely to determine whether the legislature intended to create independent criminal prohibitions, the Court has also made clear that Blockburger need not even be consulted when the legislature’s will appears clearly in the language or history of the relevant statutes. See, e.g., Albernaz, 450 U.S. at 340, 101 S.Ct. at 1143. See also United States v. Anderson, 851 F.2d 384, 391 (D.C.Cir.1988), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 801, 102 L.Ed.2d 792 (1989).
The Supreme Court has continued to follow the rule of Gavieres and Blockburger in its most recent successive-prosecution cases. See, e.g., Illinois v. Vitale, 447 U.S. 410, 416, 100 S.Ct. 2260, 2265, 65 L.Ed.2d 228 (1980); Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 166, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 2225-26, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977).3 Vitale, a case examining the double-jeopardy implications of greater and lesser-included offenses, identified the Blockburger-Gavieres rule as “the principal test for determining whether two offenses are the same for purposes of barring successive prosecutions,” and reiterated that “this test focuses on the proof necessary to prove the statutory elements of each offense, rather than on the actual evidence to be presented at trial.” 447 U.S. at 416, 100 S.Ct. at 2265.4 See also Garrett v. United States, 471 U.S. 773, 790, 105 S.Ct. 2407, 2417, 85 L.Ed.2d 764 (1985) (noting that the Court has “steadfastly refused to adopt the ‘single transaction’ view of the Double Jeopardy Clause”).5 Primarily on the strength of the Supreme Court’s decision in Vitale, this court rejected an “actual evidence” test for successive-prosecution cases in United States v. Black, 759 F.2d 71, 73 (D.C.Cir.1985) (per curiam).6
In a successive prosecution following a conviction, a court performing double jeopardy analysis should examine the evidence only if it determines — on the basis of *1422Blockburger or some other authoritative indicator of legislative intent — that the two offenses in question are the “same."7 A transactional inquiry is appropriate at that stage to assure both that the Government does not prosecute a defendant twice for a single violation of the relevant statute or statutes and that the Government is permitted to charge or prosecute the defendant independently for each and every separate violation. See, e.g., United States v. Broce, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 757, 768, 102 L.Ed.2d 927 (1989) (Stevens J., concurring) (suggesting that particular factual transaction constituted single conspiracy violation but multiple substantive violations of Sherman Act). Thus, courts routinely consult the alleged or actual evidence as a means of implementing the prohibition of Braverman v. United States, 317 U.S. 49, 52-53, 63 S.Ct. 99, 101, 87 L.Ed. 23 (1942), against multiple prosecutions for a single conspiracy. See, e.g., United States v. Reiter, 848 F.2d 336, 340 (2nd Cir.1988); United States v. Atkins, 834 F.2d 426, 432 (5th Cir.1987). Similarly, courts turn to the facts once they determine that a defendant has been convicted for both a greater and a lesser-included offense. See, e.g., Brown, 432 U.S. at 169-70, 97 S.Ct. at 2227.
The opinion of the District Court misconstrues these cases. The trial court found the use of an actual-evidence test by courts after they have determined that two or more offenses are the same to mean that such a test should be used to determine whether the offenses are the same. This clearly is not the law, and appellees’ suggestions to the contrary are simply wrong.8
III. The MajoRity Misconstrues the Law in Relying on Pinkerton to Support a Limited “Actual-EvidenCe” Test
Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 90 L.Ed. 1489 (1946), remains the Supreme Court’s leading precedent on double jeopardy in the conspiracy setting. In that case, the Court rejected the claim that the Constitution protected the petitioners from being found guilty both of conspiracy to violate the tax code and of tax evasion based on a single course of conduct. Two holdings from Pinkerton are pertinent to this case. The first is the Court’s conclusion that Congress intended conspiracy to be a crime independent of any substantive offense in which it culminates. “It has been long and consistently recognized,” the Court noted, “that the *1423commission of [a] substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit it are separate and distinct offenses,” and consequently “the plea of double jeopardy is no defense to a conviction for both....” Id. at 643, 66 S.Ct. at 1182. Accord Pereira v. United States, 347 U.S. 1, 11, 74 S.Ct. 358, 364, 98 L.Ed. 435 (1954); United States v. Boyle, 482 F.2d 755, 766 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1076, 94 S.Ct. 593, 38 L.Ed.2d 483 (1973); see also United States v. Bayer, 331 U.S. 532, 541-42, 67 S.Ct. 1394, 1398-99, 91 L.Ed. 1654 (1947) (no bar to prosecution for conspiracy following conviction for substantive offense in military court).
The second pertinent holding is that the Government may prove a defendant’s guilt of both the substantive offense and the conspiracy through overlapping evidence. Even absent direct evidence that the defendant committed the substantive offense in question, the jury, if properly charged, may find the defendant guilty of the substantive offense so long as it finds that he engaged in the conspiracy and that his codefendant committed the substantive offense as a reasonably foreseeable means of furthering their shared criminal ends. See Pinkerton, 328 U.S. at 645-48, 66 S.Ct. at 1183-84. This theory is now known as the “Pinkerton doctrine.”
Relying on Pinkerton and its progeny, the circuit courts of appeals have uniformly held that the double jeopardy clause poses no bar to convicting a defendant for both conspiring to commit an offense and actually committing it, regardless of the order in which the two are prosecuted and regardless of the Government’s proof at trial. See, e.g., United States v. McCullah, 745 F.2d 350, 355 (6th Cir.1984); United States v. Kalish, 734 F.2d 194, 197-98 (5th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1207, 105 S.Ct. 1169, 84 L.Ed.2d 321 (1985); United States v. Brooklier, 637 F.2d 620, 624 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 980, 101 S.Ct. 1514, 67 L.Ed.2d 815 (1981); United States v. Cruz, 568 F.2d 781, 782-84 (1st Cir.1978), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 898, 100 S.Ct. 205, 62 L.Ed.2d 133 (1979).9 As the Fifth Circuit recently concluded, “[cjonvictions for both conspiracy and the substantive offense that is the object of the conspiracy generally do not constitute double jeopardy, even when prosecuted separately under separate indictments, and when the same evidence proves both offenses.” United States v. Marden, 872 F.2d 123, 125 (5th Cir.1989) (citations omitted) (emphasis added).10 The only exception to this rule is when a particular substantive offense has no elements distinct from those of conspiracy, making the two the “same” under the Gavieres-Blockburger test. See Pereira, 347 U.S. at 11, 74 S.Ct. at 364; Marden, 872 F.2d at 125.11
Under these principles, there can be no double jeopardy impediment to the prosecution of the appellees. Even assuming that the Washington bombings with which the appellees are now charged were the product of the conspiracies for which the appel-lees were convicted in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania trials, the fact remains that the bombings and the conspiracies are separate offenses under the Gavi-eres-Blockburger test: the conspiracy *1424charges required proof of an agreement not required to be shown by the bombing charges; and the bombing charges require proof of a bombing not required to be shown under the conspiracy charges. Compare 18 U.S.C. § 371 (1982) with 18 U.S.C. § 844(f) (Supp. V 1987). It does not matter that the Government intends to prove the appellees’ guilt on the bombing charges with evidence implicating them in the conspiracies. See United States v. Boyle, 482 F.2d 755, 766-67 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1076, 94 S.Ct. 593, 38 L.Ed.2d 483 (1973). “That the substantive conviction [is] obtained through a Pinkerton [doctrine] instruction is irrelevant” for purposes of double jeopardy. United States v. Cerone, 830 F.2d 938, 944 (8th Cir.1987), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 1730, 100 L.Ed.2d 194 (1988); see Harden, 872 F.2d at 126 (no bar to successive prosecution based on Pinkerton doctrine); United States v. Manzella, 791 F.2d 1263, 1270 (7th Cir.1986) (no bar to retrying defendant for substantive offense on Pinkerton theory following affirmance of conspiracy conviction but reversal of substantive-offense conviction); see also United States v. Wylie, 625 F.2d 1371, 1382 n. 15 (9th Cir.1980) (dictum), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1080, 101 S.Ct. 863, 66 L.Ed.2d 804 (1981).
Notwithstanding the overwhelming weight of Supreme Court and lower court authority, the majority reaches a different conclusion. The majority accepts, as do I, that Blockburger and Gavieres supply the proper analysis in successive-prosecution cases. It concludes, however, that once a defendant has been convicted for conspiracy, the Government in a subsequent trial is barred from relying on the Pinkerton doctrine to prove the defendant’s guilt of any connected substantive offense. Because, under the Pinkerton doctrine, the Government need only show that the defendant engaged in the conspiracy and that some member of the conspiracy committed the substantive offense in question, the majority reasons that the conspiracy in effect becomes an “element” or even a “lesser-included offense” of the substantive offense. The majority therefore concludes that the appellees can be prosecuted for the Washington bombings only if the Government forgoes reliance on the Pinkerton doctrine.
In my view, the majority’s holding seriously misconstrues the Pinkerton doctrine. The Pinkerton doctrine is a theory of proof — nothing more and nothing less. That its use does not transform the elements of the substantive offense in any manner relevant to the double jeopardy clause is borne out by the result in Pinkerton itself. See Harden, 872 F.2d at 126; Cerone, 830 F.2d at 944-45; Wylie, 625 F.2d at 1382 n. 15. Indeed, if reliance on such a theory had been understood by the Court in Pinkerton to somehow alter the elements of the substantive offense, the Court would have been obliged to strike down the petitioner’s conviction as a violation of the prohibition on common law crimes. See United States v. Hudson & Goodwin, 11 U.S. (7 Cranch) 32, 3 L.Ed. 259 (1812). "[Definition of the elements of a criminal offense is entrusted to the legislature,” Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419, 424, 105 S.Ct. 2084, 2087, 85 L.Ed.2d 434 (1985) (emphasis added), and the judiciary’s sole responsibility is to assure that the Government’s proof, if believed by the jury, satisfies those elements. See Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 689, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 1436, 63 L.Ed.2d 715 (1980) (“[T]he power to define criminal offenses ... resides wholly with the Congress.”). Because the Pinkerton doctrine, then, necessarily relates only to the evidence sufficient to prove a defendant’s violation of a particular substantive offense, the majority’s disposition of this case reintroduces the actual-evidence test into double jeopardy analysis, an approach the majority admits is foreclosed by governing Supreme Court precedent.12
*1425The majority and concurring opinions note that only the Fifth Circuit, see Mar-den, 872 F.2d at 126, has reached the conclusion, rejected by the majority, that Pinkerton itself controls on whether the Pinkerton doctrine can be relied on in a successive prosecution following a conviction for conspiracy. This observation misleadingly understates the tension between today’s holding and the case law of our sister circuits. Every circuit court of appeals that has considered the majority opinion’s underlying premise —that use of the Pinkerton doctrine “transforms” conspiracy into a lesser-included offense of the substantive offense — has unequivocally rejected it as inconsistent with the Pinkerton decision. See Marden, 872 F.2d at 126; Cerone, 830 F.2d at 944-45; Wylie, 625 F.2d at 1381-82, 1382 n. 15 (dictum); cf. Manzella, 791 F.2d at 1270 (suggesting no bar to retrying defendant for substantive offense on Pinkerton theory following af-firmance of conspiracy conviction but reversal of substantive-offense conviction). Nor can it be constitutionally significant that some of these cases — like Pinkerton itself — involved multiple punishments rather than successive prosecutions, for if one offense is a lesser-included offense of another, a defendant cannot be convicted of both in a single prosecution, see Whalen, 445 U.S. at 693-94, 100 S.Ct. at 1438-39, or in successive prosecutions, see Brown, 432 U.S. at 166-69, 97 S.Ct. at 2226-27.
Both the majority and concurring opinions cite United States v. Larkin, 605 F.2d 1360 (5th Cir.1979), withdrawn in part, 611 F.2d 585 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 939, 100 S.Ct. 2160, 64 L.Ed.2d 793 (1980), to support their conclusion that use of the Pinkerton doctrine transforms conspiracy into a lesser-included offense of the substantive offense. Larkin, however, is not by any means authoritative on the issue before us. First, the court in Larkin expressly declined to rule on the defendant’s argument that the Government’s reliance on a Pinkerton theory barred a subsequent prosecution for conspiracy following his acquittal of a substantive offense. See 605 F.2d at 1367. Second, since Lar-kin, the Fifth Circuit has squarely rejected the very rule adopted by the majority, “noting simply that Pinkerton itself ruled that double jeopardy is not breached when a conspirator is convicted of a substantive offense by way of the coconspirator rule, and is also convicted of conspiracy to commit the same substantive offense.” See Marden, 872 F.2d at 126.13
*1426Judge Williams concludes that Pinkerton is not controlling because the Pinkerton Court failed to “explain” how its double-jeopardy holding and its statutory-construction holding could be reconciled. I do not agree. The Court’s conclusion that “[a] substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit it are separate and distinct offenses,” 328 U.S. at 643, 66 S.Ct. at 1182, explains it all. Once it is determined that Congress intended the two offenses to be separate as a statutory matter, it is irrelevant for double jeopardy purposes how the Government proves the two offenses in a particular case. Moreover, I can think of no persuasive theory under which we could limit Pinkerton to multiple-punishment cases while remaining faithful to its holding that conspiracy and its target substantive offense are “separate and distinct.”
In short, Pinkerton itself is dispositive of the issue at hand. However, if it were necessary to go beyond Pinkerton to resolve the question before us, a useful source of guidance would be cases examining the double-jeopardy implications of aider-and-abettor liability. The policies underlying the Pinkerton doctrine and aider- and-abettor liability are very similar,14 and this explains the willingness of courts to allow the Government to use such theories interchangeably to obtain a conviction. See, e.g., Nye & Nissen v. United States, 336 U.S. 613, 618-20, 69 S.Ct. 766, 769-70, 93 L.Ed. 919 (1949); Cerone, 830 F.2d at 944 (citing cases). Courts properly find no double jeopardy obstacle to conviction for conspiracy and for aiding-and-abetting in a substantive offense, whether the two offenses are tried in a single trial, see, e.g., Nye & Nissen, 336 U.S. at 618-19, 69 S.Ct. at 769-70; United States v. Sidener, 876 F.2d 1334, 1336-37 (7th Cir.1989), or successively, see, e.g., Marden, 872 F.2d at 126; McCullah, 745 F.2d at 355. No principled ground exists for treating cases tried on a Pinkerton theory any differently.
The appellees invoke policy considerations to justify a special double jeopardy rule in the conspiracy setting. Their fear is that the Government, armed with the Pinkerton doctrine, could “reprove” a defendant’s guilt of conspiracy over and over again in order to establish his guilt of various substantive offenses. Such a result, the appellees argue, would transgress the double-jeopardy-clause values of finality and repose. See Brief for Appellee Alan Berkman at 37-38; Brief for Appellees Susan L. Rosenberg and Timothy A. Blunk at 43-45.
These concerns are not sufficient to support the limited actual-evidence test established by the majority. Finality and repose, it is true, play a prominent role in application of the double jeopardy clause in the successive-prosecution setting. See, e.g., United States v. Wilson, 420 U.S. 332, 343, 95 S.Ct. 1013, 1021-22, 43 L.Ed.2d 232 (1975). But these values assume constitutional proportions only when the offenses that are the subject of the successive trials are the same; under the double jeopardy clause, “[i]t is only an identity of offenses which is fatal.” Pinkerton, 328 U.S. at 644, 66 S.Ct. at 1182 (emphasis added). Because conspiracy and the substantive offense of destruction by bombing are not identical — no matter what theory of proof the Government intends to rely on at trial — the appellees have no cognizable interest in avoiding prosecution.
*1427In any case, the concern that the Government might follow up a conspiracy conviction with a series of substantive-offense prosecutions all founded on the Pinkerton doctrine is simply not a credible one in our system of criminal justice. The most substantial deterrent to such a policy is the prospect that the Government might lose one case and thereafter be collaterally es-topped from relitigating any necessarily determined factual issue. See Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 443-47, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1194-96, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970). Moreover, a failure to join transactionally related offenses in a single prosecution also exposes the Government to the risk that subsequent prosecutions will be time-barred under the applicable statute of limitations. Finally, an unjustified succession of prosecutions might very well support an inference of prosecutorial vindictiveness in violation of due process of law. See generally Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21, 24-29, 94 S.Ct. 2098, 2100-03, 40 L.Ed.2d 628 (1974). Thus, “absent ‘governmental oppression of the sort against which the Double Jeopardy Clause was intended to protect,’ the compelling public interest in punishing crimes,” Garrett, 471 U.S. at 796, 105 S.Ct. at 2420 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (quoting United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 91, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 2194, 57 L.Ed.2d 65 (1978)), condemns the extension of the double jeopardy clause endorsed today by the majority.
The problem with the majority’s approach is that it invites prosecutorial bad faith. Because the majority’s rule prohibits the Government in a successive prosecution from using a particular theory of proof — the Pinkerton doctrine — the rule announced today will create strong incentives for the Government to distort its evidence to fit a licit theory. The only alternative to using such a tactic is to join transactionally related conspiracy and substantive offenses in a single prosecution — a course that the Supreme Court has “steadfastly refused” to force upon the Government. Garrett, 471 U.S. at 790, 105 S.Ct. at 2417. Since I believe that forcing the Government’s hand in this way will necessarily distort “prosecutorial judgments concerning the adequacy of the evidence, the efficient allocation of enforcement resources, and the desirability of seeking” the sanctions that attend the respective offenses, Garrett, 471 U.S. at 798, 105 S.Ct. at 2421 (O’Connor, J., concurring), I find the majority’s departure from Block-burger and Pinkerton unwise as well as unfounded.15
III. CONCLUSION
The teachings of the Supreme Court are clear. First, for purposes of the double jeopardy clause, the identity of two or more offenses prosecuted successively is to be determined by “the statutory elements of each offense, rather than ... the actual evidence to be presented at trial.” Vitale, 447 U.S. at 416, 100 S.Ct. at 2265. Second, “the commission of [a] substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit it are separate and distinct offenses.” Pinkerton, 328 U.S. at 643, 66 S.Ct. at 1182 (emphasis added). These two propositions do not *1428through some mysterious process of legal alchemy change their character when combined. Simply put, the double jeopardy clause poses no bar to convicting a defendant for both conspiracy and a substantive offense, “even when prosecuted separately under separate indictments, and when the same evidence proves both offenses.” Marden, 872 F.2d at 125 (citations omitted) (emphasis added). The rule announced by the majority commits this court to a result inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent and with the position adopted by our sister circuits. I cannot accept that the double jeopardy clause puts any limits on the form of proof the Government intends to rely upon at trial in this case.

. The indictment also charges three additional codefendants with destruction of government property by bombing, and with conspiracy to destroy government property by bombing. See J.A. 175-97. Although not charged in the conspiracy count of the indictment, all of the appel-lees are identified as unindicted coconspirators. See J.A. 175-76.

. Each appellee was also convicted for the substantive offenses of possession of unregistered firearms, possession of false identification documents and possession of destructive devices. These convictions, however, are immaterial to the issues raised on appeal.

. Cases dealing with resentencing as a remedy for double jeopardy violations also demonstrate that Blockburger is controlling in the successive-prosecution setting. In Morris v. Mathews, 475 U.S. 237, 106 S.Ct. 1032, 89 L.Ed.2d 187 (1986), the Court held that the double jeopardy clause violation caused by successively convicting the defendant for aggravated robbery and aggravated murder could be corrected by vacating the sentence for the latter offense and resentencing the defendant for the lesser-included but not jeopardy-barred offense of murder. See id. at 246-47, 106 S.Ct. at 1037-38. In Jones v. Thomas, -U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 2522, 2527 n. 3, 105 L.Ed.2d 322 (1989) — another resentencing case — the Court explained the result in Mathews: "Because nonfelony murder is not the same offense as ... [aggravated] robbery, see, e.g., Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932) (defining "same offense”), there would be no double jeopardy bar to punishing [the defendant] for that offense, even through a second full trial.” The Court attached no significance to the substantial overlap of evidence in the two trials in Mathews, which arose from a single factual transaction.

. Vitale! s confirmation that the Blockbur-ger-Gavieres test looks solely to the elements of the respective offenses and not to the evidence used to prove them dispels the concurring opinion's suggestions that the test incorporates reference to the underlying factual transaction, and that the test is even more fact sensitive in successive-prosecution cases than in multiple-punishment cases. Moreover, as in the multiple-punishment setting, the "presumption" that two offenses are the "same” if they possess identical elements under the Blockburger test "must ... yield to a plainly expressed contrary view on the part of Congress." Garrett v. United States, 471 U.S. 773, 779, 105 S.Ct. 2407, 2412, 85 L.Ed.2d 764 (1985).

. The Court in Garrett concluded from the legislative history of 21 U.S.C. § 848 (Supp. V 1987) that Congress intended the offense of engaging in a "continuing criminal enterprise” to be distinct from the predicate offenses on which it is based, making application of the Blockburger test unnecessary. See ATI U.S. at 778-86, 105 S.Ct. at 2411-15.

. The appellees cite In re Nielsen, 131 U.S. 176, 9 S.Ct. 672, 33 L.Ed. 118 (1889), to support their arguments in favor of an actual evidence test. However, Nielsen merely stands for the proposition that statutes that appear on their face to have distinctive elements may, upon inspection, be determined to be identical in scope. In Nielsen, the Supreme Court construed the crime of "unlawful cohabitation” to contain the implicit element that the defendant live in a polygamous relationship. On that basis, the Court determined that cohabitation was the same offense for double jeopardy purposes as adultery. See 131 U.S. at 189, 9 S.Ct. at 676. In any event, Nielsen was decided almost 100 years before Vitale and Garrett, both of which clearly reject an actual evidence test.

. A court may examine the evidence used in a trial resulting in an acquittal to determine whether the Government is collaterally estopped from relitigating particular factual issues in a successive prosecution. See Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 443-47, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1194-96, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970). As the Court noted in Brown, the doctrine of collateral estoppel can apply even if the two offenses are not the "same” under Blockburger. See 432 U.S. at 166 n. 6, 97 S.Ct. at 2226 n. 6.

. The appellees point to a particular passage in Vitale, see 447 U.S. at 420, 100 S.Ct. at 2267, that they claim endorses an actual-evidence test in successive-prosecution cases. See Brief for Appellee Berkman at 20-21; Brief for Appellees Susan L. Rosenberg & Timothy A. Blunk at 19-20. The appellees’ reading of Vitale cannot be correct. Like the majority, I an persuaded by then-Justice Rehnquist’s view that the supposedly ambiguous language in Vitale cannot be read to support an actual-evidence test given the plain holding of the Court, see 447 U.S. at 416, 100 S.Ct. at 2265, that the identity of two or more offenses for double jeopardy purposes turns solely on their respective elements. See Thigpen v. Roberts, 468 U.S. 27, 35-36, 104 S.Ct. 2916, 2921, 82 L.Ed.2d 23 (1984) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). Indeed, I read the disputed language in Vitale to indicate merely that a transactional analysis would be appropriate in the event that the lower court determined on remand that the offenses in question — "failing to reduce speed” and involuntary manslaughter— were in fact the "same" under Blockburger. See supra text accompanying notes 6-8.
In any case, in Black, we construed Vitale to mandate an inquiry into the statutory elements rather than into the evidence, see 759 F.2d at 73, and the vast majority of circuits share that interpretation. See United States v. Benton, 852 F.2d 1456, 1465 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 555, 102 L.Ed.2d 582 (1988); United States v. Aguilar, 849 F.2d 92, 96-97 (3d Cir.1988); Flittie v. Solem, 775 F.2d 933, 937-38 (8th Cir.1985), cert. denied 475 U.S. 1025, 106 S.Ct. 1223, 89 L.Ed.2d 333 (1986); Pugliese v. Perrin, 731 F.2d 85, 89 (1st Cir.1984); United States v. Genser, 710 F.2d 1426, 1428-29 (10th Cir.1983); Archer v. Commissioner of Correction, 646 F.2d 44, 47 n. 2 (2d Cir.) (dictum), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 851, 102 S.Ct. 291, 70 L.Ed.2d 141 (1981); United States v. Brooklier, 637 F.2d 620, 624 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 980, 101 S.Ct. 1514, 67 L.Ed.2d 815 (1981).

. The Sixth Circuit reached a different conclusion in United States v. Austin, 529 F.2d 559, 562-64 (6th Cir.1976), apparently relying on an actual-evidence test to bar multiple punishments for conspiracy to bribe and bribery. Since Austin was decided, however, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the Blockburger test — relied upon by the court in Austin — looks only at the elements of the offense, not the evidence adduced at trial. See, e.g., Vitale, 447 U.S. at 416, 100 S.Ct. at 2265. Even the Sixth Circuit has subsequently backed away from Austin, permitting successive prosecutions for conspiracy and a substantive offense based on overlapping evidence. See McCullah, 745 F.2d at 355-56.

. In Black, this court, although not relying explicitly on Pinkerton, found no double jeopardy problem in a case in which the defendant was being prosecuted for conspiring to violate and for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1962 (Supp. V 1987) ("RICO”), even though the Government intended to use essentially the same evidence relied upon previously to convict the defendant of various conspiracy and substantive offenses. See 759 F.2d at 73.

.In this context, too, the presumption of identity can be overcome by an express sign of contrary legislative intent. See Iannelli v. United States, 420 U.S. 770, 782, 95 S.Ct. 1284, 1292, 43 L.Ed.2d 616 (1975).

. The majority also finds significant the Government's concession that it is barred from trying the appellees for the conspiracy alleged against the appellees’ codefendants because this conspiracy is the “same" under Braverman as those for which the appellees were convicted in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania trials. See Brief for Appellant at 2 n. 3. I do not find this *1425concession troubling. If, as I believe, the Government would be free in a trial of the appellees alone to establish their guilt of the substantive bombing offenses through the Pinkerton doctrine, it does not matter for double jeopardy purposes that the Government has joined these charges with others arising from the same factual transaction. The trials should be severed if the Government attempts to rely on joinder to introduce against the codefendants evidence that is sufficiently prejudicial to, and not otherwise admissible against, the appellees. See United States v. Hernandez, 780 F.2d 113, 119 (D.C.Cir.1986). But because ruling on a motion to sever presupposes knowing what evidence would be admissible against a defendant if tried alone, it cannot be maintained that join-der somehow creates a double jeopardy problem. For the same reason, cases examining the prejudicial "spillover” of evidence when a jeopardy-barred offense and a nonbarred offense are tried together against a single defendant, see, e.g., Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 797-98, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 2064, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969); Pacelli v. United States, 588 F.2d 360, 363-64 (2d Cir.1978), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 908, 99 S.Ct. 2001, 60 L.Ed.2d 378 (1979), shed no light on the issue in this case.

. The majority also seeks support for its disposition in Garrett v. United States, 471 U.S. 773, 105 S.Ct. 2407, 85 L.Ed.2d 764 (1985), but that opinion cannot possibly justify the majority’s new rule for cases tried on a Pinkerton theory. In Garrett, the Supreme Court held that Congress intended the "continuing criminal enterprise” component of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, 21 U.S.C. § 848 (Supp. V 1987) (“CCE”), to be distinct from the predicate drug offenses on which the CCE offense is based. See 471 U.S. at 777-86, 105 S.Ct. at 2410-15. On the strength of Garrett, lower courts have held that the Government may, consistent with the double jeopardy clause, rely on a defendant's previous conviction as one of the predicate offenses necessary to obtain a CCE conviction. See, e.g., United States v. Amen, 831 F.2d 373, 380-81 (2d Cir.1987), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 1573, 99 L.Ed.2d 889 (1988). Along with other lower courts, we reached an identical conclusion in Black concerning reproof of a previous conviction as a predicate offense under RICO. See Black, 759 F.2d at 73-74 (citing cases). By the same logic, the double jeopardy clause should not prohibit the Government from reproving the appellees’ *1426involvement in the conspiracy at issue as a means of establishing their liability for the Washington bombings.
The majority correctly notes that the Court in Garrett looked to the evidence charged in the respective indictments. The Court did so, however, only to show that the petitioner's CCE conviction was based in part on factual transactions occurring after those underlying his prior conviction for a predicate offense, and that, consequently, the double jeopardy clause was inapplicable even assuming the latter offense was a lesser-included offense of the former. See 471 U.S. at 790-93, 105 S.Ct. at 2417-19.

. At their core, the Pinkerton and the aider- and-abettor doctrines embody the same principle: a defendant who willingly enters into a confederacy of crime can legitimately be held accountable for all reasonably foreseeable offenses committed by his confederates. See Johnson, The Unnecessary Crime of Conspiracy, 61 Calif.L.Rev. 1137, 1146-48 (1973); cf. Note, Developments in the Law—Criminal Conspiracy, 72 Harv.L.Rev. 920, 998-99 (1959).

. There is another matter, to be considered on remand, that could figure prominently in the disposition of this case. The Supreme Court has recognized that an exception to the double jeopardy clause "may exist" permitting the Government to prosecute an otherwise barred charge when "additional facts necessary to sustain that charge ... h[ad] not been discovered [at the time of a previous trial on a related offense] despite the exercise of due diligence.” Brown, 432 U.S. at 169 n. 7, 97 S.Ct. at 2227 n. 7. Accord Vitale, 447 U.S. at 420 n. 8, 100 S.Ct. at 2267 n. 8. The Government suggests that it discovered the evidence linking Rosenberg and Blunk to the Washington bombings only after their convictions in the New Jersey trial. See Reply Brief for Appellant at 16-17. Although the District Court suggested that it was not inclined to credit this contention, it is unclear from the record whether this finding was influenced by the District Court’s mistaken conclusion that the double jeopardy clause barred successive prosecutions based on the same actual evidence. See Whitehorn, 710 F.Supp. at 845 n. 146. In the event that the Government determines on remand that it cannot forego reliance on a Pinkerton theory of liability, nothing in today’s opinion prevents the Government from attempting to establish or the District Court from finding that at the time of the New Jersey trial the Government could not have discovered by due diligence the evidence linking Rosenberg and Blunk to the Washington bombings.