Court Opinion

ID: 9473126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:19:59.812337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:20.023445
License: Public Domain

HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
In main I concur in the opinion of the court but write separately because of some misgiving about the breadth that may be read into today’s holding as one relying unduly on the concurrent sentence doctrine.
Because of more recent awareness of possible adverse effects of multiple convictions upon the lengths of time prisoners may serve and other factors as well, this circuit has reduced its reliance upon the concurrent sentence doctrine, Sanders v. United States, 541 F.2d 190 (8th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1066, 97 S.Ct. 796, 50 L.Ed.2d 784 (1977); United States v. Boyd, 606 F.2d 792 (8th Cir.1979); United States v. Martinez, 573 F.2d 529, 534 (8th Cir. 1978) (Henley, J., concurring), although, of course, it has not completely abandoned it.
In United States v. Neff, 525 F.2d 361, 365 (8th Cir.1975), Judge Lay (now Chief Judge), quoting Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 793 n. 11, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969), observed that “ ‘a stronger case for total abolition of the concurrent sentence doctrine may well be made in cases on direct appeal as compared to convictions attacked collaterally by suits for post-conviction relief.’ ”
More recently in a state habeas case, Goodloe v. Parratt, 605 F.2d 1041 (8th Cir.1979), Chief Judge Lay referred to application of the doctrine as “discretionary” and noted that as a discretionary tool it may be used only when it is clear that no adverse consequences may have resulted from jury consideration of an invalid conviction. Id. at 1044 n. 7.
Thus it is clear that while due process may not require total rejection of the concurrent sentence rule or automatic remand for resentencing, here due process considerations do require this court to examine the record behind the Arkansas court’s application of the rule.1 And if by any fair measure it is made to appear that appellant *280may have suffered significantly from jury consideration of an invalid conviction, this court should not be reluctant to reverse on constitutional grounds and to require reduction of sentence or new trial.2
In present circumstances I agree that Lee suffered no adverse consequences. The evidence on the theft by receiving count was simply that Lee had in an apartment he shared with another possession of a check that had been delivered by mistake to his address. There was no evidence that the check was stolen, much less that Lee knew it was stolen. Evidence of the presence of the check undoubtedly would have been admissible even if the check had not been the subject of a separate count.
Lee stood before the jury validly convicted on four counts and as a recidivist convicted of five prior felonies which included three robberies. On this record I can accept the conclusion that evidence of possession of the $11,687.50 check, regardless of conviction, did not affect in any material respect the jury's conclusion to fix punishment on each of the other counts at eighteen years.
Accordingly, I join in affirming the judgment of the district court.

. I do not read our court's opinion as holding to the contrary.

. In somewhat comparable situations in which on review in the Arkansas Supreme Court or on attack in this court it was found that an Arkansas sentence was enhanced in part because of an invalid prior felony conviction, both the state court and this court at least for a time followed the practice of requiring the state either to reduce the sentence to the minimum provided by the applicable habitual criminal statute for the validly established convictions or give the defendant a new trial on all issues. See Klimas v. Mabry, 603 F.2d 158 (8th Cir.1979), (Henley, J„ dissenting), rev'd, 448 U.S. 444, 100 S.Ct. 2755, 65 L.Ed.2d 897 (1980). And indeed in many cases involving recidivists the courts may wish to follow such a course when one or more of substantive convictions for which concurrent sentences were imposed are vacated.