Court Opinion

ID: 9426985
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:22.570748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:04.286452
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
with whom The Chief Justice joins, dissenting.
I dissent from the summary disposition of this case for two reasons. The first is that the factual assumption, made *678both by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and by this Court, that petitioner and respondent had agreed to submit the issue of guilt to the District Court on the “agreed statement of facts” is by no means clear from Judge Battin’s principal opinion in this case, 395 F. Supp. 205. My second reason for disagreeing with summary disposition is that this Court has never passed on any claim of double jeopardy where the issues were submitted on an agreed statement of facts, rather than to a jury for its verdict or to the court for a finding of guilt or innocence after hearing witnesses. While I am not prepared to say that the Court’s decision on the legal issue involved here is wrong, I am riot sufficiently convinced that it is right so as to justify summary disposition without either argument or briefing on the merits.
The Court states that “[t]he case was submitted to the District Court on an agreed statement of facts,” and “[a]fter considering the stipulated facts and reviewing the applicable treaties, the court dismissed the information for failure to state an offense.” The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit put the matter much the same way. Implicit in this statement is that the submission involved a waiver of petitioner’s right to jury trial and both his and the Government’s consent that the District Court decide the issue of guilt or innocence. The District Court’s opinion in the case, however, is by no means clear on these points. That court put the matter this way:
“On June 14, 1974, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss said information. The parties submitted extensive and well-considered memoranda of law. On September 4, 1974 an order was filed wherein I denied the motion to dismiss and noted that the information was sufficient on its face. An Agreed Statement of Facts and additional memoranda of law have been filed. Additionally, counsel for the Crow Tribe of Indians and the State of Montana, Department of Fish and Game, have appeared herein as amici curiae.
*679“After a thorough review of the file, I am compelled to reconsider my order dated September 4, 1974, wherein I denied defendant’s motion to dismiss. I conclude that the information is not sufficient on its face for several reasons.” Id., at 207.
While this statement is by no means inconsistent with an agreement by the parties to submit the issue of guilt or innocence to the District Court, neither is it inconsistent with an agreement by the parties to submit on an agreed statement of facts a motion for reconsideration of the motion to dismiss the information, which the District Court had previously denied. This factual uncertainty, unless somehow clarified, would lead me to deny certiorari in this case in order that this Court not render an advisory opinion on what may be an important double jeopardy question.
The Court of Appeals, proceeding on the hypothesis that the case had been submitted to the District Court for a determination of guilt or innocence, as well as the sufficiency of the information, decided that jeopardy had attached. It therefore proceeded to inquire whether a reversal of the District Court’s dismissal of the information would require further factual determinations, and therefore constitute double jeopardy under United States v. Jenkins, 420 U. S. 358 (1975), or would instead be governed by United States v. Wilson, 420 U. S. 332 (1975).
I agree with the Court that the Court of Appeals’ alignment of this case with Wilson rather than with Jenkins was conclusory and gave too little attention to the ways in which this case differs from Wilson. But I do' not think the opposite result is so obvious as to warrant summary disposition. In deciding the question of law which this case poses, I do not think we can ignore three double jeopardy decisions which have intervened since the Jenkins-Wilson-Serfass (Serfass v. United States, 420 U. S. 377 (1975)) trilogy of two years ago. United States v. Dinitz, 424 U. S. 600 (1976), *680qualified the “manifest necessity” requirement of United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat. 579 (1824), where a mistrial was granted at the request of the defendant. Its stress on the absence of prosecutorial overreaching or misconduct, while in no way inconsistent with that trilogy, nonetheless emphasized more of a balancing and fairness test than the sort of “bright line” distinction set forth in Wilson and Jenkins. United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U. S. 564 (1977), and Lee v. United States, 432 U. S. 23 (1977), likewise read more in terms of balancing and of “double jeopardy values” than in terms of the strict Wilson-Jenkins distinction.
If there has been some shift in emphasis in the Court’s cases this Term, it seems to me that the submission of the issue of guilt or innocence on an agreed statement of facts not only factually distinguishes this case from Jenkins, but is a factor to be weighed in any balancing test against a finding of double jeopardy. We have held that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars repeated prosecutions not only to reduce the possibility that an innocent man will finally be convicted, but to avoid subjecting defendants “to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling [them] to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity . . . .” Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, 187-188 (1957). See United States v. Jorn, 400 U. S. 470, 479 (1971). Since if the Court’s factual hypothesis is right, the facts of this case are not in issue, not only is some of the embarrassment and ordeal absent, but the expense that would normally be involved in a full-scale retrial with its calling of witnesses for both sides is likewise avoided.
The factual uncertainties in this case are not entirely unrelated to the double jeopardy questions involved. Because we have never decided a case involving double jeopardy claims where the issue of guilt or innocence was submitted to the court on an agreed statement of facts without the calling of any witnesses, we have never had occasion to pass on *681when jeopardy attaches in such a situation. Assuming that the factual uncertainties in the procedural history of the case can be clarified, and that the issue of guilt or innocence was submitted to the trial judge, I do not believe this case is controlled by Jenkins. The double jeopardy issues which it raises are not as straightforward as suggested in the Court’s summary disposition. If the Court feels this case should be decided on the merits, I would therefore grant certiorari and have it briefed and argued.