Court Opinion

ID: 9796679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:02:30.629137+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:54.974765
License: Public Domain

LUMPKIN, Vice Presiding Judge:
specially concurs.
T1 I concur in the Court's decision to affirm the judgment and sentence with respect to Count I, and agree with the reversal with instructions to dismiss Count II. Today's Summary Opinion applies the plain language of the statute and our decision in Watkins v. State, 1991 OK CR 119, 829 P.2d 42, opinion on rehearing, 1992 OK CR 34, 855 P.2d 141.
{2 As we explained in Watkins, the issue lies with the plain language of the statute in question, not with the applicability of double jeopardy or double punishment principles. With the publication of Watkins more than a decade ago, this Court put the Oklahoma Legislature on notice of how we would interpret the statute and what simple actions would need to be taken if the Legislature desired for separate charges to arise out of a single possession-that is, to amend each of the statutes to provide that possession of separate types of CDS at the same time constitutes separate offenses. Many years have come and gone since then, and the Legislature has declined to make those amendments, thereby confirming this Court's interpretation. Legislatures, not Courts, prescribe the scope of punishment. See Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 365, 108 S.Ct. 673, 677 74 L.Ed.2d 535 (1988). Until those amendments are made, this Court is bound to apply the plain language of the statutes.