Court Opinion

ID: 9760531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:58:53.531437+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:13.234860
License: Public Domain

McAULIFFE, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result, and in the opinion of the Court except that portion dealing with the application of Grady v. Corbin, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 109 L.Ed.2d 548 (1990). The Court concludes that the test articulated in Grady applies only to double jeopardy questions involved in *470successive prosecutions, and not to those involved in multiple punishments arising out of a single prosecution. I am not willing to say that the Supreme Court has so limited the applicability of the Grady test, or if it has, that this Court will not apply the Grady test to the determination of multiple punishment cases as part of the double jeopardy protection afforded by the common law of this State.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no person shall “be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” This clause protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal, a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction, and multiple punishments for the same offense. Grady, supra, 110 S.Ct. at 2090; Randall Book Corp. v. State, 316 Md. 315, 323, 558 A.2d 715 (1989). The difficult question which consistently arises in the application of the Double Jeopardy Clause in all three areas of protection is the determination of what constitutes “the same offense.” In Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304, 52 S.Ct. 180, 182, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), the Supreme Court held that
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.
Although the Blockburger case involved a question of multiple punishments, and not successive prosecutions, the Blockburger rule has been employed as a nonexclusive test in successive prosecution cases. Grady holds that the Blockburger test, when applied in its original form as a clinical comparison of elements of offenses, affords insufficient protection against successive prosecutions for the same offense. Depending upon one’s interpretation of Grady, it either expanded the Blockburger test generally by requiring a practical consideration of conduct proven to establish elements of offenses, or it constructed a new test that is superimposed upon the Blockburger test in successive prosecution cases. In Gianiny v. State, 320 Md. 337, 341, 577 A.2d 795 (1990), this Court suggested that Grady *471had “expanded” the Blockburger test. The holding of Grady is simply that the expanded, or new, test must be applied to successive prosecution cases. In Grady, the Court may have implied, but did not hold, that this test should not be applied in determining what is “same offense” for multiple punishment purposes.
The Double Jeopardy Clause and our common law of double jeopardy have their roots in very basic notions of essential fairness. It may be argued that there is little justification for having two offenses considered the same for one aspect of double jeopardy protection, but not the same for another aspect of the same basic protection. Application of the Blockburger test in its original form involves a rather sterile approach to the question of what constitutes the same offense. One simply lists in column A the elements required to prove one offense and in column B the elements required to prove the other offense. Then, considering only the elements and not the facts of the particular case, if each column contains an element that the other does not, the offenses are not the same. The Grady modification utilizes a case-oriented approach, adding as flesh to the bare bones of each essential element the conduct used to prove that element, and then comparing the lists of elements so defined.
In comparing the application of the basic Blockburger test with the application of that test enhanced by the Grady approach, consider the question of whether reckless driving and failing to drive to the right of center of a highway are the same offenses. Under the sterile Blockburger approach, they are not. Reckless driving requires proof of recklessness, which the other offense does not. Failing to keep to the right of center requires proof that the defendant drove on the wrong side of the road, but this conduct is not necessarily required to prove reckless driving. On the other hand, if the Grady approach is used, and if it is clear under the facts of a particular case that the State did, or must, rely on proof that the defendant drove on the wrong side of the road in order to prove reckless driving, *472then the two offenses are the “same” for jeopardy purposes. It is still true that proof of reckless driving requires proof of an element, i.e., recklessness, that the other offense does not. It is not true, however, that proof of failing to keep to the right of center requires proof of any element not also required to prove reckless driving, under the particular facts of this case.
The Blockburger test is satisfied only if each offense requires proof of an element that the other does not, and thus the test, when fleshed out by the particular conduct constituting the elements involved in the hypothetical case, is not satisfied. In effect, failing to drive to the right of center is, under the facts of the given case, a lesser included offense of reckless driving. It would seem unfair, in the absence of a demonstrated legislative intent to permit double punishment, to allow the defendant to be sentenced for the lesser included offense and then given a consecutive sentence for the greater offense.
The Supreme Court has not always taken a completely sterile approach to Blockburger in multiple punishment cases. In Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 63 L.Ed.2d 715 (1980), the question was whether the defendant could be separately sentenced for the offense of felony murder and the underlying felony of rape that was used to prove the felony murder. The government argued that the felony murder statute proscribed the killing of another person in the course of committing rape, or robbery, or kidnapping, or arson, etc., and thus, employing the sterile approach of Blockburger, it was not in every instance necessary to prove rape in order to prove felony murder. The Supreme Court did not accept the argument, but looked instead to the particular circumstances of the case before it:
In the present case, however, proof of rape is a necessary element of proof of the felony murder, and we are unpersuaded that this case should be treated differently from *473other cases in which one criminal offense requires proof of every element of another offense.
Id. 445 U.S. at 694, 100 S.Ct. at 1439. (emphasis added).
We need not decide in this case whether the Grady gloss to the Blockburger test applies in multiple punishment cases. We need only assume, arguendo, that it does, and then conclude, for the reasons so well stated in the Court’s opinion, that conspiracy and murder are not the same offense for purposes of jeopardy even when tested under the teachings of Grady. We would then be free to consider, when the issue is squarely presented, whether the Grady approach should be utilized to resolve multiple punishment jeopardy problems.