Court Opinion

ID: 9648364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:16:21.246447+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:59.180189
License: Public Domain

On Motion For Rehearing

WELLIVER, Judge.
Motion for rehearing was granted solely upon the issue of whether or not conviction for armed criminal action, § 559.225, RSMo Supp.1976, and robbery in the first degree with a dangerous and deadly weapon, §§ 560.120, RSMo 1969, and 560.135, RSMo Supp.1975, arising out of the same transaction, violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution based upon reexamination of the case in light of Albernaz v. United States, 450 U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 1137, 67 L.Ed.2d 275 (1981).
*49On January 15, 1980, this Court in Sours v. State, 593 S.W.2d 208 (Mo.banc 1980) (hereafter Sours I) held that conviction under both of these statutes for acts arising out of the same transaction constituted double jeopardy under the United States Constitution. Double jeopardy under our own Constitution, Article I, Section 19, is limited to prosecution or conviction only after having been “once acquitted.”
On May 27, 1980, the United States Supreme Court vacated Sours I and remanded the case for consideration in light of Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 63 L.Ed.2d 715 (1980). Missouri v. Sours, 446 U.S. 962, 100 S.Ct. 2935, 64 L.Ed.2d 820 (1980).
On August 18, 1980, this Court reconsidered Sours I in light of Whalen and issued its opinion in State v. Sours, 603 S.W.2d 592 (Mo.banc 1980) (hereafter Sours II), which opinion is attached as Appendix I to this opinion.1
On January 26,1981, in Missouri v. Sours, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 953, 67 L.Ed.2d 118 (1981) (Sours II), the United States Supreme Court denied the application of the State of Missouri for certiorari. The Missouri courts of appeals continued to rule a number of cases based upon the authority of Sours II. After March 23, 1981, the United States Supreme Court granted cer-tiorari on several of these courts of appeals cases and remanded them together with three by this Court “for further consideration in light of Albernaz ....” 2
In view of the number of cases involved and for the purpose of avoiding the delays which would result in waiting for mandates, transfers of the cases to this Court, and docketing and hearing in this Court, we chose the instant case as the vehicle for accomplishing the reexamination “in light of Albernaz.” We granted the motion for rehearing and limited briefs and arguments to “examination in light of Albernaz.” The parties, public defenders and prosecutors were invited to participate in briefing and arguing the issue on May 27, 1981.

Reexamination in Light of Albernaz

Having traversed the almost identical stormy course as that of our brothers in Delaware, we too perceive ourselves as sailing toward the “Sargasso Sea” 3 mentioned *50in Albernaz and described in Hunter v. Delaware, 430 A.2d 476 (Del.1981).
Our reading of Albernaz persuades us that the United States Supreme Court was dealing with two separate crimes each involving proof of an element different from and not included in the other. Our case and its predecessors, Sours I and Sours II, are distinguishable from Albernaz for the reason that having proved every fact and element necessary to prove robbery with a dangerous and deadly weapon, you have proved every element and every fact required for proof of armed criminal action. We are in complete agreement with the Hunter court that “The definitive ultimate and penultimate sentences of Albernaz are dicta, unnecessary to reach the Court’s conclusion in that case; ...” 430 A.2d at 480 (emphasis in original).
We are not without understanding of the frustration of the Hunter court when in seeming desperation they concluded:
The cloud thus remaining over the law of double jeopardy notwithstanding, we must consider ourselves bound by the majority rule now apparently emerging out of the ‘Sargasso Sea’ and manifesting itself in the last paragraphs of Albernaz. Although dicta, the emergence of the evolving rule stands unmistakably clear by virtue of the vote of 6 to 3, cast in the face of the flat contradiction of the concurring Justices, including the author of Whalen.
Applying the rule of Albernaz to the instant case, we now hold that where the General Assembly intended, as we have found that it did in § 613(1) and § 1447, to impose multiple punishments for two offenses not satisfying the Blockburger [v. U. S., 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306] test, imposition of two consecutive sentences by a court as a result of a single criminal trial does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The Hunter majority in this Court reluctantly follows the evolving rule of the majority of the United States Supreme Court in Albernaz. The Rule of Supremacy prevails on this issue, however, and trusting, as we must, that the dicta in Albernaz will soon become the clear and unquestioned rule of law to be followed, we now hold as follows in the instant case: Our conclusion ‘that § 1447 creates an offense distinct from the underlying § 613(1) felony of Assault First Degree, and that it was the legislative intent to subject this defendant to multiple penalties for the single criminal act in which she engaged,’ [Hunter v. State, Del.Super.] 420 A.2d [119] at 124, is determinative upon the issue of double jeopardy. It follows therefrom that the imposition of multiple sentences upon the defendant for the two offenses in this case does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Any statement contrary to the above, contained in the previous Hunter opinions of this Court, is hereby abandoned.
The judgment below now stands
AFFIRMED.
430 A.2d at 481 (footnote omitted).
In Sours I, a case identical to this case, we followed what we perceived to be the teaching of Illinois v. Vitale, 447 U.S. 410, 100 S.Ct. 2260, 65 L.Ed.2d 228 (1980); Simpson v. United States, 435 U.S. 6, 98 S.Ct. 909, 55 L.Ed.2d 70 (1978); Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682, 97 S.Ct. 2912, 53 L.Ed.2d 1054 (1977); Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977); Jeffers v. United States, 432 U.S. 137, 97 S.Ct. 2207, 53 L.Ed.2d 168 (1977); Iannelli v. United States, 420 U.S. 770, 95 S.Ct. 1284, 43 *51L.Ed.2d 616 (1975); North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969); and Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), and held that conviction on both the offense of armed criminal action and the offense of robbery with a dangerous and deadly weapon constituted multiple punishment for the same offense arising out of a single transaction and was violative of the double jeopardy clause of the fifth amendment. When Sours I was vacated by the United States Supreme Court and we were directed to reexamine the case in light of Whalen, we concluded that the unique wording of the Missouri statutes and clear, positive and unequivocal intent of the legislature to authorize multiple punishments did not leave us the same option which the Court had in Whalen —that of finding that Congress intended not to twice punish thereby permitting the Court to reserve the constitutional question of double jeopardy. We concluded that we had no alternative other than to meet the double jeopardy issue. We concluded that we should affirm our prior holding that multiple punishment for the same offense was violative of the double jeopardy clause as we believed it to be construed by Vitale, Simpson, Harris, Brown, Jeffers, Iannelli, Pearce and Blockburger. On January 26, 1981, the United States Supreme Court entered its order denying the petition of the state for certiorari in Sours II. Following the same reasoning expressed by the Hunter court, a large majority of the United States Supreme Court tacitly, if not in fact, sustained our position as stated in Sours II. Only Justices Blackmun and Rehnquist noted that they “would dismiss the petition for a writ of certiorari as moot.” - U.S. at -, 101 S.Ct. at 953, 67 L.Ed.2d at 118.
Under these circumstances we are again compelled to affirm our prior position, as expressed in Sours II, and hold that by enactment of these two statutes the Missouri legislature intended to twice punish the appellant, and that such multiple punishments for the same offense arising out of the same transaction violates the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Until such time as the Supreme Court of the United States declares clearly and unequivocally that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution does not apply to the legislative branch of government, we cannot do other than what we perceive to be our duty to refuse to enforce multiple punishments for the same offense arising out of a single transaction.
The Division One opinion of Welborn, C., heretofore adopted by the Court en banc as its principal opinion, is upon this rehearing again adopted as the opinion of the Court en banc. Upon reexamination of the case in light of Albernaz, we conclude that the judgment of conviction on Count II for armed criminal action must be reversed as set forth in the principal opinion. The Division One opinion of Welborn, C., adopted by the Court en banc as its principal opinion and filed herein March 9, 1981, is now ordered published together with this opinion on rehearing.
Conviction on Count I, affirmed.
Conviction on Count II, reversed.
DONNELLY, C. J., and SEILER, MORGAN, HIGGINS and BARDGETT, JJ., concur.
RENDLEN, J., concurs in part and dissents in part in separate opinion filed.

. Sours II is made an appendix to this opinion in the interest of brevity and for the convenience of the many who are involved in the several cases ruled contemporaneously herewith. The publishers are authorized to incorporate Sours II by reference to its earlier citation in their books.

. See State v. Counselman, 603 S.W.2d 3 (Mo.App.1980); State v. McGee, 602 S.W.2d 709 (Mo.App.1980); State v. Payne, 607 S.W.2d 822 (Mo.App.1980); State v. White, 610 S.W.2d 646 (Mo.App.1980); State v. (Johnny) Williams, 610 S.W.2d 644 (Mo.App.1980), all of which were vacated and remanded to the Court of Appeals, Eastern District, in Missouri v. Counselman, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 1690, 68 L.Ed.2d 190 (1981). See Brown v. State, 607 S.W.2d 801 (Mo.App.1980); State v. Collins, 607 S.W.2d 781 (Mo.App.1980); State v. Hawkins, 608 S.W.2d 496 (Mo.App.1980); State v. (Eddie) Greer, 609 S.W.2d 423 (Mo.App.1980); State v. Martin, 610 S.W.2d 18 (Mo.App.1980), all of which were vacated and remanded to the Court of Appeals, Western District, in Missouri v. Brown, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 1735, 68 L.Ed.2d 222 (1981). See State v. Sinclair, 606 S.W.2d 271 (Mo.App.1980), vacated and remanded to the Court of Appeals, Southern District, in Missouri v. Sinclair, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 3044, 69 L.Ed.2d 415 (1981). See State v. Lowery, 608 S.W.2d 445 (Mo.App.1980), vacated and remanded to the Court of Appeals, Eastern District, in Missouri v. Lowery, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 3044, 69 L.Ed.2d 415 (1981). See State v. (Timothy) Crews, 607 S.W.2d 759 (Mo.App.1980); State v. (Terry) Crews, 607 S.W.2d 729 (Mo.App.1980); State v. Helton, 607 S.W.2d 772 (Mo.App.1980); State v. Tunstall, 607 S.W.2d 809 (Mo. App.1980), all of which were vacated and remanded to the Court of Appeals, Eastern District in Missouri v. Crews, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 3103, 69 L.Ed.2d 968 (1981). In all of the above cases where an application for transfer to this Court was requested, all such applications were denied.
See State v. (Donald) Greer, 605 S.W.2d 93 (Mo.1980); State v. Kendrick, 606 S.W.2d 643 (Mo.1980); and State v. (Rollan Anthony) Williams, 606 S.W.2d 777 (Mo.1980), all of which were vacated and remanded to this Court in Missouri v. Greer, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 3000, 69 L.Ed.2d 385 (1981).

.The Sargasso Sea is a large oval-shaped area of the North Atlantic Ocean set apart by the presence of marine plants, or seaweed, which float on its surface — a region of slow ocean *50currents surrounded by a boundary of rapidly moving currents such as the Gulf Stream and the North Equatorial Current. ‘The early navigators who sailed their small ships to North America saw the Sargasso Sea as patches of gulfweed that seemed to form wide-spreading meadows. Soon there were legends and myths about the region which told of large islands of thickly matted seaweed inhabited by huge monsters of the deep. * * * They pictured a blanket of netted seaweed from which no ship could escape, once it became entangled in the weed. * *’
Id. at 480 n.2, quoting, World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 17, p. 11 (1976).