Court Opinion

ID: 9457006
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:09:40.600343+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:11.013368
License: Public Domain

AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge,
(dissenting) :
I dissent from the decision to remand this case to the District Court for re-sentencing. I would affirm the judgment and sentence in all respects.
Appellant Mori was indicted and convicted on two counts of conspiracy. Count 1 charged a conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371, the general conspiracy statute, to violate 18 U.S.C. § 1952, the Travel Act; count 3 charged a conspiracy under 21 U.S.C. § 174, the Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act. The majority, relying on Braverman v. United States, 317 U.S. 49, 63 S.Ct. 99, 87 L.Ed. 23 (1942), holds that the indictment charged a single agreement constituting a single offense for which only a single punishment could be imposed. In my view, American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U.S. 781, 66 S.Ct. 1125, 90 L.Ed. 1575 (1946), a more recent case in which the Supreme Court distinguished and limited Braverman, is more directly in point. On the authority of American Tobacco and Gore v. United States, 357 U.S. 386, 78 S.Ct. 1280, 2 L.Ed.2d 1405 (1958), I would hold that Mori was indicted and convicted of two separate offenses for which it was proper to impose cumulative punishment.
In Braverman, the defendants were indicted on seven counts under the general conspiracy statute, each charging a conspiracy to violate a different criminal provision of the Internal Revenue Code relating to moonshining. The jury convicted on all counts, and the Judge imposed consecutive sentences. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case for resentencing holding that a single agreement in violation of the general conspiracy statute constituted a single offense for which no more than one punishment could be imposed.
The instant case, as the Government aptly points out, differs from Braver-man in that the conduct for which Mori was indicted and convicted constituted a violation of two separate and distinct conspiracy provisions of the United States Code. In American Tobacco the Supreme Court distinguished Braverman on the same ground. The defendants in American Tobacco were charged with (among other things) conspiracies punishable under separate conspiracy provisions of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The defendants argued that their conviction on both conspiracy counts constituted double jeopardy or the imposition of unwarranted multiple punishment, relying on Braverman. The Supreme Court rejected the claim, stating (328 U.S. at 788, 66 S.Ct. at 1128-1129):
In contrast to the single conspiracy described in that case in separate counts, all charged under the general conspiracy statute * * *, we have here separate statutory offenses, one a conspiracy in restraint of trade that may stop short of monopoly, and the other a conspiracy to monopolize that may not be content with restraint short of monopoly. One is made criminal by § 1 and the other by § 2 of the Sherman Act.
In this case, as in American Tobacco, two separate conspiracy provisions in different statutes are involved, and they require different proof. Count 1 of the indictment charges a conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371 to travel in foreign commerce for unlawful purposes in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1952. The travel element is unique to this count; proof of this element is immaterial to count 3, which charges a conspiracy under 21 U.S.C. § 174 to import and conceal narcotics. Compare United States v. Samuel Dunkel & Co., 2 Cir., 1950, 184 F.2d 894, in which the Second Circuit sustained the imposition of two sentences for a single agreement to defraud the Government, one under the general conspiracy statute, *248the other under a specific conspiracy-statute requiring “overlapping” but not identical proof.
The question whether an agreement which violates two separate federal conspiracy statutes constitutes two separate offenses is one to be resolved by reference to Congressional intent. See Milanovich v. United States, 365 U.S. 551, 554, 81 S.Ct. 728, 729-730, 5 L.Ed.2d 773 (1961); Callanan v. United States, 364 U.S. 587, 596-597, 81 S.Ct. 321, 326-327, 5 L.Ed.2d 312 (1961); Heflin v. United States, 358 U.S. 415, 419-420, 79 S.Ct. 451, 453-454, 3 L.Ed.2d 407 (1958); Gore v. United States, 357 U.S. 386, 388-392, 78 S.Ct. 1280, 1282-1284, 2 L.Ed.2d 1405 (1958); Prince v. United States, 352 U.S. 322, 325-329, 77 S.Ct. 403, 405-407, 1 L.Ed.2d 370 (1957); Note, Developments in the Law: Criminal Conspiracy, 72 Harv.L.Rev. 920, 964-66 (1966).1
Part of Congress’s purpose in enacting 18 U.S.C. § 1952 was to assist State governments in combating interstate racketeering operations violative of State law. See United States v. Nardello, 393 U.S. 286, 292, 89 S.Ct. 534, 538, 21 L.Ed.2d 487 (1969); H.R.Rep. No. 966, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. (1961), in 1961 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin.News at p. 2664. However, Congress broadened the scope of Section 1952 to encompass travel in foreign commerce for the purpose of carrying on activities violative of federal law. Only certain classes of federal offenses, narcotics offenses among them, are reached under Section 1952. In this respect, Section 1952 should be viewed, as the Supreme Court read the statutes involved in Gore v. United States, supra, as evidencing a determination on the part of Congress “to turn the screw of the criminal machinery — detection, prosecution and punishment — tighter and tighter” on illicit traffic in narcotics. 357 U.S. at 390, 78 S.Ct. at 1283. Section 1952 and 21 U.S.C. § 174 were enacted at different times, “to the end of dealing more and more strictly with, and seeking to throttle more and more by different legal devices,” the international drug trade. See Gore v. United States, supra, 357 U.S. at 391, 78 S.Ct. at 1284. I find nothing from which to infer that Congress intended that conspiracy to import narcotics and conspiracy to travel to this country for the purpose of carrying on an illegal business enterprise involving narcotics should be treated as a single crime. Thus I would hold that counts 1 and 3 of the indictment under which appellant Mori was convicted state two distinct federal offenses, and would affirm the judgment and sentence of the District Court.

. The majority in this case relies on a sentence from American Tobáceo invoking the old “same evidence” test as stated in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932). See Note, 67 Yale L.Rev. 916, 921-24 (1958); Comment, Statutory Implementation of Double Jeopardy Clauses, 65 Yale L.Rev. 339, 347-49 (1956). In more recent decisions the Supreme Court has all but abandoned the same evidence test, in favor of the test of Congressional intent. See especially Gore v. United States, cited in text, in which the majority, over a vigorous dissent by Mr. Justice Brennan, reaches a result which the same evidence test would not permit, and reinterprets Blockburger itself as a case which turned on Congressional intent.