Court Opinion

ID: 9484211
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:44:12.413052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:05.420250
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Chief Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I disagree with the result reached in Part V of the Court’s opinion holding that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar prosecution of Medina for use of the telephone to facilitate a drug transaction. As I understand the case, he was prosecuted in California for possession of the same drugs. The five California telephone calls facilitated the very transaction for which he was convicted in California. Without the facilitating telephone calls there would have been no drug transaction to prosecute in California, as I understand the situation. When telephone calls produce an alleged drug transaction, the government should not be allowed successively to prosecute the defendant for the telephone part of the offense after the defendant is convicted or acquitted of the drug offense underlying the use of the phone. It is true that the telephone count has two elements — drug possession plus use of the telephone to facilitate the drug possession— and the drug count has only one element, possession of drugs. But the two counts charge the same basic wrongful conduct. The core conduct, drug possession, is the same. The use of the phone is wrongful only as it relates to this conduct. This facilitating conduct is a component of the earlier offense, or in the words of the Supreme Court, “conduct that constitutes an offense for which the defendant has already been prosecuted.” Grady v. Corbin, 495 U.S. 508, 521, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 2093, 109 L.Ed.2d 548 (1990).
The old Blockburger test has been modified. As we said in Pandelli v. United States, 635 F.2d 533, 538 (6th Cir.1980):
What the reviewing court must do now in applying Blockburger is go further and look to the legal theory of the case or the elements of the specific criminal cause of action for which the defendant was convicted without examining the facts in detail.
The Court’s modification of the Block-burger test in its original, abstract form arises from a pervasive change in the criminal justice system noted by the Court in previous opinions — the increasing volume, complexity, vagueness and overlapping nature of criminal statutes, [citation omitted] The purpose of the Double Jeopardy Clause is to prevent trials and punishments that do not advance the deterrent and retributive purposes of the criminal justice system. Multiple punishments for multiple crimes or different criminal events advance those ends. Cumulative trials and punishments under several statutes that punish the same basic elements of wrongful conduct have little additional deterrent value but simply impose unnecessary additional pain on the defendant and wasteful costs on society.
There is no valid purpose to be served in allowing successive prosecutions for the telephone part of the offense after the defendant has been earlier prosecuted for the drug possession. I would therefore dismiss the telephone counts and revise the sentencing phase of the case accordingly.