Court Opinion

ID: 9665699
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:55:17.140535+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:16.251913
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(dissenting). I dissent because no litigant, including the people, should be permitted to *30split his cause of action and because, on the facts of this case, the jury’s verdict at the conclusion of the first trial finding, and I quote from the majority opinion, that “Walter Noth did not shoot and kill Ernest Schaaf in the perpetration of, or the attempt to perpetrate'the felony of rape” bars the people from proving at the second trial that Noth did rape Mrs. Schaaf.
There was but one criminal episode. The evidence introduced at Noth’s second trial was essentially the same as that introduced at the first. Both at the first and at the second trials the people’s evidence tended to prove that Noth raped Mrs. Schaaf and about five minutes earlier had killed her husband.
The jury at the first trial ameliorated Noth’s guilt by acquitting him of the charged offense, first-degree murder, and finding him guilty of manslaughter. He was sentenced to serve a prison term of 14-1/2 to 15 years, the maximum sentence for that offense under the statute. Dissatisfied with that result, the people brought Noth to trial a second time, this time for rape. The second jury took a less sympathetic view and Noth was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison.
Walter Noth, although convicted of manslaughter at his first trial, successfully defended himself against a possible life sentence at that trial. The people are no more entitled to a second chance before a second jury than any other litigant and, whatever formula of words and legal niceties are chosen to justify affording the people a second opportunity to obtain conviction for an offense punishable by a life sentence, that is in essence what was done here.
In Ashe v. Swenson (1970), 397 US 436 (90 S Ct 1189, 25 L Ed 2d 469), a number of men, engaged in a poker game, were robbed by masked gunmen. *31The United States Supreme Court held that the doctrine of collateral estoppel was an aspect of the Fifth Amendment guarantee against double jeopardy and that, since Ashe had been acquitted at the first trial of being one of the gunmen who had robbed one of the men at the poker game, he could not be tried on a charge of robbing another of the men at the game. Manifestly, the issue that had been tried at the first trial was whether Ashe was one of the gunmen. Accordingly, the State could not properly retry that question simply because technically the robbery of each man at the poker table was a separate offense.
My colleagues write: “Collateral estoppel, as an ingredient of the Fifth Amendment double jeopardy clause, clearly guarantees that no person shall be ‘subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy’ ”. (Emphasis by the Court.)
The language quoted above is, indeed, taken verbatim from the Fifth Amendment itself, but it is clearly an oversimplification to reason, in opposition to Ashe v. Swenson, supra, that the Double Jeopardy Clause “does not guarantee that a person may not be prosecuted for two separate offenses occurring at two separate times and involving two separate persons even though closely aligned in point of time”.
Technical distinctions as to what constitutes a “separate offense” and “a separate time” deprive the constitutional guarantee of any meaningful significance.
No doubt, some interval of time intervened between the extraction of the money from each of the separate victims in Ashe v. Swenson. Although, theoretically, there were five separate offenses (one for each victim) and the transaction was also divisible into separate time sequences, the doctrine of *32collateral estoppel was held to preclude a second trial.
In my opinion, the proper inquiry is whether the matter sought to be litigated has been tried before. The first case against Walter Noth was tried on the people’s theory that Mr. Schaaf was killed in the perpetration of a rape or attempted rape upon his wife. The people asked the jury to look at what occurred as one continuum of events and to find that the murder and the rape were tied together. Having pressed that position and failed, the people should not be permitted to try the matter again under a different label.
Noth was required to defend himself at the first trial against the people’s claim that he had raped Mrs. Schaaf. The judge charged the first jury that if it found that Noth killed Mrs. Schaaf’s husband while attempting to rape her it could convict him of first-degree murder. The question of rape or attempted rape was tried at the first trial. The essence of the constitutional guarantee embodied in the Double Jeopardy Clause is that the accused person should not be required to run the gauntlet but once, he may not be exposed but once to the “risk or hazard of conviction”.1
I recognize that the first jury might have acquitted Walter Noth of felony murder because it found that when he killed Ernest Schaaf he was not attempting to rape Schaaf’s wife. That, although Noth entered the woods looking for a woman, he did not decide *33to rape Mrs. Schaaf until after he had killed her husband. If the first jury so found, it might have both acquitted Noth of felony murder and convicted him of rape, had a count charging rape been before it. It was not, however, Noth’s doing that the first jury did not have the opportunity to convict him of rape. The people have only themselves to blame for their failure to charge him with both murder and rape in separate counts and try him for both offenses at the same time.2 Having* chosen to try Noth for murder alone, the people should not be heard now to say that the first jury might have convicted him of rape if the people had added a count for rape.
Moreover, the real issue is not what the first jury decided; the real issue is whether Noth was twice put in jeopardy. Whether he was previously put in jeopardy should not depend on the form of the charge or on what the jury found, but the substance *34of the matter. The question of whether Noth raped or attempted to rape Mrs. Schaaf was submitted to the first jury and he was clearly put in jeopardy on that question; the jury was told that if it found that Noth had raped or attempted to rape Mrs. Schaaf he could be convicted of first-degree murder. Clearly a finding by the first jury adverse to him on the question whether he raped or attempted to rape Mrs. Schaaf would have jeopardized Noth. It is empty to argue that he was not in jeopardy at the first trial on the rape question merely because he could not have been convicted of rape as a separate offense because the people chose not to charge him formally with the offense of rape.
The Double Jeopardy Clause should not be reduced to an abstraction. Just as juries sometimes convict the innocent, they sometimes acquit the guilty. The essence of the Double Jeopardy Clause is that even if a man is erroneously acquitted he cannot be tried again.
In Ashe v. Swenson, Mr. Justice Brennan, in a separate opinion also signed by Justices Douglas and Marshall, declared that even if Ashe’s second prosecution had not been barred by the doctrine of collateral estoppel, it could not be maintained because it grew out of the same criminal episode as the first. He expressed the view that (pp 453, 454):
“ * * * the Double Jeopardy Clause requires the prosecution, except in most limited circumstances, to join at one trial all the charges against a defendant that grow out of a single criminal act, occurrence, episode or transaction. This ‘same transaction’ test of ‘same offence’ not only enforces the ancient prohibition against vexatious multiple prosecutions embodied in the Double Jeopardy Clause, but responds as well to the increasingly widespread recognition that the consolidation in one lawsuit of all issues arising out of a single trans*35action or occurrence best promotes justice, economy, and convenience.”
In expressing that view, he recognized that the test of “same offense” most commonly adopted is the “same evidence” test but, he said, the same evidence test “does not enforce but virtually annuls the constitutional guarantee” (pp 451, 452):
“For example, where a single criminal’ episode involves several victims, under the ‘same evidence’ test a separate prosecution may be brought as to each. E.g., State v. Hoag (1956), 21 NJ 496 (122 A2d 628), aff’d (1958), 356 US 464 (78 S Ct 829, 2 L Ed 2d 913). The ‘same evidence’ test permits multiple prosecutions where a single transaction is divisible into chronologically discrete crimes. E.g., Johnson v. Commonwealth (1923), 201 Ky 314 (256 SW 388) (each of 75 poker hands a separate ‘offense’). Even a single criminal act may lead to multiple prosecutions if it is viewed from the perspectives of different statutes. E.g., State v. Elder (1879), 65 Ind 282. Given the tendency of modern criminal legislation to divide the phases of a criminal transaction into numerous separate crimes, the opportunities for multiple prosecutions for an essentially unitary criminal episode are frightening. And given our tradition of virtually unreviewable prosecutorial discretion concerning the initiation and scope of a criminal prosecution, the potentialities for abuse inherent in the ‘same evidence’ test are simply intolerable.”
Like many other unsound rules of law, the “same evidence” test of “same offense” goes back to an old case, The King v. Vandercomb (1796), 2 Leach 708, 720 (168 Eng Rep 455, 461), decided after the adoption of the Bill of Rights. The English no longer follow their dubious precedent. See Connelly v. Director of Public Prosecutions [1964] AC *361254, 1353,3 where the following appears in the report:
“There is another factor to he considered, and that is the courts’ duty to conduct their proceedings so as to command the respect and confidence of the public. For this purpose it is absolutely necessary that issues of fact that are substantially the same should, whenever practicable, he tried by the same tribunal and at the same time. Human judgment is not infallible. Two judges or two juries may reach different conclusions on the same evidence, and it would not be possible to say that one is nearer than the other to the correct. Apart from human fallibility the differences may be accounted for by differences in the evidence. No system of justice can guarantee that every judgment is right, but it can and should do its best to secure that there are not conflicting judgments in the same matter. Suppose that in the present case the appellant had first been acquitted of robbery and then convicted of murder. Inevitably doubts would be felt about the soundness of the conviction. That is why every system of justice is bound to insist upon the finality of the judgment arrived at by a due process of law. It is quite inconsistent with that principle that the Crown should be entitled to re-open again and again what is in effect the same matter.”
The “same transaction” test has been followed by courts in other jurisdictions. 4 New Jersey appellate *37courts have held that a prior prosecution for murder arising out of a robbery whether it results in conviction5 or acquittal6 bars a subsequent prosecution for the robbery.
The Michigan Supreme Court has said as much:
“Robbery is an essential ingredient of that class of first-degree murder defined in our statute, 3 Comp Laws 1929, § 16708. The robbery and murder are held to be a single criminal act. Therefore an acquittal of either robbery or murder is a bar to the conviction for the other. So if Harry Leighton, the victim of the robbery, had been killed, and the defendant had been acquitted of his murder, such acquittal would have been a bar to his prosecution for robbery. But in perpetrating the robbery in question, the person killed was a customer who entered the store during the progress of the robbery. Whether he was shot during the robbery the evidence does not show. For aught that appears in the record, he may have been killed designedly after the robbery for the purpose of eliminating him as a witness. In other words, there is no showing that the robbery and murder, which were not directed against the same person, were the product of a single criminal act. While the facts of the killing-are not shown, it is significant that the information charging the murder of which defendant was acquitted was not laid under the statute which makes killing during- the perpetration of a robbery murder in the first degree. It charged first-degree murder as of the common law. It charged that defendant *38‘feloniously, wilfully, and of malice aforethought did kill and murder one Mike Vunjak.’ It made no reference to the statute and no mention of robbery.7 The murder was in some way connected with the robbery, but whether it was the same transaction or a separate and distinct criminal act does not appear. For these reasons the plea of autrefois acquit is not sufficient, and should be denied.” People v. Miccichi (1933), 264 Mich 581, 583, 584.
Here the killing preceded the rape and, thus, the distinction made in Miccichi, where the Court said that the killing’ of the customer after the robbery may have been unconnected with the robbery for the purpose of eliminating a witness, is not apposite. Noth’s purpose was to obtain a woman and, thus, the offense which here was second in chronological sequence was not a separate and independent transaction.
Here there can be no question but that the rape and the murder “were the product of a single criminal act” and that the killing and the rape were but two aspects of “the same transaction” and, there*39fore, in this case the plea of autrefois acquit is sufficient.
The rule against splitting a cause of action is well established in civil actions. All claims which the plaintiff has or could assert against the defendant arising out of a transaction must be asserted or they will be barred by the doctrine of res judicata.
“In order to limit litigation and to prevent multiplicity of suits, the rule against splitting a single cause of action was designed. Under such rule, an entire claim or demand arising out of a single transaction, whether in the nature of contract or tort, cannot be divided into separate and distinct claims, and the same form of action brought for each, or two suits maintained, without consent of the defendant. In other words, a plaintiff must present his whole cause of action in one suit.” 1 Michigan Law and Practice Encyclopedia, § 22, p 133.
“The plea of res judicata applies, except in special cases, not only to points upon which the court was actually required by the parties to form an opinion and pronounce a judgment, but to every point which properly belonged to the subject of litigation, and which the parties, exercising reasonable diligence, might have brought forward at the time.” Gursten v. Kenney (1965), 375 Mich 330, 335.
Thus, the majority of jurisdictions, including Michigan, hold that all injuries to the person and the property of an individual resulting from a single act or transaction give rise to but one cause of action, the judgment in which will bar all future claims brought for the same act or transaction.8 Damage *40to separate parcels of real property caused by the defendant’s same wrongful act permit only one cause of action in favor of the aggrieved landowner.9 A single wrongful act, even though it injures different kinds of property or several pieces of property, gives rise to a single cause of action, and, if separate actions are brought, a recovery on the one claim will bar recovery for the remainder.10 Where several claims or demands arise under an indivisible contract, there is but one cause of action and the defendant may not be harassed by a multiplicity of suits.11 Merely changing the theory of a unitary cause of action will not defeat the doctrine of res judicata.12
One would think that standards as high as those applied in civil litigation to avoid relitigation, harassment, and multiplicity of actions, would be applied without hesitation in the enforcement of the constitutional right of the citizen secured by the Double Jeopardy Clause in the Bill of Bights.

 In Price v. Georgia (1970), 398 US 323 (90 S Ct 1757, 26 L Ed 2d 300), the United States Supreme Court declared (p 331) “The Double Jeopardy Clause, as we have noted, is east in terms of the risk or hazard of conviction, not of the ultimate legal consequences of the verdict.” Earlier in the opinion the Court said that (p 329) the Constitution emphasizes “risk of conviction” and that “the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment is written in terms of potential or risk of conviction, not punishment.”

 “The rule in regard to the joinder of counts in an information or indictment is, that, if different counts are based on the same transaction, so that any one of them, upon the trial, may be found to meet the evidence, the court will not interfere as the object is a legitimate one. It is a proceeding calculated to promote justice, and cannot confuse or prejudice the accused. When, however, it is apparent that the object is to prosecute for separate offenses, not based on the same transaction, the court will not permit it to be done.” 1 Gillespie, Michigan Criminal Law and Procedure (2d ed), § 371, p 443.
In People v. Andrus (1951), 331 Mich 535, 540, the defendant was tried under a two-eount information, the first charging the crime of murder and the second robbery not being armed with a dangerous weapon. The defendant did not object to the joinder of the counts in the information but sought unsuccessfully to require the prosecutor to elect on which count he would rely before the case was submitted to the jury. The Michigan Supreme Court rejected the defendant’s claim of error, saying that it “overlooks the fact that the people necessarily relied on proof of identical facts and circumstances in support of each count.”
It has been suggested that the joinder of multiple offenses based on the same conduct or arising from the same criminal episode should be compulsory (ALI, Model Penal Code, § 1.07; Study Draft of a New Federal Criminal Code, § 703) or an option of the defendant (ABA Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to Joinder and Severance, § 1.3). See Comment, Twice in Jeopardy, 75 Yale L J 262 (1965).

 Connelly was charged with committing a murder during a robbery. He was acquitted and then tried and convicted of robbery. His conviction was affirmed by the House of Lords because an existing procedural rule had prevented joinder of the murder and robbery charges. That rule was changed prospectively. In Michigan the rule for a long time has been that counts for murder and robbery can be joined if both charges arise out of the same transaction. See fn 2.

 See, e.g., Walton v. State (Tenn Crim App, 1969), 448 SW2d 690; People, ex rel. Micieli, v. Webster (1945), 269 App Div 887 (56 NYS2d 155); Burnam v. State (1907), 2 Ga App 395 (58 SB 683); State v. Bell (1933), 205 NC 225 (171 SE 50).

 State v. Fitzsimmons (1960), 60 NJ Super 230 (158 A2d 731). See, also, Doggett v. State (1936), 130 Tex Crim 208 (93 SW2d 399). (Defendant previously convicted of armed robbery cannot later be prosecuted for murder which was part of the same transaction.)

 State v. Greeley (1954), 30 NJ Super 180 (103 A2d 639), affirmed (1954), 31 NJ Super 542 (107 A2d 439). See, also, State v. Bell (1933), 205 NC 225 (171 SE 50). (Prior acquittal of charge of conspiracy to rob held bar to subsequent prosecution for murder where attempted robbery and homicide grew out of same transaction.)

 In this case, as in Miccichi, the first information charged that the killing was committed “feloniously, wilfully and of malice aforethought” and did not mention that the killing was committed in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of another crime (robbery in Miccichi, rape in this case).
The intimation in the Supreme Court’s opinion in Miccichi that the failure to charge felony murder in the information is a factor to be considered in deciding what was tried is inconsistent with other decisions of the Court. Convictions of first-degree murder have been affirmed even though the information was in the form of the informations filed in this and in the Miccichi cases where the people’s proofs established that the killing was committed during the perpetration or attempted perpetration of a felony mentioned in the first-degree statute and the defendant had not objected to the trial of that issue on the ground that an information charging merely that the killing was committed with malice aforethought charges only second-degree murder or on the ground that he was not examined and bound over for first-degree murder. See People v. Page (1917), 198 Mich 524; People v. Carlton Brown (1970), 23 Mich App 528. That being the established rule, the form of the information is of no importance in deciding the double jeopardy question. The question is what was tried, not what was the form of the information.

 Tuttle v. Everhot Heater Co. (1933), 264 Mich 60; Wolverine Insurance Co. v. Klomparens (1935), 273 Mich 493; Worth v. Wagner (1931), 255 Mich 433; Coniglio v. Wyoming Valley Fire Insurance Company (1953), 337 Mich 38; Moultroup v. Gorham (1943), 113 Vt 317 (34 A2d 96); Fisher v. Hill (1951), 368 Pa 53 (81 A2d 860); Krasner v. O’Dell (1954), 89 Ga App 718 (80 SE2d 852); Warner v. Hedrick (1962), 147 W Va 262 (126 SE2d 371).

 Szostak v. Chevrolet Motor Co. (1937), 279 Mich 603.

 Gloss v. Jacobs (1952), 86 Ga App 161 (71 SE2d 253); Vane v. C. Hoffberger Company (1950), 196 Md 450 (77 A2d 152); Chicago, I. & L. R. Co. v. Ramsey (1907), 168 Ind 390 (81 NE 79); Thisler v. Miller (1894), 53 Kan 515 (36 P 1060).

 Kruce v. Lakeside Biscuit Co. (1917), 198 Mich 736; Dutton v. Shaw (1877), 35 Mich 431.

 Bocinski v. Krzeminski (1931), 253 Mich 48; Swindlehurst v. American Fidelity Fire Insurance Company (1966), 2 Mich App 329; Corkins v. Ritter (1950), 326 Mich 563; Evans v. Horton (1953), 115 Cal App 2d 281 (251 P2d 1013); Woodson v. Woodson (Fla, 1956), 89 So 2d 665; Stucker v. County of Muscatine (1958), 249 Iowa 485 (87 NW2d 452).