Court Opinion

ID: 9650859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:53:33.397521+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:08.722590
License: Public Domain

RUTLEDGE, Associate Justice
(concurring) .
I concur in the result, and in the opinion ■except a.s it may imply that no more is necessary in any case, to determine double jeopardy, than to apply the “same or different evidence” test.
That test is useful to spell out the elements of the crimes charged, and therefore to disclose what, if any, difference exists between them. If there is none that ends the matter. But if difference is disclosed there is in my view always another step which must be and is taken either intuitively or with deliberation. That is to weigh the difference to determine whether it is substantial or too minor to be material for purposes of double jeopardy. The court must evaluate as well as spell out the difference, and determine whether the element it affects is sufficiently important in relation to other elements involved in both crimes to justify refusal to apply the constitutional protection.
Usually the difference will be substantial and this will be immediately apparent when the test is applied. In other words, most crimes have substantial differences. But in some instances legislative refinement has defined generically identical offenses with narrow differences in intent or in the means or methods of perpetration, e. g., assault with various specific intents and with variously specified weapons. Some of these differences are substantial, others too slender for, in effect, nullifying the constitutional protection against double jeopardy. When they are so or the question is doubtful, the second step should be taken consciously and deliberately, not ignored or taken automatically as is done when the process stops with applying the “same or different evidence” test. That can only tell what the difference is, not whether it is important enough to prevent operation of the constitutional guaranty.
The “included offense” doctrine is the accepted escape. But it is a confusing and in some instances a contradictory one, in relation to the “same or different evidence” test. By hypothesis there is a “greater” and a “lesser” offense, and therefore a difference in the crimes and in the evidence necessary to prove them. The only logical exception is where the “greater” is defined in general terms, the “lesser” in specific, and the evidence offered to prove the general would prove the specific also. Thus, proof of the use of firearms would sustain “assault with a deadly weapon” as well as “assault with firearms.” In this instance the “same or different evidence” test would disclose the identity of the offenses, but it would not do so if the evidence to prove “assault with a deadly weapon” showed use of an ax. The test therefore is useful only in relation to the evidence actually offered, not in relation to that required to prove the greater offense.
So limited, the test is useful as showing identity when general and specific coincide in actual proof, and difference where they do not. The mere finding that the “greater” offense “includes” the lesser does not end the matter. It is only the first step in ascertaining whether difference exists. After that, it remains to ascertain whether it does on the proof actually tendered and if so, as in other cases, whether it is substantial. Only when the “included offense” doctrine is restricted to the specific application and then is followed by application of the “same or different evidence” test, as in other cases, can the two be reconciled. They are in conflict when it is ascertained merely that the same evidence may sustain the “greater” and the “lesser” offense, and from that the conclusion is drawn they are identical, without reference to whether that evidence is offered in the particular case. The “included offense” exception, as it is usually stated, is therefore too broad to be consistent with “the same or different evidence” test. But when the two are reconciled by restricting the former to application of the latter *22to the evidence actually tendered, the process then becomes the same as in other cases, and when difference is disclosed it must be found, or held implicitly, to be substantial unless the constitutional protection is to be nullified by highly refined legislative discrimination in the definition of crimes.
The legislature should have wide leeway in this function. But, unless the guaranty is meaningless, the power cannot be unlimited. Refinement has gone far in some instances, particularly with reference to minor offenses. On narrow, technical distinctions of method, means and specific intent, men may be convicted of the same general offense once, twice or many times, simultaneously or successively, as the prosecuting officials determine, in their discretion. Some of the refinements are so thin that, if they hold, the old and substantial protection against trial or conviction more than once for the same offense is but a shadow of its intended self.. The “same or different evidence” rule only points out the difference. It puts no. limit to how narrow the legislature can make it. I think the courts have a duty to do that, as well as one to find out whether the legislature has made a difference. In other words, it is for them finally to say whether a distinction prescribed by the legislature is strong enough to overcome the constitutional guaranty. Under the “same or different evidence” test alone, they well nigh abandon that function in some cases where difference is very slight.
In this case the element of intoxication while driving is so different from merely driving on the wrong side of the street while sober that hardly more is necessary than to point out the difference. The too well known consequences of that element for increasing the hazard of driving to all concerned need not be stated. They make the offenses both technically and substantially different. For that reason I concur in the result and in the opinion of the court, with the qualification that the second step should be taken with the same attention as the first when the circumstances require it. Here the offenses charged were clearly and substantially different.