Court Opinion

ID: 9847394
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:58:56.801765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:09.251296
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Senior Judge,
dissenting.
The majority holds appellant’s previous acquittal on a robbery indictment was effectually an acquittal of the lesser-included offense of petit larceny. Therefore, the majority reasons, because the acquittal necessarily found him not guilty of petit larceny, the collateral estoppel protections of the Double Jeopardy Clause barred the subsequent attempt to convict him for grand larceny from the person of the same property. I, too, believe the subsequent prosecution was barred by double jeopardy protectives. However, in my opinion, appellant’s conviction for grand larceny from the person should be reversed because that crime is a lesser-included offense of the robbery charge for which he was acquitted in the prior trial and would be barred under a Blockburger analysis and not on the basis of collateral estoppel. See my dissenting opinion in Graves v. Commonwealth, 21 Va.App. 161, 167, 462 S.E.2d 902, 905 (1995), aff'd on reh’g en banc, 22 Va.App. 262, 468 S.E.2d 710 (1996). Nevertheless, I am bound by the doctrine of stare decisis, see Commonwealth v. Burns, 240 Va. 171, 174, 395 S.E.2d 456, 457 (1990), and I believe that the majority opinion in Graves allows the appellant to be subsequently tried for an offense which is not lesser included *18as part of the charged offense. Therefore, I vote to affirm appellant’s conviction.
The majority’s reliance on a collateral estoppel analysis is, in my opinion, misplaced. Collateral estoppel, in the context of the Double Jeopardy Clause, is a doctrine of fact preclusion. See Simon v. Commonwealth, 220 Va. 412, 415, 258 S.E.2d 567, 569 (1979). The doctrine precludes the government in a second proceeding from proving a fact that it was necessarily required to prove in the prior proceeding but failed to prove, or from disproving a fact that was necessarily proved in the prior proceeding. Id. at 416, 258 S.E.2d at 570 (“[I]n a subsequent prosecution for an offense arising out of the same transaction, collateral estoppel bars a state’s relitigation of facts that have been decided in the defendant’s favor in the prior trial.... ”). Although the majority asserts that appellant’s acquittal on the robbery charge necessarily operated as a factual finding that appellant did not commit petit larceny (which they acknowledge is a lesser-included offense of robbery), the trial court specifically found only that the evidence failed to establish the element of force necessary for robbery. “[I]n order to bar a subsequent prosecution for a different offense arising out of the same transaction, a necessary element of the offense in the second trial must have been clearly adjudicated in the earlier proceeding.” Id. at 415, 258 S.E.2d at 570. In the prior robbery proceeding, the trial court made no factual finding nor did the general acquittal necessarily make a factual finding that would preclude the Commonwealth from proving the facts essential to establish the elements of grand larceny from the person. Thus, I reject the majority’s collateral estoppel analysis.
Were it not for our holding in Graves that grand larceny from the person is not a lesser-included offense of robbery, I would hold here that the second prosecution of Hudgins was barred by the robbery acquittal under a Blockburger analysis. I continue to believe that larceny from the person is a lesser-included offense of robbery, and I find widespread support for my view from the many jurisdictions that have considered the issue. See, e.g., Ramsey v. State, 441 So.2d 1065, 1067 (Ala.*19Crim.App.1983) (“ ‘[R]obbery [is] ... composed of the crime of larceny from the person with the aggravation of force, actual or constructive, used in the taking.’ ” (quoting 67 Am.Jur.2d Robbery § 7 (1973))); People v. Patton, 76 Ill.2d 45, 27 Ill.Dec. 766, 389 N.E.2d 1174, 1176 (1979) (“In distinguishing between private stealing from the person of another and robbery, ... ‘where it appeared that the article was taken without any sensible or material violence to the person ... rather by sleight of hand and adroitness than by open violence, and without any struggle on his part, — it is merely larceny from the person.’ ” (quoting Hall v. People, 171 Ill. 540, 542-43, 49 N.E. 495 (Ill.1898))); State v. Habhab, 209 N.W.2d 73, 74 (Iowa 1973) (“Larceny from the person ... is an offense included within robbery____”); State v. Long, 234 Kan. 580, 675 P.2d 832, 841 (1984) (“[T]he Crime of [larceny] is an included crime of robbery as a ‘lesser degree of the same crime.’ ”), overruled in part on other grounds, State v. Keeler, 238 Kan. 356, 710 P.2d 1279, 1287 (1985); Commonwealth v. Varney, 690 S.W.2d 758, 759 (Ky.1985) (“ ‘Robbery is a combination of two other crimes (theft and assault) and has been typically defined as “larceny from the person by violence or intimidation.” ’ ” (quoting Commentary to Kansas Penal Code, “KRS Chapter 515, Robbery”)); Commonwealth v. Ahart, 37 Mass.App.Ct. 565, 641 N.E.2d 127, 131 (1994) (“[I]t is settled law that larceny from the person is a lesser included offense of unarmed robbery----”); State v. Harrison, 149 N.J.Super. 220, 373 A.2d 680, 683 (App.Div.1977) (“Larceny from the person ... [is a] lesser included offense[ ] of the crime of robbery.”); State v. Pickard, 143 N.C.App. 485, 547 S.E.2d 102, 106 (2001) (“Larceny from the person has been consistently recognized as a lesser included offense of common law robbery.”); Johnson v. State, 531 S.W.2d 558, 559 (Tenn.1975) (holding accused was entitled to instruction on larceny from the person as a lesser-included offense of robbery); Moore v. State, 55 Wis.2d 1, 197 N.W.2d 820, 823 (1972) (“[L]arceny from the person is a lesser included crime [of robbery].”); cf. State v. Wright, 246 Conn. 132, 716 A.2d 870, 876 (1998) (“[S]imple robbery and larceny from the person constitute two separate and distinct crimes____[A] defendant who has com*20mitted acts satisfying the elements of both crimes could be convicted of and sentenced for both offenses, -without violating the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy.”).
Nevertheless, we held in Graves, that grand larceny from the person is not a lesser-included offense charged in a robbery indictment. It follows from Graves therefore, that from a Blockburger double jeopardy analysis, appellant’s robbery acquittal did not bar a subsequent prosecution of him for grand larceny from the person. “It is the identity of the offense, and not the act, which is referred to in the constitutional guaranty against double jeopardy.” Epps v. Commonwealth, 216 Va. 150, 153-54, 216 S.E.2d 64, 67 (1975) (emphasis added). Thus, because we found in Graves that grand larceny from the person is a separate offense from robbery and not lesser included, I believe we must now hold that the trial court did not err by allowing the subsequent prosecution for larceny from the person following Hudgins’ robbery acquittal.
While I am constrained by Graves to vote to affirm this conviction, this Court sitting en banc would not be so limited. In my view justice would be served by holding that double jeopardy guarantees bar Hudgins’ conviction for larceny from the person after he was acquitted of robbery, but in light of the Graves decision, I must vote to affirm the conviction.