Guffey v. State

717 N.E.2d 103, 1999 Ind. LEXIS 876, 1999 WL 784086
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 1, 1999
Docket33S04-9910-CR-507
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 717 N.E.2d 103 (Guffey v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Guffey v. State, 717 N.E.2d 103, 1999 Ind. LEXIS 876, 1999 WL 784086 (Ind. 1999).

Opinions

ON PETITION TO TRANSFER

DICKSON, J.

The defendant-appellant, Donald Guffey, was convicted of aiding in the commission of armed robbery, a class B felony,1 and conspiracy to commit armed robbery, a class B felony.2 The jury found him to be a habitual offender.3 The trial court sentenced the defendant to concurrent terms of fifteen years for each offense but enhanced the armed robbery sentence by twenty years for the habitual offender determination. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Guffey v. State, 705 N.E.2d 205 (Ind.Ct.App.1999). The defendant seeks transfer to challenge the resolution of his double jeopardy claim. We grant transfer to address this claim but otherwise summarily affirm the Court of Appeals. Ind. Appellate Rule 11(B)(3).

The defendant asserts that his separate convictions for aiding in armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery violate the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Indiana Constitution,4 which he claims provides greater protection than the federal provision. Citing Derado v. State, 622 N.E.2d 181 (Ind.1993), he urges that Indiana’s Double Jeopardy Clause be construed to require that the reviewing court look to the manner in which the offenses are charged to determine whether additional facts are necessary to prove the perpetration of either offense. The defendant correctly acknowledges that the Derado analysis was based on an interpretation of federal, rather than state, double jeopardy protections. As he also notes, the Derado rule is no longer an accurate statement of federal double jeopardy law. See Grinstead v. State, 684 N.E.2d 482, 486 (Ind.1997). The defendant argues, however, that our state double jeopardy jurisprudence should be construed to implement a Derado-style analysis. With today’s decision in Richardson v. State, 717 N.E.2d 32 (Ind.1999), we have examined the Indiana Double Jeopardy Clause and declined to adopt an analysis restricted to a comparison of the language in the charging instruments. In Richardson, we hold that two tests apply to determine whether [105]*105two or more offenses constitute the same offense under the state Double Jeopardy Clause — the statutory elements test and the actual evidence test:

[T]wo or more offenses are the “same offense” in violation of Article I, Section 14 of the Indiana Constitution, if, with respect to either the statutory elements of the challenged crimes or the actual evidence used to convict, the essential elements of one challenged offense also establish the essential elements of another challenged offense.

Id. at 49. Under the statutory elements test, “[e]ach offense must contain at least one element which is separate and distinct from the other offense so that the same evidence is not necessary to convict for both offenses.” Id. at 52.

The defendant was charged with aiding in the commission of armed robbery. The robbery statute provides:

A person who knowingly or intentionally takes property from another person or from the presence of another person:
(1) by using or threatening the use of force on any person; or
(2) by putting any person in fear;
commits robbery, a Class C felony. However, the offense is a Class B felony if it is committed while armed with a deadly weapon or results in bodily injury to any person other than a defendant, and a Class A felony if it results in serious bodily injury to any person other than a defendant.

Ind.Code § 35-42-5-1. The accomplice liability statute provides:

A person who knowingly or intentionally aids, induces, or causes another person to commit an offense commits that offense, even if the other person:
(1) has not been prosecuted for the offense;
(2) has not been convicted of the offense; or
(3) has been acquitted of the offense.

Ind.Code § 35-41-2-4. The essential statutory elements of the charged offense are: (1) the defendant (2) knowingly or intentionally (3) aided, induced, or caused (4) Donald Lee (5) to commit robbery by knowingly or intentionally taking property by threatening the use of force while armed with a deadly weapon.

The conspiracy statute provides in part:

(a) A person conspires to commit a felony when, with intent to commit the felony, he agrees with another person to commit the felony. A conspiracy to commit a felony is a felony of the same class as the underlying felony....
(b) The state must allege and prove that either the person or the person with whom he agreed performed an overt act in furtherance of the agreement.

Ind.Code § 35-41-5-2. The essential statutory elements of the charged offense are: (1) the defendant (2) agreed with Donald Lee to commit the crime of armed robbery (3)with the intent to commit armed robbery and (4) the defendant or Donald Lee performed an overt act in furtherance of the agreement.

Applying the statutory elements test, we find that both the aiding in the commission of armed robbery charge and the conspiracy charge contain at least one separate and distinct essential element. The aiding in the commission of armed robbery charge requires proof that the defendant aided, induced, or caused Donald Lee to commit the armed robbery, which is not required to prove the conspiracy charge. The conspiracy charge requires proof of an agreement to commit robbery, which is not required to prove the aiding in the commission of armed robbery charge. Thus, we find that aiding in the commission of armed robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery are not necessarily the same offense' under the statutory elements test of the Indiana Double Jeopardy Clause.

The defendant contends that the actual evidence used to convict him of aiding in the armed robbery was also used to [106]*106convict him of conspiracy to commit armed robbery. We analyze this claim using the actual evidence test, a second consideration for determining whether two or more offenses constitute the same offense under the Indiana Double Jeopardy Clause. To show that two challenged offenses constitute the “same offense” under this test, “a defendant must demonstrate a reasonable possibility that the evidentiary facts used by the fact-finder to establish the essential elements of one offense may also have been used to establish the essential elements of a second challenged offense.” Richardson, 717 N.E.2d at 53.

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Guffey v. State
717 N.E.2d 103 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1999)
Richardson v. State
717 N.E.2d 32 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1999)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
717 N.E.2d 103, 1999 Ind. LEXIS 876, 1999 WL 784086, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/guffey-v-state-ind-1999.