Harrell v. State

277 N.W.2d 462, 88 Wis. 2d 546, 1979 Wisc. App. LEXIS 2650
CourtCourt of Appeals of Wisconsin
DecidedMarch 29, 1979
Docket78-181-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by106 cases

This text of 277 N.W.2d 462 (Harrell v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harrell v. State, 277 N.W.2d 462, 88 Wis. 2d 546, 1979 Wisc. App. LEXIS 2650 (Wis. Ct. App. 1979).

Opinion

DECKER, C.J.

The undisputed facts are that the defendant pointed a gun at the victim as she unlocked the lobby door to the apartment building in which she resided and ordered her to walk to the basement. At a point under the stairs, while pointing the gun at her head, he ordered her to remove her clothing. After she complied, he told her to remain quiet or he would “blow [her] head off”; demanded money and received $3 from his victim; and then, without the victim’s consent, had sexual intercourse with her. After the act of sexual intercourse, and while threatening to “blow [her] head off,” he searched her clothing for more money. After twenty to twenty-five minutes of conversation, he completed a second act of sexual intercourse without the victim’s consent with the gun at all times pointed at the victim’s head. The defendant left the scene after the second act of sexual intercourse.

After trial by jury, the defendant was convicted of two counts of rape and one count of armed robbery as charged in the information. During the trial, the trial court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss one of the counts of rape. The defendant contended that the two alleged acts of intercourse constituted only one rape. The defendant’s postconviction motion pursuant to sec. 974.06, Stats., contending that the conviction for two counts of rape subjected him to double jeopardy, was also denied. Writs of error were then issued.

The defendant contends that the two acts of sexual intercourse, each charged in this case as a rape, “amounted to a continuous crime, ‘a unitary transaction.’ ” He rea *554 sons that charging each act of sexual intercourse as a rape divides a single course of conduct into multiple counts of the same criminal offense and therefore violates the double jeopardy provisions of the United States and Wisconsin Constitutions. The defendant claims that the multiplicity occurred because the sexual intercourse was without the consent of the victim by use or threat of force and that all incidents occurred with the same person and on the same occasion within a period of approximately one-half hour.

The statutes in question 1 do not specifically resolve the question of the allowable unit of prosecution. 2

MULTIPLICITY — DOUBLE JEOPARDY

The fifth amendment double jeopardy clause is applicable to the states through the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784 (1969). Because the former jeopardy provisions of the United States and Wisconsin Constitutions 3 are “identical in scope and purpose,” our state supreme court has accepted decisions of the United States Supreme Court, where applicable, as controlling the double jeopardy provisions of both constitutions. Day v. State, 76 Wis.2d 588, 591, 251 N.W.2d 811, 812-13 (1977) ; State v. Calhoun, 67 Wis.2d 204, 220, 226 N.W.2d 504, 512 (1975).

*555 The division of a single offense into multiple counts violates the double jeopardy provisions of the state and federal constitutions. State v. George, 69 Wis.2d 92, 98, 230 N.W.2d 253, 256 (1975).

Multiplicity is defined as the charging of a single offense in more than one count. 4 Multiplicity must be distinguished from duplicity, which is the joining in a single count of two or more distinct and separate offenses. 5 Multiplicity also relates to the question of merger, whether a single criminal episode which contains the elements of more than one distinct offense merges into a single offense. 6

It is generally accurate to say that there may be a conviction for more than one offense only where (a) each is based upon different conduct, or (b) if based on the same conduct, each offense requires proof of a fact not required by the other. F. Remington and A. Joseph, Charging, Convicting and Sentencing the Multiple Criminal Offender, 1961 Wis. U. Rev. 528, 545.

Further authority is found in 1 Wharton’s Criminal Law and Procedure, sec. 32, at 67-68 (Anderson ed. 1957) : “[W]hen different crimes are committed, each may be prosecuted separately although all form part of one transaction or sequence of events. Crimes are different when the evidence necessary to establish one differs from the other.” In discussing whether a double jeopardy prohibition would apply in such a case, Wharton states: “The prohibition against double jeopardy does *556 not apply when two separate and distinct crimes are committed in the same transaction or series of related acts, even though the crimes are so closely connected in point of time that it is impossible to separate the evidence relating to them.” 7

A. Additional Fact Test.

The most frequently applied test in Wisconsin for determining multiplicity is “whether each count requires proof of an additional fact which the other count or counts do not. United States v. Leo (E.D. Wis. 1976), 406 F. Supp. 1174, 1178.” 8 Nevertheless, in Blenski v. State, swpra, the court decided the issue of multiplicity on legislative intent on the facts of the case before it. “We think that a better test in a situation such os is involved here is to ascertain the legislative intent.” 9 [Emphasis supplied.]

In State v. Anderson, 10 our state supreme court set forth the test for double jeopardy analogous to the additional fact test:

The books are full of statements that the offenses in order to be the same, must be the “same in law and in *557 fact,” — must comprise the same act and crime. Here two distinct crimes were charged in the two actions, embezzlement of the taxes collected during one month, and embezzlement of the taxes collected in a later month. The two offenses were the same in law but not in fact. The same act does not constitute both offenses. The point here attempted to be made ordinarily arises where evidence of the same acts is admissible under charges of offenses under two different statutes. [Emphasis supplied.] 11

The United States Supreme Court, using the “additional fact” test, upheld the convictions of a defendant for multiple charges of violations of the Narcotics Act, 26 U.S.C. §§692, 696. 12

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Bluebook (online)
277 N.W.2d 462, 88 Wis. 2d 546, 1979 Wisc. App. LEXIS 2650, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harrell-v-state-wisctapp-1979.