State v. McAlpine

352 N.W.2d 101, 1984 Minn. App. LEXIS 3360
CourtCourt of Appeals of Minnesota
DecidedJuly 31, 1984
DocketC6-84-223
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 352 N.W.2d 101 (State v. McAlpine) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. McAlpine, 352 N.W.2d 101, 1984 Minn. App. LEXIS 3360 (Mich. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

OPINION

WOZNIAK, Judge.

This is a pretrial appeal by the defendant, James Russell McAlpine, from an order denying his motion to dismiss a complaint charging him with possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to sell, in violation of Minn.Stat. § 152.09 (1982). Defendant contends that his previous acquittal of the charge of conspiracy to commit theft bars this prosecution under constitutional and statutory provisions against double jeopardy, collateral estoppel, and serialized prosecution. We affirm.

FACTS

On February 19, 1983, the defendant was arrested after police agents executing a valid search warrant discovered cocaine, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia in his home in Dakota County. Following that arrest the defendant was prosecuted in Hennepin County on a charge of conspiracy to commit theft. The conspiracy prosecution alleged that the defendant, on February 9 or 10, 1983, had gone with a Henne-pin County Deputy Sheriff to the residence of a drug dealer and had purchased a quantity of cocaine from the dealer. The prosecution’s theory at trial was that the defendant purchased the cocaine in expectation of learning from the dealer when a substantial amount of cash would be on hand, so that a theft of the cash could be accomplished at an opportune time. The defendant at trial claimed that he had purchased the cocaine because he thought he was helping the Hennepin County Deputy build a case against the drug dealer. The jury, by a general verdict, acquitted the defendant of the charge of conspiracy to commit theft.

This prosecution was subsequently commenced in Dakota County against the defendant on charges of possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to sell. The defendant’s motion to dismiss upon grounds of double jeopardy, collateral estoppel, and serialized prosecution was denied by the district court.

*103 ISSUE

Are constitutional and statutory prohibitions against double jeopardy, collateral estoppel, and serialized prosecution violated where a defendant who was tried and acquitted of conspiracy to commit theft is later charged with possession of a controlled substance, evidence of which was submitted in the first conspiracy trial?

ANALYSIS

The Minnesota Constitution, Art. 1 § 7 provides:

[N]o person shall be put twice in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense

State v. Spann, 287 N.W.2d 406, 408 (Minn.1979), explains the test for determining whether double jeopardy is present:

The applicable double jeopardy test is the so-called Blockburger test — see, Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977). Under this test, if each of two crimes requires proof of an additional fact that the other does not, then the offenses are not the same for double jeopardy purposes and multiple convictions are proper, notwithstanding a substantial overlap in the proof offered to establish the crimes.

The defendant’s claim that the above test requires dismissal of his complaint is without merit, for the charges of conspiracy, possession of a controlled substance, and possession with intent to sell clearly require proof of different facts. (See Minn.Stat. § 609.175, subd. 2, 152.09, subd. 1 (1982).)

The above double jeopardy test is not, however, the only basis for determining whether the same offense is impermis-sibly charged in successive prosecutions. The doctrine of collateral estoppel will bar a prosecution “where the second prosecution requires the relitigation of factual issues already resolved by the first.” Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 166, n. 6, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 2226, n. 6 (1977). Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970), provides an excellent analysis of this doctrine:

“Collateral estoppel” is an awkward phrase, but it stands for an extremely important principle in our adversary system of justice. It means simply that when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit.
Where a previous judgment of acquittal was based upon a general verdict, as is usually the case, this approach requires a court to “examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational jury could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration.” The inquiry “must be set in a practical frame and viewed with an eye to all the circumstances of the proceedings.” Sealfon v. United States, 332 U.S. 575, 579, 68 S.Ct. 237, 240, 92 L.Ed. 180.

Id., at 443-444, 90 S.Ct. at 194 (footnote omitted).

In the present instance, the defendant argues that the doctrine of collateral estoppel should be applied because in the previous trial the jury considered his possession of cocaine, yet found him innocent of the conspiracy charge. The defendant concludes: “the only rational basis upon which the jury could have and did return a verdict of acquittal, is that the jury found as fact that [he] did not [buy the cocaine] in ‘furtherance of the conspiracy,’ but rather with lawful intent to further a criminal prosecution against * * * the known drug dealer.” The defendant’s conclusion is flawed, however, since it is equally likely that the jury simply found that the state had not proved the existence of an agreement to commit the crime, “which is the primary element of a conspiracy.” United States v. Cooper, 442 F.Supp. 1259, 1261 (D.Minn.1978). The present situation is *104 similar to State v. Robinson, 262 Minn. 79, 114 N.W.2d 737

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Related

State v. Weaver
796 N.W.2d 561 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2011)
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478 N.W.2d 218 (Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 1991)
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
352 N.W.2d 101, 1984 Minn. App. LEXIS 3360, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-mcalpine-minnctapp-1984.