United States v. Abess

532 F. Supp. 490, 1982 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11033
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Michigan
DecidedJanuary 21, 1982
DocketCiv. A. No. 81-71585; Crim. No. 79-80439
StatusPublished

This text of 532 F. Supp. 490 (United States v. Abess) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Michigan primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Abess, 532 F. Supp. 490, 1982 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11033 (E.D. Mich. 1982).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

JOINER, District Judge.

This case is before the court on the government’s motion for reconsideration under Local Rule 17(k) of the court’s June 16, 1981 order. That order granted the defendant’s 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion and vacated his conviction and sentence on Count II of the Indictment. For the rea[491]*491sons stated below, the government’s motion is granted and defendant’s conviction and sentence on Count II of the Indictment are reinstated.

On October 16, 1979, a jury convicted defendant of two counts of mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1341, and one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 371. Defendant was sentenced to two years imprisonment on each count, but all three sentences were made concurrent.

On appeal, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated one of the mail fraud convictions for insufficient evidence, and affirmed the other two convictions. U. S. v. Abess, 657 F.2d 270 (6th Cir., 1981) (order). Shortly thereafter, defendant moved this court to vacate one of his two remaining convictions on the ground that the same evidence used to prove mail fraud had been used to prove the conspiracy and that, therefore, the defendant’s Fifth Amendment right not to be twice convicted and punished for the same offense had been violated.

This court agreed, relying on Illinois v. Vitale, 447 U.S. 410, 100 S.Ct. 2260, 65 L.Ed.2d 228 (1980), and vacated the conviction and sentence on Count II of the Indictment after permitting the government to elect which conviction it wished to retain.

The court is now convinced that it erred in granting the defendant’s 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion and, having carefully considered the government’s motion for reconsideration and the defendant’s answer, is determined to reverse itself.

DISCUSSION

In Illinois v. Vitale, the defendant John Vitale was prosecuted and convicted on a charge of failing to reduce speed after he was involved in a fatal automobile accident. A short time later, he was charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter (“reckless operation of a motor vehicle”). Vitale protested that he was being charged with a crime which was barred by double jeopardy since he had already been tried and convicted of a lesser included offense. The lower court dismissed the charges on other grounds and the state appealed. The Illinois Supreme Court held that because the lesser offense required no proof beyond that required for conviction of the greater offense, the manslaughter prosecution was barred by double jeopardy. In re Vitale, 71 Ill.2d 229, 16 Ill.Dec. 456, 375 N.E.2d 87 (1978).

On appeal, the Supreme Court remanded the case to the Illinois Supreme Court for a determination of whether the manslaughter offense (“reckless operation of a motor vehicle”) would always entail proof of a failure to slow, which would make the offenses the “same” under Blockburger v. U. S., 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932) and Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977).

In so holding, the following language appeared in the court’s opinion:

If, as a matter of Illinois law, a careless failure to slow is always a necessary element of manslaughter by automobile, then the two offenses are the “same” under Blockburger and Vitale’s trial on the latter charge would constitute double jeopardy under Brown v. Ohio. In any event, it may be that to sustain its manslaughter ease the State may find it necessary to prove a failure to slow or to rely on conduct necessarily involving such failure; it may concede as much prior to trial. In that case, because Vitale has already been convicted for conduct that is a necessary element of the more serious crime for which he has been charged, his claim of double jeopardy would be substantial under Brown and our later decision in Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682 [97 S.Ct. 2912, 53 L.Ed.2d 1054] (1977).
* * * * *
[I]f in the pending manslaughter prosecution Illinois relies on and proves a failure to slow to avoid an accident as the reckless act necessary to prove manslaughter, Vitale would have a substantial claim of double jeopardy under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, (emphases added) 447 U.S. at 419-21, 100 S.Ct. at 2267.

[492]*492It was this language from Illinois v. Vitale that led this court to rule that where the same evidence is used to prove two separate statutory offenses, double jeopardy bars one of those convictions.

It is important to note that the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment consists of three distinct guarantees: It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after an acquittal; it protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after a conviction; and it protects against multiple punishments for the same offense. North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969); Illinois v. Vitale.

However, the Supreme Court has indicated that “same offense” may have different meanings in these different contexts. In Whalen v. U. S., 445 U.S. 684, 700, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 1442, 63 L.Ed.2d 715 (1980), Justice Rehnquist said in dissent:

[T]he scope of each of these three protections turns upon the meaning of the words “same offense,” a phrase deceptively simple in appearance but virtually kaleidoscopic in application. Indeed, we have indicated on at least one prior occasion that the meaning of this phrase may vary from context to context, so that two charges considered the same offense so as to preclude prosecution on one charge after an acquittal or conviction on the other need not be considered the same offense so as to bar separate punishments for each charge at a single proceeding.

That “one prior occasion” was in Brown v. Ohio:

The Blockburger test is not the only standard for determining whether successive prosecutions impermissibly involve the same offense. Even if two offenses are sufficiently different to permit the imposition of consecutive sentences, successive prosecution will be barred in some circumstances where the second prosecution requires the relitigation of factual issues already resolved by the first. [Citing Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436 [90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469] (1970) and In Re Nielsen,

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Related

Nielsen
131 U.S. 176 (Supreme Court, 1889)
Blockburger v. United States
284 U.S. 299 (Supreme Court, 1931)
Pereira v. United States
347 U.S. 1 (Supreme Court, 1954)
North Carolina v. Pearce
395 U.S. 711 (Supreme Court, 1969)
Ashe v. Swenson
397 U.S. 436 (Supreme Court, 1970)
Brown v. Ohio
432 U.S. 161 (Supreme Court, 1977)
Harris v. Oklahoma
433 U.S. 682 (Supreme Court, 1977)
Whalen v. United States
445 U.S. 684 (Supreme Court, 1980)
Illinois v. Vitale
447 U.S. 410 (Supreme Court, 1980)
Raymond Pandelli v. United States
635 F.2d 533 (Sixth Circuit, 1980)
In Re Vitale
375 N.E.2d 87 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1978)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
532 F. Supp. 490, 1982 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11033, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-abess-mied-1982.