Federal Circuits, 1st Cir. (March 19, 1982)
Docket number: 81-1703
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US Code - Title 21: Food and Drugs - 21 USC 841 - Sec. 841. Prohibited acts A
U.S. Supreme Court - Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651 (1977)
U.S. Supreme Court - Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161 (1977)
U.S. Supreme Court - Rinaldi v. United States, 434 U.S. 22 <I>(per curiam)</I> (1977)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Cir. - US v. Sobral (4th Cir. 1998)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Cir. - United States of America, Appellee, v. Donald Bruce Macdougall, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Kenneth Wayne Gunn, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Cleveland Sanders, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Michael Lee Harvey, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Cleveland Sanders, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Kenneth Wayne Gunn, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Donald Bruce Macdougall, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Michael Lee Harvey, Appellant., 790 F.2d 1135 (4th Cir. 1986) Appellee, v. Donald Bruce Macdougall, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Kenneth Wayne Gunn, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Cleveland Sanders, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Michael Lee Harvey, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Cleveland Sanders, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Kenneth Wayne Gunn, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Donald Bruce Macdougall, Appellant. United States of America, Appellee, v. Michael Lee Harvey, Appellant.
Arthur W. Tifford, Miami, Fla., for defendant, appellant Booth.
Jay P. McCloskey, Asst. U. S. Atty., Bangor, Me., with whom Richard S. Cohen, U. S. Atty., Portland, Me., was on brief, for appellee.Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, TIMBERS, Circuit Judge,* BREYER, Circuit Judge.TIMBERS, Circuit Judge.On this appeal from an order entered in the District of Maine, Edward T. Gignoux, Chief Judge, the principal question presented is whether the district court correctly denied appellants' motions to dismiss the conspiracy count of an indictment as to them on the ground of double jeopardy. We hold that it did. We affirm.1I.On November 9, 1979, appellant Booth and eighteen others were indicted in the Southern District of Florida on six counts which charged a marijuana smuggling operation. Count I, the count pertinent to this appeal, charged Booth, from some time prior to June 1973 to the date of the filing of the indictment, with conspiring to possess marijuana with intent to distribute it, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846 (1976).On October 20, 1980, Maine state police officers arrested Booth on Whitmore Neck, Deer Isle, Maine, and seized twenty-five tons of marijuana nearby. On October 29, 1980, Booth and twenty-three others were indicted in the District of Maine on charges of conspiring to possess marijuana with intent to distribute it, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(b)(6) and 846 (1976) (Count I), and on charges of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute it, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(6) (1976) (Count II). The Maine indictment charged a conspiracy from on or about March 19, 1980 to October 20, 1980.On November 24, 1980, a superseding indictment was returned in Florida. Count I remained the same, but the time of the continuing criminal enterprise charged in Count VI was extended to November 24, 1980. After a jury trial which began April 28, 1981, Booth was convicted on June 19, 1981 of the conspiracy charged in Count I of the Florida indictment.On July 14, 1981, Booth moved to dismiss Count I of the Maine indictment on the ground of double jeopardy. On September 11, 1981, Judge Gignoux denied this motion from the bench in a reasoned opinion.2 From the order entered on the opinion of Judge Gignoux, appellants have taken the instant appeal.The appeal is properly before us at this time. A pretrial order denying a motion to dismiss an indictment on the ground of double jeopardy is appealable as a final order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (1976). Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651, 659 (1977).II.In Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 166 (1977), the Supreme Court reaffirmed the use of the "same evidence" test previously articulated in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304 (1932), to determine whether two offenses are the "same offense" for double jeopardy purposes. As the Fifth Circuit explained in United States v. Marable, 578 F.2d 151, 153 (5th Cir. 1978), the test is "whether proof of the matter set out in a second indictment is admissible as evidence under the first indictment and, if it is, whether a conviction could have been properly sustained on such evidence."The same evidence test has been applied somewhat differently in conspiracy cases because of the possibility that the government literally could comply with it while actually carving up a single conspiracy to commit several crimes into separate prosecutions. We have indicated five factors to be considered in deciding whether two conspiracies charged actually are the same: (1) the time during which the activities occurred; (2) the persons involved in the conspiracies; (3) the places involved; (4) whether the same evidence was used to prove the two conspiracies; and (5) whether the same statutory provision was involved in both conspiracies. United States v. Chagra, 653 F.2d 26, 29 (1st Cir. 1981), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 1252, 71 L.Ed.2d 445 (1982).3Applying these factors here, we hold that Judge Gignoux properly denied the motions to dismiss the conspiracy count of the indictment. First, the time periods in the two indictments are completely different. The Florida indictment charged a conspiracy from some time prior to June 1973 to November 9, 1979. The Maine indictment charges a conspiracy from on or about March 19, 1980 to October 20, 1980.Second, of the twenty-four defendants charged in the Maine indictment and the nineteen defendants charged in the Florida indictment, only ten defendants are common to both. Thus the persons involved in the two conspiracies are substantially different. See United States v. DeFillipo, 590 F.2d 1228, 1234 & n.7 (2d Cir.) (no double jeopardy problem when, in a case where one indictment charged seven persons and the other six, four overlapped), cert. denied,Try vLex for FREE for 3 days
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