Gillis v. State

• Decision Date: 01 September 1993
• Docket Number: No. 30,30
• Citation: 333 Md. 69,633 A.2d 888
• Parties: Ronald GILLIS, v. STATE of Maryland. ,
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 69

333 Md. 69

633 A.2d 888

Ronald GILLIS, v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 30, Sept. Term, 1993.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 9, 1993.

George E. Burns, Jr., Asst. Pub. Defender, (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, both on brief), Baltimore, for petitioner.

Gary Bair, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., both on brief), Baltimore, for respondent.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, McAULIFFE, CHASANOW, KARWACKI and ROBERT M. BELL, JJ.

CHASANOW, Judge.

Petitioner, Ronald Gillis, was tried in the Superior Court of Kent County, Delaware for the murder of Byron Parker. He was acquitted of the Delaware offense in April of 1990. Subsequently, Gillis was charged in Maryland with the first degree murder of Byron Parker pursuant to Maryland Code (1957, 1992 Repl.Vol.), Article 27, § 407. ¹ The second murder charge followed the November 1990 discovery of Parker's body in Kent County, Maryland. Gillis filed a motion to dismiss the Maryland charge, arguing that the second murder prosecution violated the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution by failing to recognize the Delaware acquittal. After a hearing (Price, J.), the motion to dismiss was denied, and Gillis appealed the adverse ruling to the Court of Special Appeals. Prior to the intermediate appellate court's consideration of the case, we granted Gillis's petition for certiorari to decide whether the Maryland prosecution may continue without violating the Full Faith and Credit Clause. For the reasons discussed below, we believe that it may proceed and that there is no constitutional impediment. ²

I.

Although Gillis challenges the Maryland prosecution solely on full faith and credit grounds, we believe it helpful to begin our analysis with a brief overview of double jeopardy ³ principles regarding successive prosecutions by different sovereigns for the same conduct. Under the "dual sovereignty" doctrine, separate sovereigns deriving their power from different sources are each entitled to punish an individual for the same conduct if that conduct violates each sovereignty's laws. This well-established principle was reaffirmed in a pair of cases decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1959. See Abbate v. United States, 359 U.S. 187, 79 S.Ct. 666, 3 L.Ed.2d 729 (1959) (concluding Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar federal prosecutions based upon the same acts for which the defendants were previously convicted in an Illinois state court); Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121, 79 S.Ct. 676, 3 L.Ed.2d 684 (1959) (determining that due process was not violated when a defendant was acquitted of federal charges and then convicted in a state prosecution based upon substantially identical facts). See also United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 330, 98 S.Ct. 1079, 1089, 55 L.Ed.2d 303, 317 (1978) (refusing to accept "so restrictive a view of [the dual sovereignty] concept" as to limit it to successive state and federal prosecutions, and concluding that double jeopardy did not bar a federal prosecution subsequent to the defendant's conviction by an Indian tribal court). In justifying the dual sovereignty doctrine, the Supreme Court stated: "[I]f the States are free to prosecute criminal acts violating their laws, and the resultant state prosecutions bar federal prosecutions based on the same acts, federal law enforcement [shall] necessarily be hindered." Abbate, 359 U.S. at 195, 79 S.Ct. at 671, 3 L.Ed.2d at 734. Likewise, if a federal acquittal prohibited a subsequent state prosecution, that would conflict with the states' obligation "to maintain peace and order within their confines." Bartkus, 359 U.S. at 137, 79 S.Ct. at 685, 3 L.Ed.2d at 694.

Most recently, in Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82, 106 S.Ct. 433, 88 L.Ed.2d 387 (1985), the United States Supreme Court reached the "inescapable" conclusion that the dual sovereignty doctrine permitted separate prosecutions for the same murder by both the states of Georgia and Alabama. The Court noted:

"The dual sovereignty doctrine is founded on the common-law conception of crime as an offense against the sovereignty of the government. When a defendant in a single act violates the 'peace and dignity' of two sovereigns by breaking the laws of each, he has committed two distinct 'offences.' United States v. Lanza, 260 U.S. 377, 382, 43 S.Ct. 141, 67 L.Ed. 314 (1922). As the Court explained in Moore v. Illinois, 14 How. 13, 19, 14 L.Ed. 306 (1852), '[a]n offence, in its legal signification, means the transgression of a law.' Consequently, when the same act transgresses the laws of two sovereigns, 'it cannot be truly averred that the offender has been twice punished for the same offence; but only that by one act he has committed two offences, for each of which he is justly punishable.' Id., at 20."

Heath, 474 U.S. at 88, 106 S.Ct. at 437, 88 L.Ed.2d at 394. Recognizing that "[t]he States are no less sovereign with respect to each other than they are with respect to the Federal Government," Heath, 474 U.S. at 89, 106 S.Ct. at 438, 88 L.Ed.2d at 395, and acknowledging the importance of allowing each state to create and enforce its criminal code, the Court observed that "[t]o deny a State its power to enforce its criminal laws because another State has won the race to the courthouse 'would be a shocking and untoward deprivation of the historic right and obligation of the States to maintain peace and order within their confines.' " Heath, 474 U.S. at 93, 106 S.Ct. at 440, 88 L.Ed.2d at 397 (quoting Bartkus, 359 U.S. at 137, 79 S.Ct. at 685, 3 L.Ed.2d at 694).

The Heath Court further remarked that "[a] State's interest in vindicating its sovereign authority through enforcement of its laws by definition can never be satisfied by another State's enforcement of its own laws." Id. (emphasis in original). Moreover, the Court recognized that a State "must be entitled to decide that a prosecution by another State has not satisfied its legitimate sovereign interest." Id. (emphasis added). Although the Court in Heath did not address whether full faith and credit could bar a state prosecution following another state's acquittal, the dual sovereignty principle supporting Heath's conclusion may be viewed as equally applicable to full faith and credit challenges. See State v. Edmondson, 112 N.M. 654, 818 P.2d 855, 861 (1991) (using Heath to support the proposition that "full faith and credit does not bar a state from prosecuting a person for violation of its own statute despite an acquittal by another jurisdiction on a charge of the identical conduct" ). See also United States v. Hayes, 589 F.2d 811, 817 (5th Cir.) (construing dual sovereignty doctrine broadly and noting the "well-established rule that there is no constitutional bar to successive state and federal prosecutions for the same criminal conduct" (emphasis added)), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 847, 100 S.Ct. 93, 62 L.Ed.2d 60 (1979).

This Court adopted the dual sovereignty principle as a matter of Maryland common law in Evans v. State, 301 Md. 45, 481 A.2d 1135 (1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1034, 105 S.Ct. 1411, 84 L.Ed.2d 795 (1985). The Court in Evans rejected the defendant's argument that, even if the Double Jeopardy Clause permitted a Maryland prosecution subsequent to a federal conviction based upon the same acts, the common law should prohibit it. 301 Md. at 58, 481 A.2d at 1141. See also Bailey v. State, 303 Md. 650, 660, 496 A.2d 665, 670 (1985) ("This Court has adopted, as a matter of common law, the dual sovereignty doctrine. Offenses against separate sovereigns are separate offenses for double jeopardy purposes even if the successive prosecutions are based upon the same acts."). In light of this case law, Gillis apparently recognizes the futility of challenging the Maryland prosecution as a violation of common law or constitutional double jeopardy.

II.

With the double jeopardy door slammed tightly shut, Gillis looks to the Full Faith and Credit Clause in an attempt to escape the Maryland prosecution. We decline Gillis's invitation to use the Full Faith and Credit Clause as a means to circumvent the previously foreclosed double jeopardy challenge. Full faith and credit cannot be used to deny Maryland the power to enforce its criminal laws and thereby thwart this State's obligation to "maintain peace and order within [its] confines." Bartkus, 359 U.S. at 137, 79 S.Ct. at 685, 3 L.Ed.2d at 694. We hold that, with respect to successive criminal prosecutions by different states, the dual sovereignty rationale is applicable to the Full Faith and Credit Clause as well as the Double Jeopardy Clause.

Article IV, Section 1, of the United States Constitution provides that "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof." Title 28, Section 1738, of the United States Code, implements the Full Faith and Credit Clause as follows: "Such Acts, records and judicial proceedings ... so authenticated, shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States ... as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State ... from which they are taken."

"The purpose of the Full Faith and Credit Clause is to require a state court to recognize judgments of courts of other states," Weinberg v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 299 Md. 225, 234, 473 A.2d 22, 27 (1984), and to "preclude dissatisfied litigants from taking advantage of the federal character of the Nation by relitigating in one State issues that had been duly decided in another." Kovacs v. Brewer, 356 U.S. 604, 611, 78 S.Ct. 963, 968, 2 L.Ed.2d 1008, 1014 (1958) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Historically, the Clause primarily has been applied in the context of civil disputes. See Allan D. Vestal, Criminal Prosecutions: Issue Preclusion...