Pandelli v. U.S.

• Decision Date: 13 November 1980
• Docket Number: No. 79-5372,79-5372
• Citation: 635 F.2d 533
• Parties: Raymond PANDELLI, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 533

635 F.2d 533

Raymond PANDELLI, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 79-5372.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Submitted June 5, 1980.

Decided Nov. 13, 1980.

Raymond Pandelli, pro se.

James R. Williams, U. S. Atty., Cleveland, Ohio, Steven R. Olah, Criminal Division, U. S. Dept. of Justice, Cleveland, Ohio, William C. Bryson, Washington, D. C., for respondent-appellee.

Before MERRITT, KENNEDY and MARTIN, Circuit Judges.

MERRITT, Circuit Judge.

On November 18, 1974, petitioner Pandelli was found guilty and sentenced consecutively for violations of the Mann Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2421, and the Travel Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1952, arising from the same criminal episodes. The issue in this case is whether principles of double jeopardy analysis developed after petitioner's direct appeal of his convictions in 1976, an appeal in which he raised the same double jeopardy questions, afford him the right to collateral relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. ¹ We hold that intervening interpretation of the double jeopardy clause by the United States Supreme Court establishes that the consecutive sentences imposed upon petitioner do constitute double jeopardy forbidden by the Fifth Amendment.

I.

The Mann Act creates a single offense with only one jurisdictional element, transportation across state lines, and one wrong, prostitution. It requires that one "transport" a "woman or girl" across state lines "for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery." The Travel Act, a multi-purpose statute written with alternative jurisdictional elements and alternative wrongs, requires that one either "travel" or "use interstate facilities" (telephone, mail, etc.) "with intent to ... promote ... carry on, or facilitate" either prostitution or any one of a number of other state or federal crimes and then "perform" some act in furtherance thereof. ²

Pandelli was convicted on a total of ten counts: five counts for violation of the Travel Act, four counts for violation of the Mann Act, and one count of conspiracy to violate the Mann Act. The four Mann Act convictions were based on four instances of transportation of a woman across state lines for purposes of prostitution. These same four instances form the basis for four of the Travel Act convictions. Counts 2, 4, 6, and 8 of the indictment charge the defendant with transporting a particular woman across a state line on four separate occasions for purposes of prostitution in violation of the Mann Act. Each of these counts is preceded by a corresponding Travel Act count arising from the same criminal episode and charging that the defendant-"with intent to promote prostitution"-"caused" the same women "to travel in interstate commerce." Pandelli was sentenced to one year on each of the ten counts, the sentences to run consecutively.

Petitioner argued on direct appeal from his convictions that the imposition of cumulative sentences for the four Mann Act and the corresponding four Travel Act violations resulted in his being twice punished for the same offense. The Sixth Circuit rejected the argument and affirmed the convictions in United States v. Prince, 529 F.2d 1108, cert. denied sub nom. Pandelli v. United States, 429 U.S. 838, 97 S.Ct. 108, 50 L.Ed.2d 105 (1976). The Court applied the Blockburger test, the traditional means of determining whether two statutes create distinct offenses or merge to create only one. Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932). Looking at the two statutes in the abstract, our Court found, in the words of Blockburger, that each statute "requires proof of a fact which the other does not," and therefore held that the two statutes do not merge. Our Court's mode of analysis on direct appeal is not made explicit, but its reasoning must have been along one of the two following lines of reasoning:

1. The Travel Act does not require the same elements under the Blockburger test as the Mann Act because the Travel Act is written in the alternative. The Travel Act does not require "travel" across state lines, as does the Mann Act because the "use of interstate facilities" will suffice, and it does not require "intent" to engage in prostitution, as does the Mann Act, because "intent" to engage in several other crimes, e.g., bribery, extortion, narcotics, will do.

2. A person may violate the Mann Act by carrying a woman across state lines with the requisite intent without committing any further overt act, as required by the Travel Act, or the person may violate the Travel Act by committing another act after travel across state lines by himself with the requisite intent but without transporting the woman. Thus these two statutes "require" different elements because the Mann Act requires actual transportation of the woman-an element not required by the Travel Act-and the Travel Act requires an act in furtherance of prostitution after the travel-an element not required by the Mann Act.

After losing his direct appeal, petitioner began his prison term on March 8, 1977. On May 2, 1979, he filed pro se this motion for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He argues that cases decided after his direct appeal modify applicable double jeopardy principles so as to render unconstitutional his consecutive sentencing. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio considered the effect of those cases and held that there had been "no intervening change in the law." The District Judge therefore denied the motion to vacate, set aside, or correct the petitioner's sentence and dismissed the § 2255 action.

II.

In Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 63 L.Ed.2d 715 (1980), and Illinois v. Vitale, --- U.S. ----, 100 S.Ct. 2260, 65 L.Ed.2d 228 (1980), both decided near the end of the Court's last term after the decision of the District Court in this case, the Supreme Court modified the abstract approach to the double jeopardy clause that was employed by our court on direct appeal. The Court modified the analysis and meaning traditionally given Blockburger. The Blockburger test has traditionally focused "on the proof necessary to prove the statutory elements of each offense, rather than on the actual evidence to be presented at trial." Illinois v. Vitale, 100 S.Ct. at 2265. Whalen and Vitale make clear, however, that the requisite statutory elements must be examined from the vantage point of the particular case before the court.

The Blockburger test, as modified in Whalen and Vitale, comes into play only after other techniques of statutory construction have proved to be inconclusive. The first step is for the court to inquire "whether Congress intended to punish each statutory violation separately," Jeffers v. United States, 432 U.S. 137, 155 (1977). To determine the congressional intent it is necessary to examine the statutory language and the legislative history, as well as to utilize other techniques of statutory construction. See Whalen, 100 S.Ct. at 1437. The Court reaches the Blockburger test only when those prior techniques of construction have failed to resolve the question of whether the legislature intends to allow cumulative punishments for violations of two statutes. ³

In Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 63 L.Ed.2d 715 (1980), decided in April, the Supreme Court reviewed cumulative punishments imposed under District of Columbia rape and felony murder statutes. The two violations arose out of the same criminal episode. The rape statute in question was a single purpose statute, prohibiting no crime other than rape. The felony murder statute was written in the alternative. It defined felony murder as any homicide perpetrated during the course of any of six specific felonies, including rape, robbery, kidnapping and arson. Had the Court applied the Blockburger test to the statutes as they stood, it would have found that they created distinct offenses, because each statute required an element that the other did not. But before it applies the test to a multi-purpose criminal statute, the Court reasoned, it must construct from the alternative elements within the statute the particular formulation that applies to the case at hand. It should rid the statute of alternative elements that do not apply. ⁴ It must, in other words, treat a multi-purpose statute written in the alternative as it would treat separate statutes. ⁵ The theory behind the analysis is that a criminal statute written in the alternative creates a separate offense for each alternative and should therefore be treated for double jeopardy purposes as separate statutes would. After this process of statutory reformulation is applied to the statutes in the case before it, a court then determines whether the two offenses in question should be characterized under Blockburger as distinct offenses authorizing cumulative sentences.

After reformulating the felony murder statute before it in Whalen, the Court found that rape is a lesser offense included in felony murder, because all the elements of rape are included within the elements required in a felony murder case based on rape. ⁶ Because the statutes merged under the revised formulation of the Blockburger test and because of the established rule of construction that ambiguity concerning the force of criminal statutes should be resolved in favor of lenity, the Court held that cumulative punishment would offend the Double Jeopardy Clause. 100 S.Ct. at 1439.

Illinois v. Vitale, 447 U.S. 410, 100 S.Ct. 2260, 65 L.Ed.2d 228 (1980), a double jeopardy case decided in June that involved successive trials rather than cumulative punishment, contains a similar approach to the Blockburger question. The Court extended the Whalen analysis as it reformulated the statutes at issue in order to isolate the alternatives applicable to the particular case before it. In Vitale, the state had prosecuted the driver of an automobile involved in a fatal accident for...