Com. v. Crocker

• Citation: 424 N.E.2d 524,384 Mass. 353
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Gerald J. CROCKER.
• Decision Date: 12 August 1981
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Page 524

424 N.E.2d 524

384 Mass. 353

COMMONWEALTH v. Gerald J. CROCKER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Barnstable.

Argued May 6, 1981.

Decided Aug. 12, 1981.

Ellen A. Howard, Boston, for defendant.

Gary A. Nickerson, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.

Before HENNESSEY, C. J., and WILKINS, ABRAMS, NOLAN and LYNCH, JJ.

HENNESSEY, Chief Justice.

Following a jury-waived trial in the Superior Court, the defendant, Gerald J Crocker, was convicted on three of five counts of larceny over $100, G.L. c. 266, § 30, and three of five counts of uttering a forged check, G.L. c. 267, § 5. He was found not guilty on the remaining counts. All the counts concerned checks purporting to be drawn on the account of DeYoung's Real Estate, Inc., which Crocker cashed at various branches of the Cape Cod Bank & Trust Company. The three larceny and three uttering counts of which Crocker was found guilty involved the following three checks: (1) a check for $236.76, cashed at Harwichport on June 22, 1977; (2) a check for $236.83, cashed at Orleans on June 23, 1977; and (3) a check for $198.76, cashed at Centerville on June 24, 1977. On the larceny convictions, the trial judge adjudged Crocker a "common and notorious thief" under G.L. c. 266, § 40, and sentenced him to a term of eight to fifteen years at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Walpole. On the uttering convictions, Crocker received two concurrent four- to ten-year sentences, to be served concurrently with the larceny sentence. The Appellate Division of the Superior Court refused to alter the sentences. Crocker appealed to the Appeals Court, and we transferred the case to this court on our own motion.

Crocker contends that (1) G.L. c. 266, § 40, is unconstitutional in its failure to require notice to a defendant that he may be sentenced under its provisions; (2) his convictions for both larceny and uttering are duplicitous; and (3) he was denied the effective assistance of counsel at trial. We reject each of these contentions and affirm the convictions.

1. The Question of Notice Prior to Sentencing under G.L. c. 266, § 40.

General Laws c. 266, § 40, provides in pertinent part that "whoever is convicted at the same sitting of the court ... of three distinct larcenies, shall be adjudged a common and notorious thief, and shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than twenty years or in jail for not more than two and one half years." ¹ Crocker argues that the failure to notify him in the indictment or prior to trial that he might be sentenced under c. 266, § 40, violated his Sixth Amendment right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, his comparable right under art. 12 of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution, and his right to be heard on the issue whether three "distinct larcenies" have been proved.

We have earlier held that a defendant may be sentenced under G.L. c. 266, § 40, without notice of the possibility appearing in the indictments. Collins v. Commonwealth, 315 Mass. 167, 169-170, 51 N.E.2d 973 (1943). See Commonwealth v. McKnight, 289 Mass. 530, 548, 195 N.E. 499 (1935). We see no constitutional compulsion to conclude otherwise here. The defendant Crocker, as was true of the defendants in Collins and McKnight, is simply being given one consolidated sentence for the three larceny offenses of which he has been duly convicted. ² The sentencing scheme to which Crocker was subjected thus differs from that contained in the habitual criminal statutes, G.L. c. 278, § 11A and G.L. c. 279, § 25, which authorize maximum punishment for the felony currently charged only upon allegation and proof of prior felonies for which a defendant earlier has been convicted and sentenced. See McDonald v. Commonwealth, 173 Mass. 322, 327, 53 N.E. 874 (1899), aff'd, 180 U.S. 311, 21 S.Ct. 389, 45

L.Ed. 543 (1901). Here, the indictments against Crocker gave him notice of the felonies charged, all of which were tried together and for which he was given a single sentence. Prior to trial, he need not have been informed, in addition to the accusations against him, of the sentence that might be imposed.³

That this case involves a jury-waived trial does not alter matters. Crocker argues that without notice of the allowable sentence under c. 266, § 40, the consequences of his waiver of jury trial were not "clearly foreseeable." See Commonwealth v. Dietrich, --- Mass. ---, ^a 409 N.E.2d 1288 (1980). We think the possible sentences contained in our criminal statutes are sufficiently foreseeable whether a defendant elects to be tried by a judge or a jury, and the failure expressly to inform the defendant of the statutory provisions in advance of trial does not vitiate his waiver of jury trial. ⁴

Nor was Crocker denied an opportunity to be heard on the issue whether he had been convicted of three distinct larcenies, as required by c. 266, § 40. At the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor recommended disposition under c. 266, § 40, in light of Crocker's extensive record. Crocker, through his counsel, had a full opportunity to argue against the appropriateness of that disposition. We add that it is beyond question here that the three larcenies were "distinct." Cf. Collins v. Commonwealth, supra; Commonwealth v. McKnight, supra 289 Mass. at 547, 195 N.E. 499. ⁵

In sum, we conclude that Crocker's constitutional rights were not violated by the failure to inform him prior to trial of the possible application of the sentencing procedure of G.L. c. 266, § 40.

2. Alleged Duplicitous Convictions.

Crocker contends that his convictions for both uttering and larceny are duplicitous, stemming as they do from the same transactions. He relies on language in Commonwealth v. Catania, 377 Mass. 186, 385 N.E.2d 509 (1979), in which, after stating the general rule that multiple punishments may not be imposed for both a greater and a lesser-included offense, we went on to say that where "both charges stem from the same incident, 'uttering a forged instrument' is another way of describing the false pretense required for proof of the larceny complaint(;) (t)hus the uttering offense is included within the larceny offense." Id. at 191, 385 N.E.2d 509. Because uttering is punishable more severely than larceny, however, Crocker would have us vacate the convictions on the less serious offense (larceny), leaving intact the convictions on the more serious offense (uttering), as is our usual remedy in cases of duplicitous convictions. See Commonwealth v. Jones, --- Mass. ---, ---, ^b 416 N.E.2d 914

(1981), and cases cited.

In refutation, the Commonwealth contends that under the rule established in Morey v. Commonwealth, 108 Mass. 433, 434 (1871), uttering is not a lesser-included offense of larceny. For the reasons that follow, we agree with the Commonwealth's contention and conclude that neither uttering nor larceny is a lesser-included offense of the other and that the defendant's convictions for both offenses are not duplicitous.

We have recently repeated that to determine whether a defendant may be convicted of two statutory offenses arising from a single incident, "the long-prevailing test in this Commonwealth is whether each crime requires proof of an additional fact that the other does not. Morey v. Commonwealth, 108 Mass. 433, 434 (1871). Kuklis v. Commonwealth, 361 Mass. 302, 306-307, 280 N.E.2d 155 (1972). See Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304, 52 S.Ct. 180, 182, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932) (adopting this test for Federal offenses). If so, neither crime is a lesser-included offense of the other, and convictions on both are deemed to have been authorized by the Legislature and hence not duplicitous." Commonwealth v. Jones, --- Mass. [384 Mass. 358] ---, ---, ^c 416 N.E.2d 914 (1981). In the context of multiple offenses prosecuted at a single criminal proceeding, as is the case here, we have generally adhered to the "required evidence" rule of Morey, by examining the elements of the statutory

offenses charged to determine whether each offense requires proof of a different fact. ⁶

Applying the Morey rule to the statutory offenses at issue here, we conclude that each offense requires proof of a fact that the other does not. Uttering a forged instrument, G.L. c. 267, § 5, requires the use of a forged or altered commercial instrument; larceny by false pretenses, G.L. c. 266, § 30(1), does not. Larceny by false pretenses requires a permanent taking of property caused by reliance on the defendant's false statement, see Commonwealth v. Leonard, 352 Mass. 636, 644-645, 227 N.E.2d 721 (1967); uttering requires neither actual reliance nor any taking, see Commonwealth v. Analetto, 326 Mass. 115, 118, 93 N.E.2d 390 (1950). The Morey standard thus is satisfied.

Our conclusion in Catania that uttering was a lesser-included offense of larceny rested on the ground that the evidence presented at Catania's trial in support of the uttering offense was the same as that in support of the larceny offense. Commonwealth v. Catania, supra, 377 Mass. at 191, 385 N.E.2d 509. This approach followed that in Commonwealth v. Cerveny, 373 Mass. 345, 355-356, 367 N.E.2d 802 (1977), in which we also looked beyond the required elements of the statutory offenses (which is the focus of Morey ) to the actual evidence introduced at the defendant's trial. Although in particular cases such an approach may lead to what appears to be a fair result for the defendant, we think this departure from the Morey test, as applied to the prosecution of multiple offenses in a single criminal trial, ⁷ runs the risk of unnecessary intrusion into the legislative prerogative to define crimes and fix punishments.

Whether characterized as a constitutional requirement under the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution or as a common law rule, ⁸ the prohibition against duplicitous convictions at a single criminal...