Commonwealth v. Valle

• Decision Date: 09 June 2016
• Docket Number: No. 15–108.,15–108.
• Citation: 136 S.Ct. 1863,195 L.Ed.2d 179
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO, Petitioner v. Luis M. SANCHEZ VALLE et al.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

136 S.Ct. 1863

195 L.Ed.2d 179

COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO, Petitioner

v.Luis M. SANCHEZ VALLE et al.

No. 15–108.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued Jan. 13, 2016.

Decided June 9, 2016.

Christopher Landau, Washington, DC, for the Petitioner.

Adam G. Unikowsky, Washington, DC, for Respondents.

Nicole A. Saharsky, for the United States, as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court, supporting Respondents.

César Miranda Rodríguez, Attorney General, Margarita Mercado Echegaray, Solicitor General, Department of Justice, San Juan, PR, Christopher Landau, P.C., Jason M. Wilcox, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Washington, DC, for Petitioner.

Wanda T. Castro Alemán, Victor A. Meléndez Lugo, Sociedad Para Asistencia Legal, San Juan, PR, Adam G. Unikowsky, R. Trent McCotter, Benjamin M. Eidelson, Daniel F. Bousque, Jenner & Block LLP, Washington, DC, for Respondents.

Justice KAGAN

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits more than one prosecution for the "same offence." But under what is known as the dual-sovereignty doctrine, a single act gives rise to distinct offenses—and thus may subject a person to successive prosecutions—if it violates the laws of separate sovereigns. To determine whether two prosecuting authorities are different sovereigns for double jeopardy purposes, this Court asks a narrow, historically focused question. The inquiry does not turn, as the term "sovereignty" sometimes suggests, on the degree to which the second entity is autonomous from the first or sets its own political course. Rather, the issue is only whether the prosecutorial powers of the two jurisdictions have independent origins—or, said conversely, whether those powers derive from the same "ultimate source." United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 320, 98 S.Ct. 1079, 55 L.Ed.2d 303 (1978)

.

In this case, we must decide if, under that test, Puerto Rico and the United States may successively prosecute a single defendant for the same criminal conduct. We hold they may not, because the oldest roots of Puerto Rico's power to prosecute lie in federal soil.

I

A

Puerto Rico became a territory of the United States in 1898, as a result of the Spanish–American War. The treaty concluding that conflict ceded the island, then a Spanish colony, to the United States, and tasked Congress with determining "[t]he civil rights and political status" of its inhabitants. Treaty of Paris, Art. 9, Dec. 10, 1898, 30 Stat. 1759. In the ensuing hundred-plus years, the United States and Puerto Rico have forged a unique political relationship, built on the island's evolution into a constitutional democracy exercising local self-rule.

Acting pursuant to the U.S. Constitution's Territory Clause, Congress initially established a "civil government" for Puerto Rico possessing significant authority over internal affairs. Organic Act of 1900, ch. 191, 31 Stat. 77; see U.S. Const., Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2

(granting Congress the "Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States"). The U.S. President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appointed the governor, supreme court, and upper house of the legislature; the Puerto Rican people elected the lower house themselves. See §§ 17–35, 31 Stat. 81–85. Federal statutes generally applied (as they still do) in Puerto Rico, but the newly constituted legislature could enact local laws in much the same way as the then–45 States. See §§ 14–15, 32, id., at 80, 83–84; Puerto Rico v. Shell Co. (P. R.), Ltd., 302 U.S. 253, 261, 58 S.Ct. 167, 82 L.Ed. 235 (1937).

Over time, Congress granted Puerto Rico additional autonomy. A federal statute passed in 1917, in addition to giving the island's inhabitants U.S. citizenship, replaced the upper house of the legislature with a popularly elected senate. See Organic Act of Puerto Rico, ch. 145, §§ 5, 26, 39 Stat. 953, 958. And in 1947, an amendment to that law empowered the Puerto Rican people to elect their own governor, a right never before accorded in a U.S. territory. See Act of Aug. 5, 1947, ch. 490, § 1, 61 Stat. 770.

Three years later, Congress enabled Puerto Rico to embark on the project of constitutional self-governance. Public Law 600, "recognizing the principle of government by consent," authorized the island's people to "organize a government pursuant to a constitution of their own adoption." Act of July 3, 1950, § 1, 64 Stat. 319. Describing itself as "in the nature of a compact," the statute submitted its own terms to an up-or-down referendum of Puerto Rico's voters. Ibid. According to those terms, the eventual constitution had to "provide a republican form of government" and "include a bill of rights"; all else would be hashed out in a constitutional convention. § 2, 64 Stat. 319. The people of Puerto Rico would be the first to decide, in still another referendum, whether to adopt that convention's proposed charter. See § 3, 64 Stat. 319. But Congress would cast the dispositive vote: The constitution, Public Law 600 declared, would become effective only "[u]pon approval by the Congress." Ibid.

Thus began two years of constitution-making for the island. The Puerto Rican people first voted to accept Public Law 600, thereby triggering a constitutional convention. And once that body completed its work, the island's voters ratified the draft constitution. Congress then took its turn on the document: Before giving its approval, Congress removed a provision recognizing various social welfare rights (including entitlements to food, housing, medical care, and employment); added a sentence prohibiting certain constitutional amendments, including any that would restore the welfare-rights section; and inserted language guaranteeing children's freedom to attend private schools. See Act of July 3, 1952, 66 Stat. 327; Draft Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (1952), in Documents on the Constitutional Relationship of Puerto Rico and the United States 199 (M. Ramirez Lavandero ed., 3d ed. 1988). Finally, the constitution became law, in the manner Congress had specified, when the convention formally accepted those conditions and the governor "issue[d] a proclamation to that effect." Ch. 567, 66 Stat. 328.

The Puerto Rico Constitution created a new political entity, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico—or, in Spanish, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico. See P.R. Const., Art. I, § 1

. Like the U.S. Constitution, it divides political power into three branches—the "legislative, judicial and executive." Art. I, § 2. And again resonant of American founding principles, the Puerto Rico Constitution describes that tripartite government as "republican in form" and "subordinate to the sovereignty of the people of Puerto Rico." Ibid.

The Commonwealth's power, the Constitution proclaims, "emanates from the people and shall be exercised in accordance with their will, within the terms of the compact agreed upon between the people of Puerto Rico and the United States." Art. I, § 1.

B

We now leave the lofty sphere of constitutionalism for the grittier precincts of criminal law. Respondents Luis Sánchez Valle and Jaime Gómez Vázquez (on separate occasions) each sold a gun to an undercover police officer. Commonwealth prosecutors indicted them for, among other things, selling a firearm without a permit in violation of the Puerto Rico Arms Act of 2000. See 25 Laws P.R. Ann. § 458 (2008). While those charges were pending, federal grand juries indicted Sánchez Valle and Gómez Vázquez, based on the same transactions, for violations of analogous U.S. gun trafficking statutes. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(a)(1)(A)

, 923(a), 924(a)(1)(D), 924(a)(2). Both defendants pleaded guilty to those federal charges.

Following their pleas, Sánchez Valle and Gómez Vázquez moved to dismiss the pending Commonwealth charges on double jeopardy grounds. The prosecutors in both cases opposed those motions, arguing that Puerto Rico and the United States are different sovereigns for double jeopardy purposes, and so could bring successive prosecutions against each of the two defendants. The trial courts rejected that view and dismissed the charges. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 307a–352a. But the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals, after consolidating the two cases, reversed those decisions. See id., at 243a–306a.

The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico granted review and held that Puerto Rico's gun sale prosecutions violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. See id., at 1a–70a. The majority reasoned that, under this Court's dual-sovereignty doctrine, "what is crucial" is "[t]he ultimate source" of Puerto Rico's power to prosecute. Id., at 19a; see id., at 20a ("The use of the word ‘sovereignty’ in other contexts and for other purposes is irrelevant"). Because that power originally "derived from the United States Congress"—i.e., the same source on which federal prosecutors rely—the Commonwealth could not retry Sánchez Valle and Gómez Vázquez for unlawfully selling firearms. Id., at 66a. Three justices disagreed, believing that the Commonwealth and the United States are separate sovereigns. See id., at 71a–242a.

We granted certiorari, 576 U.S. ––––, 136 S.Ct. 28, 192 L.Ed.2d 998 (2015)

, to determine whether the Double Jeopardy Clause bars the Federal Government and Puerto Rico from successively prosecuting a defendant on like charges for the same conduct. We hold that it does, and so affirm.

II

A

This case involves the dual-sovereignty carve-out from the Double Jeopardy Clause. The ordinary rule under that Clause is that a person cannot be prosecuted twice for the same offense. See U.S. Const., Amdt. 5 ("nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb").¹ But two prosecutions, this Court has long held, are not for the same offense if brought by different sovereigns—even when those actions target the identical criminal conduct through equivalent criminal laws. See, e.g., United States v. Lanza, 260...