Ex parte Heath

• Decision Date: 06 July 1984
• Parties: Ex parte Larry Gene HEATH. (Re Larry Gene Heath v. State of Alabama). 82-1060.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 905

455 So.2d 905

Ex parte Larry Gene HEATH.

(Re Larry Gene Heath v. State of Alabama).

82-1060.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

July 6, 1984.

Larry W. Roney, Phenix City, for petitioner.

Charles A. Graddick, Atty. Gen., and William D. Little, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

FAULKNER, Justice.

The petitioner was convicted of murder during a kidnapping in violation of § 13A-5-40(a)(1), Code of Alabama, and was sentenced to die. The Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed the petitioner's conviction and, after independently determining that the death penalty was appropriate, affirmed his conviction and sentence. Heath v. State, 455 So.2d 898 (Ala.Crim.App.1983). We granted certiorari pursuant to A.R.A.P. 39(c).

The facts are set out in detail in exhibit A to the opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals. In short, Heath hired two men to abduct and murder his wife. After she was kidnapped and shot, her abductors abandoned her body in Georgia. Heath pleaded guilty to murder charges brought in Georgia and was sentenced to life in prison.

In his appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals and in his petition to this Court, Heath raised only one issue, whether Alabama was prohibited by the double jeopardy provisions of the United States and the Alabama Constitutions from prosecuting Heath for his wife's murder after his murder conviction in Georgia arising out of the same incident. United States Constitution, Amendment V.; Alabama Constitution Art. 1, § 9.

We agree with the Court of Criminal Appeals that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the double jeopardy clause of the Alabama Constitution each applies only to offenses against the same sovereign and, therefore, that the subsequent prosecution in Alabama was not barred. Prosecutions under the laws of separate sovereigns do not improperly subject an accused twice to prosecutions for the same offense. United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 317, 98 S.Ct. 1079, 1082, 55 L.Ed.2d 303 (1978). Thus, a federal prosecution does not bar a subsequent state prosecution of the same person for the same acts on which the federal prosecution was based; nor does a prior state prosecution bar a federal one. Abbate v. United States, 359 U.S. 187, 79 S.Ct. 666, 3 L.Ed.2d 729 (1959); Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121, 79 S.Ct. 676, 3 L.Ed.2d 684 (1959). As the Supreme Court stated in United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. at 320, 98 S.Ct. at 1084:

"Bartkus and Abbate rest on the basic structure of our federal system, in which States and the National Government are separate political communities. State and Federal Governments '[derive] power from different sources,' each from the organic law that established it. United States v. Lanza, 260 U.S. 377, 382 [43 S.Ct. 141, 142, 67 L.Ed. 314]. Each has the power, inherent in any sovereign, independently to determine what shall be an offense against its authority and to punish such offenses, and in doing so each 'is exercising its own sovereignty, not that of the other.' Ibid. And while the States, as well as the Federal Government, are subject to the overriding requirements of the Federal Constitution, and the Supremacy Clause gives Congress within its sphere the power to enact laws superseding conflicting laws of the States, this degree of federal control over the exercise of state governmental power does not detract from the fact that it is a State's own...