Hunter v. State
Decision Date | 10 June 1981 |
Citation | 430 A.2d 476 |
Parties | Sara C. HUNTER, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. |
Court | Supreme Court of Delaware |
Upon remand by the United States Supreme Court. Judgment below affirmed.
Richard E. Fairbanks, Jr. (argued), Richard M. Baumeister, and Edward C. Pankowski, Jr., Asst. Public Defenders, Wilmington, for defendant below, appellant.
Charles M. Oberly, III, Asst. State Pros., and Bartholomew J. Dalton, Deputy Atty. Gen. (argued), Wilmington, for plaintiff below, appellee.
Before HERRMANN, Chief Justice, DUFFY, McNEILLY, QUILLEN and HORSEY, Justices, constituting the Court en Banc.
This case, decided by this Court on June 24, 1980 (Hunter v. State, Del.Supr., 420 A.2d 119), is now before this Court on vacating of judgment and remand by the Supreme Court of the United States (in summary disposition of Certiorari 80-283) "for further consideration in light of Albernaz v. United States," --- U.S. ----, 101 S.Ct. 1137, 67 L.Ed.2d 275 (1981). Delaware v. Hunter, --- U.S. ----, 101 S.Ct. 1689, 68 L.Ed.2d 190 (1981).
Our reconsideration of Hunter, under the mandate, is limited to the double jeopardy issue to which Albernaz applies.
In Hunter, the defendant was convicted of first-degree assault under 11 Del.C. § 613(1) and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony under 11 Del.C. § 1447. 1 Before entering into an examination of whether cumulative punishments for the two offenses under § 613(1) and § 1447 were constitutionally permissible under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, "we considered preliminarily the question of whether the General Assembly intended to subject the defendant to multiple penalties for the single criminal act in which she engaged." 420 A.2d at 124. We there concluded that such was the legislative intent; that " § 1447 creates an offense distinct from the underlying § 613(1) felony of Assault First Degree, and that is was the legislative intent to subject this defendant to multiple penalties for the single criminal act in which she engaged"; and that, accordingly, we reached "the constitutional double jeopardy issue and the need to evaluate § 613(1) and § 1447in the light of the Blockburger (v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306) test." 420 A.2d at 124. And then, making the analysis and following what we thought were the teachings of Simpson v. United States, 435 U.S. 6, 98 S.Ct. 909, 55 L.Ed.2d 70 (1978); Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977); Jeffers v. United States, 432 U.S. 137, 97 S.Ct. 2207, 53 L.Ed.2d 168 (1977); Iannelli v. United States, 420 U.S. 770, 95 S.Ct. 1284, 43 L.Ed.2d 616 (1975); North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969); and Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), we concluded in Hunter that the Blockburger test was not satisfied; that under the test as applied in the instant case, for "double jeopardy purposes the two offenses are undoubtedly 'the same' "; and that, therefore, multiple punishments for the "same offense" had been imposed here in violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause. 420 A.2d at 125.
This Court unanimously agreed upon that result in the original Hunter opinion.
Subsequent to the filing of the original Hunter opinion on March 14, 1980, the United States Supreme Court decided Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 63 L.Ed.2d 715 (1980), on April 16, 1980. A motion for reargument and clarification was then pending in the instant case on another issue. In view of the cloud cast by Whalen upon the original Hunter opinion regarding the double jeopardy issue, this Court, sua sponte, requested supplemental briefing regarding the effect of Whalen upon the conclusions we had reached on the double jeopardy issue. Supplemental Opinions were filed in this case upon the Motion for Reargument, on June 24, 1980. 420 A.2d at 127-34.
In the Supplemental Opinions, the majority stated:
420 A.2d at 128-29 (footnote omitted). And after considerable self-imposed reconsideration in the light of Whalen, the majority of this Court concluded:
420 A.2d at 130 (footnote omitted).
Justice Quillen dissented in the Supplemental Opinions, joined by Justice McNeilly, stating:
420 A.2d at 132 (footnote omitted) (Quillen, J., dissenting). The dissent concluded:
420 A.2d at 134 (footnote omitted) (Quillen, J., dissenting).
Thus the issue stood in this State (subject to a stay by this Court on all affected cases pending the outcome of the State's petition for certiorari) until the United States Supreme Court acted upon that petition by vacating this Court's judgment in this case and remanding the cause for reconsideration in the light of Albernaz, decided March 9, 1981.
We now have the enlightenment of the opinion of the Court in Albernaz, as set forth in its final paragraphs:
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Whalen v. State
...in Delaware can be convicted and punished for both felony murder and the underlying felony. See Whalen I, 434 A.2d 1346; Hunter v. State, Del.Supr., 430 A.2d 476 (1981). Thus, we consider a double jeopardy analysis Despite North Carolina's analogy to double jeopardy problems, its final hold......
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Birr v. State
...459 U.S. 1192, 103 S.Ct. 1171, 75 L.Ed.2d 423 (1983), while others have used it as a rule of statutory construction, e.g., Hunter v. State, Del.Supr., 430 A.2d 476, cert. denied 454 U.S. 971, 102 S.Ct. 519, 70 L.Ed.2d 390 (1981). The United States Supreme Court, the author of the test, has ......
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State v. Pancake
...separately punishable by a same evidence Blockburger -like test. Beckley v. State, Ala.App., 357 So.2d 1022 (1978); Hunter v. State, Del., 430 A.2d 476 (1981) (first-degree assault and possession of a deadly weapon during commission of a felony); Vincent v. State, Del., 256 A.2d 268 (1969) ......
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Flamer v. State
...multiple sentences for the offenses did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Hunter v. State (Hunter II), Del.Supr., 430 A.2d 476 (1981); Evans v. State, (Evans II), Del.Supr., 430 A.2d 481 (1981). In Evans v. State, Del.Supr., 445 A.2d 932, (1982) we extended the ......