Mansfield v. Champion

• Decision Date: 03 May 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-5158,92-5158
• Citation: 992 F.2d 1098
• Parties: Wilburn Rollo MANSFIELD, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ron CHAMPION, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 1098

992 F.2d 1098

Wilburn Rollo MANSFIELD, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ron CHAMPION, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 92-5158.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

May 3, 1993.

Wilburn Rollo Mansfield, pro se.

Susan Brimer Loving, Atty. Gen. of Okl., Steven Spears Kerr, Asst. Atty. Gen., Oklahoma City, OK, for respondent-appellee.

Before SEYMOUR and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges, and RUSSELL, ^* District Judge.

SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner Wilburn Mansfield appeals from the district court's order denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. ¹ Mansfield was convicted in

                Oklahoma state court in 1984 of two counts of robbery with firearms after former conviction of two or more felonies and was sentenced to two consecutive fifty-year terms of imprisonment.   His convictions were affirmed on direct appeal.  Storm v. State, 736 P.2d 1000 (Okla.Crim.App.1987).   After two motions for post-conviction relief were denied by state courts, Mansfield filed this action in the United States district court.   He alleges that his convictions on two separate counts of robbery subjected him to double jeopardy, that unconstitutional prior convictions were used to enhance his sentences, and that his counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to challenge the use of his prior unconstitutional convictions to enhance his sentences. 2  We reverse in part, affirm in part for reasons different from those of the district court, and remand for further proceedings
                

I

In June 1984, Mansfield and an associate robbed the Holiday Hills Liquor Store in Tulsa, Oklahoma and took the store clerk's wallet, cash from the store cash register, and three bottles of whiskey. See Storm, 736 P.2d at 1001. For this incident, Mansfield was charged with two separate counts of robbery with firearms. Count I charged him with robbing the liquor store by

wrongfully taking and carrying away certain money belonging to HOLIDAY HILLS LIQUOR STORE # 1 and in the possession of said MICHAEL CHAMPAGNE and in his immediate presence, without his consent and against his will, said robbery being accomplished by said defendants with the use of a certain firearm....

Count II charged him with robbing the store clerk personally by

wrongfully taking and carrying away certain money belonging to MICHAEL CHAMPAGNE and in his immediate presence, without his consent and against his will, said robbery being accomplished by said defendants with the use of a certain firearm....

The robbery statute applicable to Mansfield's offenses defines robbery as "a wrongful taking of personal property in the possession of another, from his person or immediate presence, and against his will, accomplished by means of force or fear." Okla.Stat. tit. 21, § 791. ³

Mansfield argues that he committed only one crime, that of robbery of the store clerk. He contends that under the statute, one can only rob a person and not a store, and that charging and convicting him of two counts of robbery for this one incident subjected him to double jeopardy. See Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304, 52 S.Ct. 180, 182, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932).

Relying on Timberlake v. United States, 767 F.2d 1479 (10th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1101, 106 S.Ct. 882, 88 L.Ed.2d 918 (1986), the district court determined that a single incident can be punished under more than one statutory provision if conviction under each provision requires proof of a fact In arguing in support of the district court's conclusion, respondent maintains that Mansfield stole from both the store and the clerk and therefore committed separate crimes. Like the district court, however, respondent does not identify what specific facts distinguished the conviction for robbing the clerk from the conviction for robbing the store. Nor does respondent cite any authority for his position that the facts here support two robbery convictions.

                not required for conviction under the other statutory provisions.  Id. at 1481;  Blockburger, 284 U.S. at 304, 52 S.Ct. at 182.   It found that Mansfield was convicted of "wrongfully taking personal property from the store clerk, against his will and by means of force or fear.   He also was found guilty of robbing the store of cash and whiskey."   Rec., vol.  I, doc. 20 at 6-7.   The court concluded that each of these convictions required proof of separate facts, although it did not specify what these separate facts were, and that Mansfield therefore was not placed in double jeopardy when he was convicted of the two robbery counts
                

The Fifth Amendment's guarantee against double jeopardy "protects against multiple punishments for the same offense." North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 717, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 2076, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969); see also United States v. Koonce, 945 F.2d 1145, 1148 (10th Cir.1991), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1695, 118 L.Ed.2d 406 and cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1705, 118 L.Ed.2d 413 (1992).

"The applicable rule is that where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each provision requires proof of an additional fact which the other does not." [Blockburger, 284 U.S. at 304, 52 S.Ct. at 182.]

This test emphasizes the elements of the two crimes. "If each requires proof of a fact that the other does not, the Blockburger test is satisfied, notwithstanding a substantial overlap in the proof offered to establish the crimes." Iannelli v. United States, 420 U.S. 770, 785 n. 17 [95 S.Ct. 1284, 1293 n. 17, 43 L.Ed.2d 616] (1975).

Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 166, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 2225-26, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977); see also Timberlake, 767 F.2d at 1481; Johnson v. State, 611 P.2d 1137, 1140 (Okla.Crim.App.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1132, 101 S.Ct. 955, 67 L.Ed.2d 120 (1981). In a habeas corpus proceeding under section 2254, a federal court should defer to a state court's interpretation of state law in determining whether an incident constitutes one or more than one offense for double jeopardy purposes. Brecheisen v. Mondragon, 833 F.2d 238, 240 (10th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 1011, 108 S.Ct. 1479, 99 L.Ed.2d 707 (1988); see also Tucker v. Makowski, 883 F.2d 877, 880 (10th Cir.1989).

We agree with Mansfield that under Oklahoma law he committed only one robbery, and that charging and convicting him of two counts of robbery violated the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment. His two convictions did not require proof of any facts or elements not necessary to the other. As a comparison of the two counts shows, ⁴ the only distinction between them is the ownership of the money taken. Proving We see no material difference between this case and Hunnicutt, where the Oklahoma court reversed on double jeopardy grounds one of two convictions for attempting to conceal stolen property. The defendant there purchased two supposedly stolen pistols from an undercover police officer. Id. at 107.

                the ownership of stolen property, as long as the owner is not the robber, is not a necessary element for conviction under section 791.  " 'To constitute the crime of robbery, it is not material whether the title to the property is in the person from whom the property is taken or in another.' "  Smith v. State, 378 P.2d 790, 792 (Okla.Crim.App.1963) (quoting Sparkman v. State, 67 Okl.Cr. 245, 93 P.2d 1095, 1096 (1939));  see also Robards v. State, 37 Okl.Cr. 371, 259 P. 166, 168 (1927) (person robbed need only have custody or control of property).   Dividing this incident into two counts solely along ownership lines was therefore improper.  " 'Merely because one element of a single criminal act embraces two persons or things, a prosecutor may not carve out two offenses by charging the several elements of the single offense in different counts and designating only one of the persons or things in one count and designating only the other person or thing in the other count.' "  Hunnicutt v. State, 755 P.2d 105, 111 (Okla.Crim.App.1988) (quoting Robinson v. United States, 143 F.2d 276, 277 (10th Cir.1944), modified on other grounds, 147 F.2d 915 (10th Cir.1945)).   Here, the prosecution carved up the robbery element of "wrongfully taking the personal property of another" into two separate counts. 5
                

The State prosecuted [defendant] on two charges of attempting to conceal stolen property simply because law enforcement officers had taken two pistols out of the evidence room to use in the transaction. Presumably, had five pistols been involved, [defendant] would have been charged with five counts of the crime; had there been twenty weapons in the sack, [defendant] would have been charged with 20 counts of each crime. We find nothing in our statutes to indicate our legislature intended such a result.

Id. at 110. Similarly, Mansfield was charged with two counts of robbery simply because the property stolen happened to have two separate owners; presumably, had Mansfield stolen personal property belonging to another clerk that happened to have been left in the store, he would have been charged with a third count, and so on. Like the court in Hunnicutt, we see nothing in section 791 to support such a result. Cf. Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81, 83-84, 75 S.Ct. 620, 622, 99 L.Ed. 905 (1955) (rule of lenity requires that doubt as to legislature's intent in punishing for offense be resolved against turning a single transaction into multiple offenses); United States v. Jones, 841 F.2d 1022, 1023 (10th Cir.1988) (same).

Moreover, under Oklahoma law, "[r]obbery is a crime against the person," Orcutt v. State, 52 Okl.Cr. 217, 3 P.2d 912, 915 (1931), as opposed to a crime against property. The critical element of robbery is the victim's awareness that he or she is being robbed, that is, that property is being taken through fear or force applied against the victim. See Okla.Stat. tit. 21, § 796 (taking secretly...