Menna v. New York

• Decision Date: 17 November 1975
• Docket Number: No. 75-5401,75-5401
• Citation: 46 L.Ed.2d 195,96 S.Ct. 241,423 U.S. 61
• Parties: Steve MENNA v. State of NEW YORK
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

423 U.S. 61

96 S.Ct. 241

46 L.Ed.2d 195

Steve MENNA

v State of NEW YORK.

No. 75-5401.

Nov. 17, 1975.

PER CURIAM.

On November 7, 1968, after being granted immunity, petitioner refused to answer questions put to him before a duly convened Kings County, N. Y., Grand Jury which was investigating a murder conspiracy.On March 18, 1969, petitioner refused to obey a court order to return to testify before the same Grand Jury in connection with the same investigation.On that date, petitioner was adjudicated in contempt of court under § 750 of the New York Judiciary Law for his failure to testify before the Grand Jury; and, on March 21, 1969, after declining an offer to purge his contempt, petitioner was sentenced to a flat 30-day term in civil jail.Petitioner served his sentence.

On June 10, 1970, petitioner was indicted for his refusal to answer questions before the Grand Jury on November 7, 1968.After asserting unsuccessfully that his indictment should be dismissed under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, petitioner pleaded guilty to the indictment and was sentenced on his plea.Petitioner appealed, claiming that the Double Jeopardy Clause precluded the State from haling him into court on the charge to which he had pleaded guilty.¹The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, declining to address the double jeopardy claim on the merits.It held, relying, inter alia, on Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 93 S.Ct. 1602, 36 L.Ed.2d 235(1973), that the double jeopardy claim had been "waived" by petitioner's counseled plea of guilty.

We reverse.Where the State is precluded by the United States Constitution from haling a defendant into court on a charge, federal law requires that a conviction on that charge be set aside even if the conviction was entered pursuant to a counseled plea of guilty.Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21, 30, 94 S.Ct. 2098, 2103, 40 L.Ed.2d 628(1974).²The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for certiorari are granted, and the case is remanded to the New York Court of Appeals for a determination of petitioner's double jeopardy claim on the merits, a claim on which we express no view.

Mr. Justice BRENNAN agrees that "(w)here the State is precluded by the United States Constitution from haling a defendant into court on a charge, federal law requires that a conviction on that charge be set aside even if the conviction was entered pursuant to a counseled plea of guilty,"ante, but on his view that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars the prosecution from mounting successive prosecutions for offenses growing out of the same criminal transaction, he believes that the proper disposition of the case is not a remand but outright reversal.SeeAshe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 453-454, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1199, 25 L.Ed.2d 469(1970)(Brennan, J., concurring).

The CHIEF JUSTICE and Mr. Justice REHNQUIST would grant the petition for a writ of certiorari and set the case for oral argument.

1The state concedes that petitioner's double jeopardy claim is a strong one on the merits.In light of the flat 30-day sentence imposed, the earlier conviction was a criminal conviction, People v. Colombo, 31 N.Y.2d 947, 341 N.Y.S.2d 97, 293 N.E.2d 247, on re and from Colombo v. New York, 405 U.S. 9, 92 S.Ct. 756, 30 L.Ed.2d 762, and New York law supports the proposition that the earlier conviction was based, at least in part, on the failure to answer...