Parks v. State, 485S138

• Decision Date: 05 March 1986
• Docket Number: No. 485S138,485S138
• Parties: Jeffrey PARKS, Appellant (Defendant below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 515

489 N.E.2d 515

Jeffrey PARKS, Appellant (Defendant below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).

No. 485S138.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

March 5, 1986.

Robert F. Hellman, Terre Haute, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Michael Gene Worden, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

PIVARNIK, Justice.

Defendant-Appellant Parks was convicted at the conclusion of a jury trial in the Vigo Superior Court of two (2) counts of criminal confinement, a class B felony. The trial court found that aggravating factors existed and imposed a twelve (12) year sentence on each count to be served consecutively, for a total sentence of twenty-four (24) years. On direct appeal the issue is raised for us to consider whether this sentence twice punishes Appellant for the same offense.

At 3:30 a.m. on June 10, 1984, Virginia Young-White and Shirley R. Anderson were leaving the establishment where White had performed that night. Appellant forced them into their car at knife-point, and demanded they drive away. He inflicted a wound to White's throat. Appellant ordered them to stop the car at an empty parking lot, took the keys, and got out of the car. White and Anderson locked Appellant out of the car and escaped, using a spare key for the car. Appellant was convicted and sentenced on two (2) counts of confinement while armed.

A defendant has no constitutional right to have sentences run concurrently. Hoskins v. State (1982), Ind., 441 N.E.2d 419, 428. Despite Appellant's contentions to the contrary, the present sentence does not constitute double jeopardy since the two counts of which he was convicted were not the same offense. We specifically rejected Appellant's arguments in Bish v. State (1981), Ind., 421 N.E.2d 608, 614, reh. denied (1981) and Elmore v. State (1978), 269 Ind. 532, 539, 382 N.E.2d 893, 897, where we held:

"The focus of a proper double jeopardy analysis must be on whether or not the offenses to be prosecuted and punished are the same, and not whether the offenses spring from the same act or operative circumstances .... The ultimate focus is on the identity of the offenses, not on the identity of their source."

The ultimate issue in these cases is whether each count charged requires proof of an additional fact which the other does not. Blockburger v. United States (1934), 284 U.S. 299, 304, 52 S.Ct. 180, 182, 76 L.Ed. 306, 309; Bish, Ind., 421 N.E.2d at 614; Elmore, 269 Ind. at 534, 382 N.E.2d at 895. If this test is satisfied, the prohibition of double jeopardy is not violated, even if there is a substantial overlap in the evidence to prove both offenses. Bish, Ind., 421 N.E.2d at 614. In the present case the State was required, for each count, to prove an additional fact which the other count did not require, namely, the identity of each victim.

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