Prince v. United States

• Decision Date: 29 February 1956
• Docket Number: No. 15755.,15755.
• Citation: 230 F.2d 568
• Parties: Ollie Otto PRINCE, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

230 F.2d 568 (1956)

Ollie Otto PRINCE, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 15755.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

February 29, 1956.

Joseph P. Jenkins, Kansas City, Kan., for appellant.

Harman Parrott, Asst. U. S. Atty., San Antonio, Tex., Lonny F. Zwiener, Asst. U. S. Atty., Austin, Tex., Russell B. Wine, U. S. Atty., San Antonio, Tex., for appellee.

Before BORAH, TUTTLE and JONES, Circuit Judges.

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal from the overruling of his motion for a reduction of sentence,¹ the appellant raises here again the question of merger among the various subsections of 18 U.S.C.A. § 2113, sometimes referred to as the Bank Robbery Act. In 1949 he was convicted under both counts of a two-count indictment of (1) entering a bank insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation with intent to commit a felony therein and (2) feloniously and by intimidation taking $15,764 of the bank's money from the presence of Guy Mann, while putting the life of said Guy Mann in jeopardy by the use of a dangerous weapon, to wit, a pistol. He was thereafter sentenced to a term of twenty years under the first count and fifteen years under the second, to be served consecutively. The substance of his argument is that the first count is merged in the second, with the result that either one or the other of the sentences must be set aside as illegal.

The same issue was before this court in Durrett v. United States, 5 Cir., 107 F.2d 438, and Wells v. United States, 5 Cir., 124 F.2d 334, 335, and each time resulted in a decision contrary to this appellant's position. He urges, however, that subsequent events, in the form of Wells' release from prison on the ground that his sentence was illegal,² and inconsistent interpretations of the statute by this and other Courts of Appeal, call for a re-examination of the Act and decisions thereunder.

Section 2113, Title 18, was passed by Congress in 1948 to replace 12 U.S.C.A. §§ 588a, 588b, and 588c, which were then repealed. Section 2113 is substantially a reenactment of the former statute, consolidating and slightly modifying the earlier act. Nothing in the reenactment affects the question of merger within the subsections, and both the prisoner and the government agree that for our purposes cases construing the 1934 statute are good authority for an interpretation of § 2113.

The statute, set out below,³ seems to separate a typical bank robbery, as one might presume it to be, into various stages, making criminal the commission of the acts constituting the progressive steps of the criminal undertaking. Thus, one paragraph of subsection (a) makes criminal the entering of a bank⁴ or savings and loan association⁵ with the intent of committing a felony therein affecting the bank or savings and loan association. The other paragraph of subsection (a) makes criminal the taking of bank property by force and violence or intimidation from the person or presence of another. Subsection (b) makes criminal the taking and carrying away of bank property, when such act is done with intent to steal or purloin. Subsection (c) defines the crime of receiving property stolen from a bank or savings and loan association. Subsection (d) provides a heavier penalty when any of the acts defined in (a) or (b) are accomplished or attempted by putting anyone's life in jeopardy with the use of a dangerous weapon. Subsection (e) provides the death penalty, if the jury so directs, for killing or kidnapping done in committing any offense defined in the section.

Because of this statutory delineation of the various steps in a typical bank robbery, the question has arisen whether Congress intended that the criminal who succeeds in his unlawful enterprise to the extent of accomplishing more than one phase of it, as the statute defines the phases, can be punished for more than one crime. The Sixth Circuit has adopted the view that he cannot, Simunov v. United States, 6 Cir., 162 F.2d 314, and the Ninth Circuit in a clear dictum has indicated that it is in accord with this view. Barkdoll v. United States, 9 Cir., 147 F.2d 617.⁶

This construction of the statute cannot be supported by reference to the doctrine of merger, because except for the offenses of bank petit larceny and bank grand larceny defined in subsection (b), no crime defined in the statute contains all the elements of another crime defined therein.⁷ Aside from the two paragraphs of subsection (b), the offenses most identical to each other are those of larceny as defined in (b) and robbery as defined in the first paragraph of (a). These are differentiated, however, by the fact that larceny under the statute requires the "intent to steal or purloin," while this element of specific criminal intent is omitted from the first paragraph of (a), thus apparently making sufficient for conviction under (a) only the general criminal intent to do the prohibited acts themselves.

Indeed, the view that subsections (a) and (b) constitute but one crime is not grounded on the doctrine or merger, but rests instead on presumed Congressional intention. Legislative history is not cited to sustain this interpretation, however. Instead, it is based on Congress's aims as manifested by the statute itself, the opinion of those who follow this interpretation being that since the main purpose of the statute is to make robberies of FDIC-insured banks criminal, the statute will support only a conviction for the single offense of bank robbery or one phase thereof.⁸

In this respect, however, § 2113 is not an unusual type of enactment, and other statutes which punish separately the various steps of a criminal undertaking have not been construed as limited to supporting only one conviction. For example, under 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 659 and 2117, one may be convicted of the separate crimes of breaking the seal on a railroad car containing interstate shipments of freight, entering the car with intent to steal, and stealing property from the car. Greenburg v. United States, 7 Cir., 253 F. 728. In applying this statute, formerly combined in 18 U.S.C.A. § 409, one court observed:

"We are unable to read the statute other than that Congress intended to make each and every separate act named, a separate crime. Citing cases. If the construction seems harsh, it must also be appreciated that there is a vast difference between the maximum and the minimum sentence provision as there is a vast difference between the action and motives of different offenders. In the trial judge, there is lodged wide discretion, and if misjudgment results in too severe judgments, the accused may secure relief through executive clemency, as well as by parole." United States v. Carpenter, 7 Cir., 143 F.2d 47, 48.

We reach the same conclusion in this case. Under the 1934 statute, the weight of authority sustained convictions of more than one offense defined in what is now § 2113(a) and (b). McNealy v. United States, 5 Cir., 164 F.2d 600; Rawls v. United States, 10 Cir., 162 F.2d 798; Wells v. United States, 5 Cir., 124 F.2d 334; Durrett v. United States, 5 Cir., 107 F.2d 438. In only one case was such a conviction struck down. Simunov v. United States, 6 Cir., 162 F.2d 314. Nevertheless, Congress reenacted the statute substantially as before. In the light of this fact, and of the analogous precedent of Congress's previous use of this same statutory pattern in other areas of the criminal law, we find ourselves unable to agree that Congress intended that violations of different parts of § 2113(a), (b), and (d) would constitute only one crime. More important, the plain terms of the statute itself compel a different conclusion.

The issue is somewhat complicated by the fact that subsection (d) defines as criminal certain acts when done in committing or attempting to commit any offense defined in (a) or (b). It is unanimously held that when one is charged with committing or attempting to commit an offense defined in (a) or (b), and also the aggravating acts defined in (d) in conjunction therewith, only one conviction will stand. Heflin v. United States, 5 Cir., 223 F.2d 371; Ward v. United States, 10 Cir., 183 F.2d 270; Simunov v. United States, 6 Cir., 162 F. 2d 314; Gant v. United States, 5 Cir., 161 F.2d 793; O'Keith v. United States, 5 Cir., 158 F.2d 591; Crum v. United States, 9 Cir., 151 F.2d 510; Miller v. United States, 2 Cir., 147 F.2d 372; Vautrot v. United States, 8 Cir., 144 F. 2d 740; Hewitt v. United States, 8 Cir., 110 F.2d 1. Cf. Holiday v. Johnston, 313 U.S. 342, 61 S.Ct. 1015, 85 L.Ed. 1392. The rationale of these cases is that subsection (d) defines an aggravation of the same offenses as are made criminal in (a) and (b). The same theory has been advanced with regard to subsection (e). Crum v. United States, 9 Cir., 151 F.2d 510.

The problem usually arises, as it is presented here, when two crimes defined in (a) or (b) are alleged, and it is further alleged that one of them was done in the aggravated manner defined in (d). Obviously, under the authorities just cited, the act made criminal in (a) and (b) which is performed in the aggravated manner described in (d) is merged with the latter offense. Is the other subsection (a) or (b) crime also merged? The answer is unquestionably no. In Heflin v. United States, 5 Cir., 223 F.2d 371, we reached the opposite conclusion, because the government there conceded the point and agreed to a corresponding modification of...