State v. Castonguay

• Decision Date: 24 April 1968
• Citation: 240 A.2d 747
• Parties: STATE of Maine v. Gerard C. CASTONGUAY.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 747

240 A.2d 747

STATE of Maine v. Gerard C. CASTONGUAY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

April 24, 1968.

Hubert Ryan, County Atty., Farmington, Daniel G. Lilley and Richard S. Cohen, Asst. Attys. Gen., Augusta, for plaintiff.

Edward J. Ridge, and Roland A. Wallace, Portland, for defendant.

Before WILLIAMSON, C. J., and TAPLEY, MARDEN and WEATHERBEE, Jj.

WILLIAMSON, Chief Justice.

The defendant was convicted of the robbery of the Wilton branch of the Depositors Trust Company in the Franklin Superior Court by a Justice sitting in a jury waived session. The issues are whether the defendant was deprived of certain constitutional rights and whether testimony was erroneously admitted into evidence. The defendant's appeal is sustained. 17 M.R.S.A. § 3401.

The following facts are substantiated by the record:

On April 15, 1965 the bank was 'held up' by a masked man who at the point of a loaded revolver compelled bank employees to deliver money to him. On April 21, 1965 the defendant was arrested by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and on the same day he was arraigned before the United States Commissioner for alleged violation of the federal statute relating to robbery of the Depositors Trust Company, a member of the Federal Reserve System and of which the deposits were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. 18 U.S.C.A. § 2113(a).

On April 22 or 23, a detective, who was a member of the State Police, told the defendant, 'that the State charges would be pressed against him.' On the 24th, the detective obtained a warrant for the arrest of the defendant on a charge of robbery under State law, and on the same day he delivered a copy of the warrant as a 'detainer' to the Cumberland County jail where the defendant was then held by the Federal authorities.

On May 14, 1965 the defendant pleaded guilty in the United States District Court to an information charging robbery of the bank. On June 16, 1965 he was sentenced to imprisonment for three years with six months to be served in a Federal penitentiary and two and one-half years suspended.

No further action was taken by the State against the defendant from the delivery of the warrant as a 'detainer' until the return of the indictment. The State knew that the defendant during this period was serving a sentence in the Federal penitentiary.

The defendant was indicted for robbery by the grand jury at the October 1965 term of the Franklin Superior Court. At the next term, the February 1966 term, the defendant was tried, convicted, and sentenced to three and one-half to ten years in State prison.

The defendant thus has pleaded guilty to robbery under the Federal Statute; has served his Federal sentence in the penitentiary; and has since been found guilty on trial for robbery under the State statute. Without question, the State and the Federal prosecutions arose from identical facts. We have then two crimes; the one under Federal law and the other under State law; two convictions and two sentences. We turn to the claims of error:

First. The defendant contends that he was placed in jeopardy twice by trial in the State Court. The Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution provides, 'nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.' Our Maine Constitution is identical in effect: 'No person, for the same offence, shall be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.' Article I, Section 8.

The Fifth Amendment through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not prohibit State prosecution following Federal prosecution for a crime based on the same facts. The Federal constitutional law is well established that acts which constitute a crime under Federal law may also constitute a crime under State law, and vice versa. In short, each sovereignty may constitutionally insist that given acts are criminal under its own laws. The principles are fully discussed in Bartkus v. People of State of Illinois, 359 U.S. 121, 79 S.Ct. 676, 3 L.Ed.2d 684 (1959). Bartkus so far as we are aware, states the controlling law under the Federal Constitution.

We are asked, however, passing Bartkus, to determine that the Constitution of Maine prohibits successive Federal-State trials. The argument, vigorously asserted in the brief prepared by our late Brother Casper Tevanian, is that, in this case of first impression in Maine, we adopt the reasoning and conclusion of the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Black in Bartkus. Without question, we have the power to construe our Constitution differently from the construction placed upon the Federal Constitution by the Supreme Court. It would violate no Federal constitutional law should we hold that Maine could not under the Maine Constitution prosecute the defendant for robbery under State law after trial in the Federal Court for robbery under Federal law. Our decision would in no way affect or bind the Federal Courts or the Federal Government in a prosecution after the State. We read nothing, however, in our Constitution that requires or should require us to reach a conclusion different from that of the Supreme Court in Bartkus.

Is it within the bounds of governmental fair play and equal justice that the defendant should be punished by the Federal Government and again by the State for the identical robbery? That the bank was a member of the Federal Reserve System with deposists insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in no way altered the facts of the crime.

The crime was heinous. Persons in the bank were placed in fear of bodily harm and indeed of death by the armed robber. The seriousness of the crime would not, however, be a proper ground for bending established principles of law. The double jeopardy issue must be determined without reference to the character of the crime.

Without doubt, State prosecuting officers may properly determine that trial in the Federal Court satisfies needs of the State. Likewise, Federal officials may be content with a State prosecution. Here, as with the seriousness of the crime, we must not be led to a conclusion unsound in law. The polices of the prosecuting officers in determining whether to prosecute do not thereby become the standards of law which we are under duty to apply.

There is, in our view, no requirement of double jeopardy, of due process, or of fundamental fairness that the prosecution by one sovereign of given criminal acts satisfies, as a matter of law, the legitimate needs of the second sovereign. Two crimes have been committed-State and Federal. A race by the authorities of State and Nation to prosecute X for a crime, thus barring the loser from later prosecution, would be unseemly in our Federal system.

We conclude, therefore, that neither the Federal nor the State Constitution prohibited the trial of the defendant in the State. Public policy, taken apart from strict constitutional principles, would not be served by the prohibition of the second State prosecution under our supervisory control of the State Courts.

Second and Third. The defendant charges error in that he was denied a speedy trial and that he was not taken before a magistrate in the State within a reasonable time. For these reasons he appeals from the refusal to dismiss three indictments on defendant's motion. The defendant was found guilty of robbery on one indictment; the other indictments have disappeared from the case.

For convenience we discuss the points together.

The constitutional guarantees are:

Federal: 'In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial. * * *' 6th Amendment.

State: 'In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have a right * * * to have a speedy, public and impartial trial, * * *" Article I, Sec. 6.

The defendant has failed to substantiate his claims of error. From the issuance of the State warrant of arrest until the indictments were returned, it appears that the defendant was in the custody of the Federal Government. He cannot well say that he was harmed by the State in not acting under the warrant during the period of detention for the Federal crime.

In State v. Counture, 156 Me. 231; 163 A.2d 646 (1960), relied upon by the defendant, the Court had under consideration not, as here, the time from issuance of warrant until indictment or trial, but the time from indictment kto arrest. Couture was not arrested for nearly eight months after the indictment was returned, during which period he was unaware of the indictment. The Court held that his constitutional right to a speedy trial had been violated.

In the case at bar there is no indication of a demand for trial at the October 1965 Term. The case remained on the docket and was heard at the next term in February, four months from the return of the indictments

In 1966 the Supreme Court stated the principles in United States v. Ewell, 383 U.S. 116: 86 S.Ct. 773, 776, 15 L.Ed.2d 627:

'We cannot agree that the passage of 19 months between the original arrests and the hearings on the later indictments itself demonstrates a violation of the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a speedy trial. This guarantee is an important safeguard to prevent undue and oppressive incarceration prior to trial, to minimize anxiety and concern accompanying public accusation and to limit the possibilities that long delay will impair the ability of an accused to defend himself. However, in large measure because of the many procedural safeguards provided an accused, the ordinary procedures for criminal prosecution are designed to move at a deliberate pace. A requirement of unreasonable speed would have a deleterious effect both upon the rights of the accused and upon the ability of society to protect itself. Therefore, this Court has consistently been of the view that 'The right of a speedy trial is necessarily relative. It is consistent with delays and depends upon circumstances. It secures rights to a defendant. It does not...