U.S. v. Burnette

• Decision Date: 30 April 1999
• Docket Number: No. 97-6204,97-6204
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Donald Ray BURNETTE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 567

170 F.3d 567

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Donald Ray BURNETTE, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 97-6204.

United States Court of Appeals,

Sixth Circuit.

Argued Dec. 11, 1998.

Decided March 10, 1999.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied April 30, 1999.

Perry H. Piper (argued and briefed), Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, Inc., Chattanooga, Tennessee, for Defendant-Appellant.

Gregg L. Sullivan (argued and briefed), Asst. U.S. Attorney, Office of the U.S. Attorney, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before: BOGGS and MOORE, Circuit Judges; DOWD, District Judge. ^*

OPINION

DOWD, District Judge.

The appellant stands convicted of one count of the November 15, 1996, robbery of a branch of the AmSouth Bank in Chattanooga, Tennessee (18 U.S.C. § 2113), two counts of kidnapping (18 U.S.C. § 1201), and two counts of using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to the bank robbery and kidnappings (18 U.S.C. §§ 924(c) and 2).

Burnette and his partner and co-defendant, James Travis White, entered the home of Sue Chambers, the branch manager of the bank, in the evening preceding the bank robbery. At gunpoint, they gained control of Mrs. Chambers' husband, David, her 26-year-old son, Christopher, and finally Mrs. Chambers herself as she returned home. Eventually, they separated Mrs. Chambers from her husband and son and held the two hostage to the demands of Burnette and White that, to insure the safe release of her husband and son, Mrs. Chambers must enter the bank the following morning and bring Burnette funds of the bank. Mrs. Chambers complied; with the assistance of a fellow employee, she entered the bank before it opened for business and thereafter delivered to Burnette over $183,000.00 recovered from the bank's vault.

On December 2, 1996, White confessed to the bank robbery and kidnappings. The next day, Burnette was arrested with incriminating items of evidence in his possession.

At trial, White testified as a government witness and implicated Burnette as the other robber. The alibi testimony presented on behalf of Burnette was rejected; he was convicted of all five counts and sentenced to a term of 468 months. He now appeals. ¹

The kidnapping convictions rest on the fact that White, while in control of David and Christopher Chambers during the time that followed their capture and while they were being held hostage to the demand that Mrs. Chambers loot the vault of the AmSouth Bank, drove his captives across state lines, thus creating the federal jurisdictional basis for the two kidnapping charges under 18 U.S.C. § 1201.

Burnette challenges his kidnapping convictions on two fronts. First, he argues that the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(e) foreclose the separate prosecution for kidnapping because the kidnapping of the Chambers men is covered by the provisions of subsection (e), which provides:

Whoever, in committing any offense defined in this section, or in avoiding or attempting to avoid apprehension for the commission of such offense, or in freeing himself or attempting to free himself from arrest or confinement for such offense, kills any person, or forces any person to accompany him without the consent of such person, shall be imprisoned not less than ten years, or if death results shall be punished by death or life imprisonment.

(Emphasis added.)

At the close of the government's case, Burnette moved for a dismissal of the kidnapping counts on two grounds. First, he cited the now-vacated opinion of the Eighth Circuit in Embrey v. Hershberger, 106 F.3d 805 (8th Cir.1997) for the proposition that the kidnapping conduct was fully integrated into the bank robbery charge. ² Second, he contended that he was entitled to an acquittal because it was not "reasonably foreseeable" that his partner would transport the Chambers men across state lines. On appeal, Burnette continues to advance the proposition that the provisions of § 2113(e) negate the kidnapping convictions because the kidnappings were an integral part of the bank robbery. We disagree. Our analysis follows.

The defendant's argument that the kidnapping of the Chambers men, as hostages to the success of the bank robbery, is subsumed in § 2113 is rooted in the existing case law of this Circuit and anchored in the holding of Prince v. United States, 352 U.S. 322, 77 S.Ct. 403, 1 L.Ed.2d 370 (1957), to the effect that only one sentence is permissible for federal bank robbery even though the defendant's conduct may violate more than one subsection of § 2113. See United States v. Hunter, 538 F.2d 1239 (6th Cir.1976);³ United States v. Moore, 688 F.2d 433 (6th Cir.1982). ⁴ Building on that line of cases and the provisions of § 2113(e), the defendant argues that § 2113 with its various subsections constitutes the sole source of punishment for all conduct embraced by any of its subsections, including an act of kidnapping. Before a further exploration of the defendant's argument, we pause to note that the bank robbery statute ( § 2113) and the federal kidnapping statute ( § 1201) each contain an element of the offense that the other does not. The federal kidnapping statute requires that the victim be transported across state lines and the federal bank robbery statute requires the predicate offense of robbery of a federally-insured bank.

We also note that United States v. Dotson, 546 F.2d 1151 (5th Cir.1977) found that a conviction for a kidnapping violation of § 1201 involving transportation of a bank robbery victim across state lines was not subsumed in the federal bank robbery provisions of § 2113. After noting the decision of this Circuit in Hunter, supra, and the holding in Prince, supra, the Dotson court held:

The practice disapproved in Prince of pyramiding penalties under the Federal Bank Robbery Act is not at issue here. The kidnapping charge against appellant Dotson is not grounded in the Federal Bank Robbery Act at all but rather in an entirely separate statute which makes it a federal offense to transport a kidnapped person in interstate commerce. 18 U.S.C. § 1201. Intimating no opinion as to the correctness of the Sixth Circuit's result in Hunter, we hold simply that the rule of Prince against aggregating penalties under the Federal Bank Robbery Act does not preclude imposition of the sentence in the instant case for a kidnapping conviction obtained under a statutory provision outside the Bank Robbery Act.

Dotson, 546 F.2d at 1153.

Against that background, the defendant advances the opinion expressed by Judge Lay in a split decision in Embrey v. Hershberger, 106 F.3d 805 (8th Cir.1997). The Embrey action was brought under the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Embrey forced a banker to withdraw monies from his bank and then fled across a state line, taking the banker as a hostage. As in this case, Embrey was successfully prosecuted for violation of both § 2113 and § 1201. Judge Lay's opinion held that the kidnapping conviction was subsumed in the bank robbery. The case was remanded with instructions to the district court to vacate the conviction and sentence under § 1201. The respondent-appellee petitioned for rehearing en banc which was granted. ⁵ The en banc court concluded, contrary to the position of the majority in the three-judge panel decision, that Embrey had failed to make a showing of actual innocence that would warrant consideration of the merits of Embrey's successive motion to vacate his sentence, and thus affirmed the judgment of the district court and dismissed the petition for habeas relief. 131 F.3d 739 (8th Cir.1997), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 119 S.Ct. 78, 142 L.Ed.2d 61 (1998). In so ruling, the en banc court, with Judge Lay dissenting, declined to express a view on Embrey's underlying legal theory. Id. at 740.

In his lengthy analysis, set forth as the majority opinion for the three-judge panel and again in a dissent from the en banc majority opinion, Judge Lay contended that Congress intended for the Federal Bank Robbery Act to be the comprehensive and exclusive remedial provision for bank robbery prosecution. He cited United States v. Leek, 665 F.2d 383 (D.C.Cir.1981) as authority for that proposition. We decline to adopt Judge Lay's reasoning.

In Leek, the bank robber charged under § 2113 was also charged and convicted under the District of Columbia Code for assault with a dangerous weapon used during the bank robbery; he was given consecutive sentences. The Leek court followed its earlier precedent of United States v. Canty, 469 F.2d 114 (D.C.Cir.1972) in holding "that fragmentation of a single course of conduct to enable use of a local statute to multiply convictions and enhance punishment is impermissible. We reiterate that the Federal Bank Robbery Act is carefully designed, matching maximum penalties with specific offenses." Leek, 665 F.2d at 388.

The Leek court then discounted the Blockburger test for application to the case at hand, repeating as indicated in Canty, supra, that "congressional intent, as ultimately discerned, is controlling." Leek, 665 F.2d at 388.

To make its point based on Supreme Court precedent, the Leek court then referred to Simpson v. United States, 435 U.S. 6, 11-12, 98 S.Ct. 909, 55 L.Ed.2d 70 (1978), which nullified the sentencing application of an earlier version of 18 U.S.C. § 924 that had called for an enhancement of a sentence where a firearm was used in a federal bank robbery setting. The Simpson Court opined that the congressional intent demonstrated that the enhancement provisions of § 924 were not intended to apply to prosecutions under the Federal Bank Robbery Act. ⁶ Simpson, 435 U.S. at 12-13, 98 S.Ct. 909.

In his initial opinion in Embrey, and after concluding that the decision in Albernaz v. United States, 450 U.S. 333, 101 S.Ct. 1137, 67 L.Ed.2d 275 (1981) directed that the Blockburger analysis is controlling only where there is no indication of contrary legislative intent, Judge Lay...