United States v. Scott

• Decision Date: 29 June 1972
• Docket Number: No. 71-1619.,71-1619.
• Citation: 464 F.2d 832
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Clayton E. SCOTT, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

464 F.2d 832 (1972)

UNITED STATES of America v. Clayton E. SCOTT, Appellant.

No. 71-1619.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued May 22, 1972.

Decided June 29, 1972.

Mr. R. Timothy Hanlon, Washington, D. C. (appointed by this Court), for appellant.

Miss Ruth R. Banks, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. Harold H. Titus, Jr., U. S. Atty., John A. Terry and Robert E. Zuckerman, Asst. U. S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellee.

Before WILBUR K. MILLER, Senior Circuit Judge, and McGOWAN and MacKINNON, Circuit Judges.

WILBUR K. MILLER, Senior Circuit Judge:

A small tourist home in the District of Columbia was held up by a man and a woman on the night of August 14, 1970, and money and property were taken at gun-point from Ruth Holliday, the night clerk, who was the only person there when the robbers entered. On November 11, 1970, Ruth Holliday identified from a photograph the appellant, Clayton Scott, as the robber, and identified from a photograph Patricia McCray as the woman who accompanied him. Scott was arrested in November, 1970, but the McCray woman has never been apprehended.

Scott was tried in March, 1971, on a three-count indictment charging armed robbery, robbery, and assault with a deadly weapon.¹ Although he had been identified as the robber in a line-up and also at the trial by Holliday, the jury found Scott not guilty of armed robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon² — the first and third counts of the indictment — but were unable to agree as to robbery, and so a mistrial was declared as to that count.

In April, 1971, Scott was tried again on the robbery count and was found guilty by the jury. He appeals, relying upon a claim of double jeopardy, contending that his acquittal of armed robbery was an acquittal of robbery as well, since robbery is a lesser included offense in the more serious crime of armed robbery.

1. Scott did not raise the issue of double jeopardy at the second trial. The constitutional immunity from double jeopardy is a personal right which, if not affirmatively pleaded by the defendant at the time of trial, will be regarded as waived. United States v. Buonomo, 441 F.2d 922 (7th Cir. 1971); Grogan v. United States, 394 F.2d 287 (5th Cir. 1967), cert. denied 393 U.S. 830, 89 S.Ct. 97, 21 L.Ed.2d 100 (1968); Ferina v. United States, 340 F.2d 837 (8th Cir. 1965); Kistner v. United States, 332 F.2d 978 (8th Cir. 1964); Haddad v. United States, 349 F.2d 511 (9th Cir.), cert. denied 382 U.S. 896, 86 S.Ct. 193, 15 L.Ed.2d 153 (1965); Barker v. Ohio, 328 F.2d 582 (6th Cir. 1964); Harris v. United States, 237 F. 2d 274 (8th Cir. 1956). See also Rule 12(b)(2), Fed.R.Crim.P. Hence, the appellant waived the defense of double jeopardy, and that issue is not before us for determination on the merits.

2. If the defense of double jeopardy were before us, we would have no difficulty in denying it. Scott argues, in support of the plea, that in acquitting him of armed robbery the first jury found he was not the robber and that therefore the same issue — whether he was the robber — could not be submitted to another jury. Consequently, he relies upon Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970), as requiring reversal. In that case, the Supreme Court held that an accused acquitted of robbing one participant in a poker game could not be tried a second time for robbing a second participant in the game at the same time and in the same hold-up. The Court said the first jury's verdict acquitting the accused was a holding that he was not the robber.

In our case, however, the first jury in acquitting Scott of armed robbery did not thereby acquit him of unarmed robbery, which was charged in a separate count of the indictment. Had that acquittal been a finding that the appellant was not the robber, as he now claims, such finding would reasonably have extended to and controlled the robbery count also, with the result that a verdict of acquittal would have been reached on the robbery count.³

But the fact that the first jury was unable to agree as to the robbery count is fatal to appellant's notion that the acquittal of armed robbery was based on a finding that he was not the robber. The verdict of not guilty of armed robbery was clearly based on a doubt whether the robber was armed, and not at all upon a finding that Scott was not the robber. That is to say, the first jury found the appellant was not an armed robber, but was unable to agree as to whether he was an unarmed robber. Thus, the factual difference between this case and Ashe v. Swenson, supra, demonstrates that Scott's reliance on the latter case is misplaced, for there the first verdict was unquestionably a finding that Ashe was not the robber.

The case of Forsberg v. United States, 351 F.2d 242 (9th Cir. 1965), involved a situation such as we have here. There Forsberg was charged in a two-count indictment with (1) assault with intent to commit murder and (2) assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do bodily harm. After trial, the first jury found him not guilty under the first count, but could not agree as to the second count, so that with respect to it a mistrial was declared. Thereafter Forsberg was retried and convicted on the second count. On appeal, he contended that the second trial on the second count of the indictment was in violation of his constitutional right against being placed twice in jeopardy, since he had already been acquitted on the first count which included the lesser offense set...