Williams v. United States

• Decision Date: 30 June 1961
• Docket Number: No. 16553.,16553.
• Citation: 292 F.2d 157
• Parties: James WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

292 F.2d 157 (1961)

James WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 16553.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

June 30, 1961.

James Williams, appellant, filed brief, pro se.

William H. Webster, U. S. Atty., and William C. Martin, Asst. U. S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., filed brief for the Government.

Before JOHNSEN, Chief Judge, and VOGEL and BLACKMUN, Circuit Judges.

JOHNSEN, Chief Judge.

Appellant pleaded guilty in 1956 to charges (1) of a sale of heroin in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 4705(a); (2) of an interstate transportation of heroin in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 4724(b); and (3) of a conspiracy with third parties to engage in the unlawful purchasing, receiving, concealing, transporting and selling of narcotic drugs in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 174. He was given concurrent sentences on the first and third charges and a consecutive sentence on the second.

After alleged service of the concurrent terms of his first and third sentences, he filed this motion under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 to have his second sentence vacated. The trial court denied the motion as without merit on its face, and he has appealed.

The first contention made here is that the acts of appellant underlying the three separate charges represented a single, continuous transaction and that they thus could not constitute more than one offense. Even if such had been the situation, the argument is, of course, without any tenable basis under the declaration in Gore v. United States, 357 U.S. 386, 389, 78 S.Ct. 1280, 1283, 2 L. Ed.2d 1405, that "The fact that an offender violates by a single transaction several regulatory controls devised by Congress as means for dealing with a social evil as deleterious as it is difficult to combat does not make the several regulatory controls single and identic". See also Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306; Harris v. United States, 359 U.S. 19, 79 S.Ct. 560, 3 L.Ed.2d 597. Manifestly, a transportation of narcotic drugs involves elements of proof which are not essential in establishing a sale, and vice versa, so that no question can exist as to their capacity to constitute distinct offenses under the narcotics control statutes.

Appellant next contends that the offense of transportation covered by his second sentence was embodied in the general offense covered by his third sentence, and that service of the second sentence would therefore subject him to double punishment. As noted above, however, the third charge was one of conspiracy and not of substantive offense. Also, the conspiracy charged was one to engage in the unlawful purchase, receipt, concealment and sale of narcotics drugs and not merely in their transportation.

But even if the conspiracy had been simply one to engage in transportation, so that the third sentence could identifiably be said to have been imposed in relation to this...