United States v. Jerry Prusan and David Vives

MESKILL, Circuit Judge:

This is an appeal by the government from a decision of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Sand, J., 780 F.Supp. 1431, dismissing one count of an indictment against the defendants on the ground that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment barred prosecution of that count. Because the offense charged in that count is not the same offense with which the defendants previously were charged and to which they pleaded guilty, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand the matter to the district court.

BACKGROUND

As a result of an investigation into the illegal interstate shipment of firearms, the defendants in this case, Jerry Prusan and David Vives, were indicted both in the District of Puerto Rico and in the Southern District of New York. The Puerto Rico indictment, dated April 10, 1991, alleged in Count One that Prusan and Vives conspired with others to ship firearms, ammunition and silencers in interstate commerce from New York to Puerto Rico in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1). That count alleged over twenty overt acts taken in furtherance of the conspiracy and included allegations concerning specific firearms. The Puerto Rico indictment also alleged in several counts substantive violations by Prusan and Vives of various firearms statutes, including 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1)(A), (a)(3) & (a)(5).

On May 31, 1991 Prusan and Vives were indicted in the Southern District of New York. Count One of that indictment, which is the only count with which we are concerned on this appeal, alleged a conspiracy between Prusan, Vives and others to transport firearms purchased or obtained by them outside the state of their residence, New York, into that state in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3). The indictment alleged three overt acts taken in furtherance of the conspiracy. Two of those acts involved buying firearms in Florida and sending them to New York.

*59Prusan and Vives both pleaded guilty to certain counts of the Puerto Rico indictment, including the conspiracy count and various substantive counts. The government provided Prusan and Vives with Firearms Transaction Records that indicate that several of the firearms that were the subject of the substantive Puerto Rico counts to which both men pleaded guilty were initially purchased in Florida by Vives.

On September 6, 1991, after both men had pled guilty in Puerto Rico, the United States Attorney’s Office filed a superseding indictment in the Southern District of New York. The superseding indictment changed Count One of the original indictment from a conspiracy to violate 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3) to a substantive violation of that statute. Count One of the superseding indictment no longer alleged specific acts in violation of section 922(a)(3) but merely alleged that between February 1, 1991 and April 1, 1991 Prusan and Vives willfully transported firearms obtained outside their state of residence into that state.

Prusan and Vives moved to dismiss Count One of the instant indictment on the grounds that it constituted the same offense for which they had been prosecuted and convicted in Puerto Rico and thus could not be maintained consistent with the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The district court applied the double jeopardy analysis set forth by the Supreme Court in Grady v. Corbin, 495 U.S. 508, 521, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 2093, 109 L.Ed.2d 548 (1990). Examining both the overt acts alleged in the Puerto Rico conspiracy count and the substantive firearms offenses to which Prusan and Vives had pled guilty, the district court held that “to establish an essential element of the offense alleged in Count One, the purchase of firearms outside New York, the Government will attempt to prove conduct that constitutes offenses for which the defendants have already been prosecuted.” The district court therefore granted the motion to dismiss that count. The government appeals this decision pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731.

DISCUSSION

The Fifth Amendment provides that no person “shall ... be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” After the district court’s decision but prior to oral argument of this appeal, the Supreme Court announced its decision in United States v. Felix, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 1377, 118 L.Ed.2d 25 (1992). That decision altered the way in which some aspects of Grady had been understood in this Circuit. See United States v. Calderone, 917 F.2d 717 (2d Cir.1990), vacated, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 1657, 118 L.Ed.2d 381 (1992) (in light of Felix). Although the district court did not have the benefit of the Felix decision, our task is to evaluate, under the current understanding of the Double Jeopardy Clause, the propriety of the proposed prosecution in light of the defendants’ prior guilty pleas in Puerto Rico. See Bradley v. Richmond School Board, 416 U.S. 696, 711, 94 S.Ct. 2006, 2016, 40 L.Ed.2d 476 (1974) (“[A] court is to apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision, unless doing so would result in manifest injustice or there is statutory direction or legislative history to the contrary.”).

In Felix, the Supreme Court examined the Double Jeopardy Clause in relation to the prosecution of the defendant, Felix, for two crimes arising out of the same type of conduct and for which the government utilized similar evidence at the two trials. Felix was convicted in Missouri federal court on a substantive count of attempting to manufacture methamphetamine in violation of federal law. In order to counter Felix’s assertion that he had no criminal intent with respect to his shipment of precursor chemicals to Missouri, the government introduced evidence at the Missouri trial tending to show that Felix had manufactured and distributed methamphetamine several months earlier in Oklahoma. See 112 S.Ct. at 1380.

After Felix was convicted in Missouri, the government indicted him in the Eastern District of Oklahoma, alleging among other things that Felix and others had conspired *60to manufacture, possess and distribute methamphetamine. Two of the nine overt acts alleged to have been taken by Felix in furtherance of the Oklahoma conspiracy were based on conduct that had been the subject of the Missouri prosecution. See id. None of the substantive counts alleged in the Oklahoma indictment involved conduct prosecuted in the Missouri prosecution.

The Supreme Court held that the Oklahoma prosecution did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. See id. at 1381. The Felix Court first held that the mere fact that evidence of the Oklahoma drug activity had been introduced at the Missouri trial to demonstrate intent did not mean that Felix had been prosecuted for that conduct. The Court stated' that “the introduction of relevant evidence of particular misconduct in a case is not the same thing as prosecution for that conduct.” Id. at 1383 (footnote omitted). Thus, the substantive counts in the Oklahoma prosecution were not barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause.

The Court next addressed whether the Oklahoma conspiracy count, which alleged as two overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy conduct which had been the basis of the Missouri prosecution, could be prosecuted consistent with the Double Jeopardy Clause. See id. The Court held that it could, reiterating the established “rule that a substantive crime, and a conspiracy to commit that crime, are not the ‘same offense’ for double jeopardy purposes.” Id. at 1384.

In this case, the district court relied in part on the factual overlap between the Puerto Rico conspiracy offense and the New York substantive offense in holding that the instant indictment was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Under Felix, such overlap does not present a double jeopardy problem.

However, the district court also relied on several of the substantive counts in the Puerto Rico indictment in concluding that the New York prosecution was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Although the district court acknowledged that it was “conceivable that [Count One of the New York indictment] involved conduct unrelated to that prosecuted in the Puerto Rico indictment,” the evidence before the district court tended to demonstrate that the conduct would be related. As the government does not contend otherwise, we will assume that the conduct charged in the instant indictment is not unrelated to the conduct underlying the Puerto Rico prosecution.

Therefore, the question is whether, where an individual buys firearms in Florida and ships those firearms to the state of that individual’s residence and then from that state of residence ships the firearms to another part of the country, the government, consistent with the Double Jeopardy Clause, may prosecute that individual separately for each leg of the journey. Prusan and Vives argue, in effect, that they were involved in only one course of conduct, transporting firearms to Puerto Rico. That the firearms incidentally were shipped first to New York, the state of their residence, should not, they argue, allow the government to bring two separate prosecutions for the same conduct. As Felix does not readily provide an answer to this question, we must address ourselves to pre-Felix interpretations of the Double Jeopardy Clause.

Defendants’ argument is reminiscent of the “single transaction” test for double jeopardy, a test that the Supreme Court has refused to adopt. Justice Brennan proposed in a concurring opinion in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970), joined by Justices Douglas and Marshall, that “the Double Jeopardy Clause requires the prosecution, except in most limited circumstances, to join at one trial all the charges against a defendant that grow out of a single criminal act, occurrence, episode, or transaction.” Id. at 453-54, 90 S.Ct. at 1199 (footnote omitted); see also Jones.v. Thomas, 491 U.S. 376, 387-88, 109 S.Ct. 2522, 2528, 105 L.Ed.2d 322 (1989) (Brennan, J., dissenting). Under this “single transaction” test the prosecution of Prusan and Vives for the first part of a transaction, the ultimate goal of which was to send firearms to *61Puerto Rico, might well be barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. However, the Supreme Court has “steadfastly refused to adopt the ‘single transaction’ view of the Double Jeopardy Clause.” Garrett v. United States, 471 U.S. 773, 790, 105 S.Ct. 2407, 2417, 85 L.Ed.2d 764 (1985).

Instead, this case is governed by the general principle set forth in Grady, 495 U.S. at 521,110 S.Ct. at 2093. In that case, which Felix did not purport to overrule, the Supreme Court held that “the Double Jeopardy Clause bars any subsequent prosecution in which the government, to establish an essential element of an offense charged in that prosecution, will prove conduct that constitutes an offense for which the defendant has already been prosecuted.” Id. (footnote omitted). In Grady, the defendant, Corbin, had driven his automobile across the median strip of a road while intoxicated and struck another car, killing the driver and injuring a passenger. The state charged Corbin with the misdemeanors of driving while intoxicated and failing to keep to the right of the median. After Corbin pleaded guilty to those charges, the state brought felony homicide and assault charges against him. The Supreme Court held that those charges were barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause because the state intended to establish an essential element of those charges — recklessness—by proving “the entirety of the conduct for which Corbin was convicted.” Id. at 523, 110 S.Ct. at 2084. The Grady Court noted that the state would not be barred from bringing a subsequent homicide prosecution if it were to rely on conduct for which Corbin had not already been convicted to establish all the essential elements of the offense. Id.

This case differs significantly from Grady. Count One of the instant indictment charges Prusan and Vives with substantive violations of 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3). That statute renders it unlawful “for any person [without a license] ... to transport into of receive in the State where he resides ... any fire arm purchased or otherwise obtained by such person outside that State.” In order to prove that Prusan and Vives violated this statute, therefore, the government must demonstrate that they (1) purchased or obtained a firearm outside New York, their state of residence, (2) transported that firearm into New York, and (3) were unlicensed. 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3).

Prusan and Vives also both pleaded guilty to substantive firearms counts in the Puerto Rico indictment that alleged violations of 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1)(A), (a)(5). Section 922(a)(1)(A) proscribes any unlicensed person from engaging in thé business of shipping or receiving firearms in interstate commerce. The indictment makes clear that the interstate commerce element of the offenses charged under this section was to have been satisfied by the movement of the firearms from New York to Puerto Rico. Section 922(a)(5) prohibits unlicensed persons from transferring firearms to one whom he knows or has reason to know resides in a state other than that in which the transferor resides.- Even assuming that the same firearms are involved and that their route through New York was merely incidental to their shipment to Puerto Rico, neither of these statutes describes conduct that will be used to establish an essential element of the alleged violations of section 922(a)(3) set forth in Count One of the instant indictment.

Prusan pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting an individual not charged in the indictment with violating section 922(a)(3). As noted above, section 922(a)(3) prohibits an individual from receiving in the state where he resides any firearm purchased or obtained outside that state. Thus, in order to prove that count of the Puerto Rico indictment, the government would have had to show that Prusan aided and abetted a resident of Puerto Rico in obtaining the firearm outside of Puerto Rico and bringing that firearm into Puerto Rico. In order to prove Count One of the present indictment, the government would have to show -only that Prusan obtained the firearm outside of New York and brought or received it in New York. There is not even substantial overlap in the elements of the two offenses.

Proof that Prusan and Vives shipped firearms to Puerto Rico from outside of *62Puerto Rico, transferred firearms to a person living outside their home state of New York, or aided and abetted a Puerto Rican in obtaining a weapon outside Puerto Rico and bringing it into Puerto Rico will not establish an essential element of the crime charged in the New York indictment — acquiring firearms outside New York and bringing them into New York. Count One of the instant indictment therefore does not rely on conduct that constitutes an offense for which the defendants have already been convicted in the Puerto Rico indictment to establish an essential element of the offense. The Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar this prosecution.

CONCLUSION

Although the charge at issue here may be related to the conduct that formed the basis of the charges to which the defendants pleaded guilty in Puerto Rico, this prosecution is not barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Any overlap in the conduct charged in the Puerto Rico conspiracy charge is irrelevant here because, for purposes of double jeopardy, a conspiracy to commit a crime is separate from the crime itself. Nor does the present indictment rely on the same conduct as the substantive counts in the Puerto Rico indictment. The present prosecution will not rely on the conduct that constitutes the offense to which the defendants pleaded guilty in Puerto Rico to establish an essential element of the offense charged. The judgment of the district court is reversed and the matter is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.