Justices nix double conviction in fatal shooting case 

WASHINGTON (CN) — A New York man should receive a reduced sentence for robbery and murder charges, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday, but the justices avoided a broader constitutional ruling involving his double jeopardy claim.

In a unanimous decision led by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Joe Biden appointee, the court held that Dwayne Barrett couldn’t face two convictions under the Armed Career Criminal Act for the same offense during a robbery.

“Congress has not authorized convictions under both 18 U. S. C. §§924(c)(1)(A)(i) and (j) for one act that violates both provisions,” Jackson wrote.

Barrett argued that he shouldn’t have been sentenced to cumulative prison terms both for murder using a firearm during a Hobbs Act robbery, and also for using a firearm during the same robbery.

Between August 2011 and January 2012, Barrett worked with a group to carry out a series of armed robberies. He was indicted and convicted on various robbery and firearm charges and sentenced to 90 years in prison.

His sentence was vacated, however, after the Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling in United States v. Davis. On remand, Barrett was resentenced to 50 years, with several of his robbery charges now running concurrently.

At oral arguments last October, Barrett’s attorney, Matthew Larsen of Federal Defenders of New York, argued that Congress did not provide an explicit authorization for a defendant to be sentenced to cumulative punishments for the same conduct — in this case the murder.

Under the statute, Congress wrote that any underlying convictions can only result in a cumulative punishment when matched with a conviction for a drug trafficking offense, Larsen said.

The Trump administration agreed, stating that if the justices were to rule against Barrett and uphold the cumulative punishments, prosecutors could simply dismiss one of the counts at sentencing to avoid any double jeopardy concerns.

Instead of siding with Barrett on his constitutional claim, the high court used statutory interpretation — analyzing the law itself to determine what Congress intended.

“While [Barrett’s] argument arrives in constitutional garb, it ‘cannot be separated entirely from a resolution of the question of statutory construction,’” Jackson wrote. “That is because ‘the question whether punishments … are unconstitutionally multiple cannot be resolved without determining what punishments the legislative branch has authorized.’”

Because the court found that Congress didn’t authorize two convictions under the statute, Jackson said it was unnecessary to revisit whether Congress could do so consistent with the double jeopardy clause.

Jackson said that Blockburger v. United States, a 1932 ruling holding that Congress ordinarily doesn’t intend to punish the same offense under two different statutes, “put a thumb on the scale” for the court’s analysis.

Congress didn’t clearly authorize the double conviction in the statute’s text or legislative history, Jackson said.

“The Blockburger presumption is ‘long-settled,’ muscular, and fundamental to our law,” Jackson wrote. “We think it highly unlikely that the ‘lawyer’s body’ that is Congress, discarded Blockburger without comment here.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Donald Trump appointee, said the court’s ruling leaves unresolved whether prosecutors should be able to bring concurrent charges for greater offenses.

“A jury could reach a guilty verdict on two charges that constitute the same offense, but no double jeopardy problem would arise so long as the court does not enter judgments of conviction on both,” Gorsuch wrote.

Gorsuch said sooner or later, the court will have to clear up that confusion.

“While today’s decision is correct as far as it goes, sooner or later we will have to clear up the confusion — and to my eyes, this case serves as a poster child for how that confusion should be resolved,” Gorsuch wrote. “Mr. Barrett really was charged twice for one offense. He really was convicted twice. Before our intervention, he really was set to be criminally punished twice. And whatever Congress might or might not intend, that is double jeopardy.”

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