TRIAL STAGES: Sentence and Punishment: Multiplicity for Sentencing
2005
United
States v. Dillon, 61 M.J. 221 (Congress may authorize the
imposition of
cumulative punishments for criminal offenses occurring in the same act
and the
double jeopardy clause is not implicated so long as each statutory
violation
requires proof of an element or fact which the other does not; in this
case,
the Government proved two independent facts, that is, the use of two
drugs;
cumulative sentences may be imposed for simultaneous possession of
different
drugs; cumulative sentences are upheld because evidence sustaining one
specification would not have proved the second, and vice versa; when
the drugs
are different, evidence sustaining one specification can surely not be
regarded
as sustaining the other).
(reading the statutory words “a controlled substance” as meaning “all
controlled substances possessed simultaneously” would greatly restrict
judges
and their sentencing capacity; in a case involving simultaneous
possession of a
large number of different drugs, the trial judge would be limited in
sentencing
to the punishment set by statute for possession of only one drug; this
would
hardly allow the judge to tailor the penalty to fit the seriousness of
the
offense; the conduct that Congress prohibited is the use of two
controlled
substances at the same time and place; there are two distinct statutory
provisions prohibiting the two different substances; because each drug
may
involve different producers and distributors they should be treated
separately).