Opinion
OP 22-0501
09-27-2022
JOHN WESLEY BUCHANAN. Petitioner, v. MONTANA FOURTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT, HON. RANDAL I. SPAULDING. Presiding, Respondent.
ORDER
Petitioner John Wesley Buchanan, via counsel, seeks a writ of supervisory control directing the Fourteenth Judicial District Court. Meagher County, to dismiss its Cause No. DC-21-01 on double jeopardy grounds. Buchanan alleges the District Court erred when it denied his motion to dismiss via its July 7, 2022 Order Denying Defendant's Motion to Dismiss Information. With this matter set for trial on October 6, 2022. Buchanan further moved for a stay of proceedings pending resolution of his petition for writ, which we took under advisement as we anticipated making our determination prior to the trial date. At our request, the State of Montana has responded to Buchanan's petition for writ.
On October 19, 2017, Buchanan faced criminal charges filed via Information in Lewis and Clark County, in Cause No. CDC 2017-425 in the First Judicial District Court. Buchanan stood accused of several sexual offenses against a single victim, identified as "K" in the District Court record, that had occurred between January 1, 2012, and September 25, 2017. In September 2019. Buchanan was ultimately convicted of one count of sexual intercourse without consent and one count of sexual assault after a jury trial in which he was also found not guilty of two additional counts of sexual intercourse without consent. For reasons not pertinent to the present matter, the sexual assault charge was ultimately dismissed. On February 5, 2020. the Lewis and Clark County District Court sentenced Buchanan to 50 years in Montana State Prison with 15 years suspended on the conviction for sexual intercourse without consent.
During the September 2019 trial on the Lewis and Clark County charges, K testified that Buchanan performed "different sex acts" on her approximately twice a month from the time she was in middle school until she was a junior in high school and that most of the incidents occurred in her bedroom and occasionally in other rooms within her family home in Lewis and Clark County. She specified that these acts including putting his fingers in her vagina, performing oral sex on her, and inserting his penis in her vagina on at least two occasions-one of which occurred while she shared a hotel room with him during an October 2016 hunting trip to White Sulphur Springs, which is in Meagher County, and one of which occurred in her bedroom after the White Sulphur Springs incident but "[m]ore than a couple months" prior to when she disclosed the sexual abuse on September 25, 2017.
The parties referred to the October 2016 incident in the White Sulphur Springs hotel numerous times during the Lewis and Clark County trial. The State used it to explain what motivated K to report the sexual abuse, and K testified that one of the reasons she disclosed the abuse was because she wanted to avoid sharing a hotel room with Buchanan during an upcoming hunting trip to White Sulphur Springs. However, both the State and the defense reminded the jury during their respective closing arguments that it could not find Buchanan guilty for conduct that occurred in White Sulphur Springs, one jury instruction specified that the charged offenses must have occurred in Lewis and Clark County, another instruction informed the jury that it could not rely upon any conduct that occurred in White Sulphur Springs to support a conviction in the Lewis and Clark County case, and the jury was further instructed that it must unanimously agree on a specific act to constitute each offense.
On March 8, 2021, over a year after the Lewis and Clark County sentencing, Buchanan was charged with one count of sexual intercourse without consent in the Fourteenth Judicial District Court, Meagher County. This charge arose out of K's allegation that Buchanan had subjected her to sexual intercourse without consent in a White Sulphur Springs hotel room in October 2016.
Buchanan moved to dismiss the Meagher County case, arguing before the District Court that the charge was barred on double jeopardy grounds as his conduct in White Sulphur Springs was part of the same conduct and transaction for which he had been convicted and sentenced in Lewis and Clark County. The Meagher County District Court denied his motion to dismiss on July 7, 2022, concluding that Buchanan's conduct in White Sulphur Springs was not part of a continuing course of conduct or transaction with his conduct in Lewis and Clark County.
With trial in the Meagher County case set for October 6, 2022, Buchanan has petitioned this Court for writ of supervisory control, asking this Court to reverse the District Court's denial of his motion to dismiss.
We will exercise supervisory control over another court in limited circumstances: when urgency or emergency factors exist, making the normal appeal process inadequate; when the case involves purely legal questions; and when, applicable to Buchanan's argument here, "the other court is proceeding under a mistake of law and is causing a gross injustice[]" M. R. App.P. 14(3)(a). A party may challenge a district court's constitutional double jeopardy rulings prior to a final judgment only by way of petition for writ of supervisory control under Rule 14. State v. Burton, 2017 MT 306, ¶ 18, 389 Mont. 499, 407 P.3d 280. A petition for writ of supervisory control pursuant to Rule 14(3) is available for a defendant to assert a pretrial challenge that a second prosecution will violate Montana's statutory protections against multiple prosecutions. Burton, ¶ 22. We accordingly proceed to consider the merits of Buchanan's claim, in which he argues that allowing the Meagher County prosecution to proceed will violate § 46-11-504(1), MCA, and constitutional protections against double jeopardy.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article II, Section 25, of the Montana Constitution prohibit an individual from being twice put in jeopardy for the same offense. Apart from constitutional jurisprudence regarding double jeopardy, Montana has enacted statutory protections against multiple prosecutions which are commonly referred to as "statutory double jeopardy" protections. Burton, ¶ 20 (citing §§ 46-11-503 to -505, MCA). These statutes generally provide criminal defendants greater protection against double jeopardy than the U.S. Constitution. Burton, ¶ 20 (citation and quotation omitted). We review a district court's decision to grant or deny a defendant's motion to dismiss a charge under Montana's statutory protection against double jeopardy, § 46-11-504, MCA, for correctness. Burton, ¶ 10 (citations omitted).
In this case, Buchanan argued both in the District Court and in the present petition that he is entitled to dismissal of the Meagher County charge under § 46-11-504(1), MCA, which provides inter alia'. "[A]- prosecution in any jurisdiction is a bar to a subsequent prosecution in this state if: (1) the first prosecution resulted in ... a conviction and the subsequent prosecution is based on an offense arising out of the same transaction[.]"
We apply a three-part test to determine if § 46-11-504(1), MCA, has been violated: (1) the defendant's conduct must constitute an equivalent offense within the jurisdiction of the court where the first prosecution occurred and within the jurisdiction of the court where the subsequent prosecution is pursued; (2) the first prosecution must result in an acquittal or a conviction; and (3) the subsequent prosecution must be based on an offense arising out of the same transaction. All three factors must be met to bar the subsequent prosecution. Burton, ¶ 25.
In this instance, Buchanan's case undisputedly meets the first two factors. Thus we need only consider whether the District Court correctly concluded that he fails to meet the third: specifically that the Meagher County prosecution for sexual intercourse without consent is based on an offense arising out of the same transaction as the charges Buchanan faced in Lewis and Clark County.
"Same transaction" means conduct consisting of a series of acts or omissions that are motivated by: (a) a purpose to accomplish a criminal objective and that are necessary or incidental to the accomplishment of that objective; or (b) a common purpose or plan that results in the repeated commission of the same offense or effect upon the same person or the property of the same person. Section 46-1-202(23), MCA. The District Court concluded that Buchanan's conduct in White Sulphur Springs was not part of the same transaction as his conduct in Lewis and Clark County because the White Sulphur Springs conduct "appears to have been the result of a separate impulse from the impulses motivating his conduct in Helena." The court further noted that K's testimony in the Lewis and Clark County trial was that the White Sulphur Springs incident was the first of two incidents in which Buchanan penetrated her vagina with his penis and it therefore was a "differing offending methodology" than that which Buchanan had employed in Lewis and Clark County.
On petition before this Court, Buchanan argues that the Meagher County allegations were part of the same transaction as the Lewis and Clark County conviction because the Meagher County conduct was discussed in the Lewis and Clark County trial and because the conduct in both counties was intended to accomplish a single criminal objective, which was to have sexual intercourse without consent. He notes that the White Sulphur Springs incident is alleged to have occurred in October 2016, which is within the date range covered by the Lewis and Clark County charges. He further notes that the details of the October 2016 incident in White Sulphur Springs "were discussed at length and presented to the jury" during the trial in Lewis and Clark County. Buchanan alleges this conduct was part of the same transaction and constitutes the same offense because it occurred for the same purpose, involving the same people, during the same time period, and in the same place.
The State argues that double jeopardy is not invoked because "Buchanan has not been put in jeopardy for his conduct in Meagher County, because it was not the basis of the Lewis and Clark County prosecution." It argues that the only common facts between Buchanan's conduct in Lewis and Clark County and his conduct in Meagher County are the victim and the offense charged. As to Buchanan's argument that the White Sulphur Springs conduct occurred within the date range covered by the Lewis and Clark County charges, the State notes that in Burton, ¶ 34, this Court asserted, "Separate crimes do not have a common purpose or objective merely because they occurred temporally within a defendant's crime spree." The State further notes that in the Lewis and Clark County case, it did not prosecute the matter as a common plan case and this was reflected in the jury instructions, which required the jurors to unanimously agree on specific incidents in order to convict on the charges and specifically instructed the jury that it could not convict based upon any conduct that occurred in Meagher County, The State further responds, "Each time Buchanan penetrated the victim's vagina with his fingers, his tongue, or his penis, it was a separate and distinct act separated by time, design, and, in this instance, place." It explains that the Lewis and Clark County conduct occurred in the family home and involved digital and oral penetration while the Meagher County conduct occurred in a hotel and involved penile penetration.
Buchanan faults the District Court for opting to rely on case law from other jurisdictions instead of Montana precedent and for failing to cite to the statutory definition of "same transaction" in its order denying his motion to dismiss. However, our task is to determine if the court reached the right result, regardless of whether we agree with its rationale. State v. Christensen, 2014 MT 294, ¶ 12, 377 Mont. 7, 338 P.3d 45.
We conclude that the District Court reached the correct result in this case regardless of whether its order cited § 46-1-202(23), MCA. Buchanan's conduct in Meagher County, while involving the same victim within the time period that the Lewis and Clark County conduct occurred, was nonetheless a separate and distinct act and not part of a common purpose or plan. Buchanan's assertion that the conduct occurred in the same place is factually incorrect and, as Burton, ¶ 34, established, the fact that the Meagher County conduct occurred within the date range encompassed in the Lewis and Clark County case does not instill a common purpose. The District Court did not err in denying his motion to dismiss as the Meagher County prosecution does not violate Buchanan's right against double jeopardy.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Buchanan's Petition for a Writ of Supervisory Control is DENIED and DISMISSED.
Buchanan's motion to stay proceedings in the District Court is DENIED as MOOT.
The Clerk is directed to provide immediate notice of this Order to counsel for Petitioner, all counsel of record in the Fourteenth Judicial District Court, Meagher County, Cause No. DC-21-01, and the Honorable Randal I. Spaulding, presiding.