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90-1599.ZS
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NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
UNITED STATES v. FELIX
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the tenth circuit
No. 90-1599. Argued January 14, 1992-Decided March 25, 1992
During the summer of 1987, respondent Felix manufactured metham-
phetamine at an Oklahoma facility. After Drug Enforcement Admin-
istration (DEA) agents shut down that facility, Felix ordered addition-
al chemicals and equipment from a DEA informant for delivery in
Missouri. Federal Government officials observed the delivery, arrest-
ed him, and charged him with the offense of attempting to manufac-
ture an illegal drug. At his trial in Missouri, the Government, in
order to establish Felix's criminal intent, introduced evidence that he
had manufactured methamphetamine in Oklahoma, and he was
convicted. Subsequently, he was named in, inter alia, six counts of
an indictment filed in a Federal District Court in Oklahoma. Count
1 charged him with conspiracy to manufacture, possess, and distrib-
ute methamphetamine. Two of the overt acts supporting this charge
were based on the same conduct that had been the subject of the
Missouri prosecution. The other counts charged him with substantive
drug offenses, and at trial the Government introduced much of the
same evidence of the Missouri and Oklahoma transactions that had
been introduced at the Missouri trial. Felix was convicted, but the
Court of Appeals reversed, relying on language in Grady v. Corbin,
495 U.S. 508, 521, that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a subse-
quent prosecution where 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.'' With respect to the conspiracy count, the court observed
that in both trials, the Government proved that Felix had learned to
make, and had manufactured, methamphetamine in Oklahoma and
had sought to purchase more chemicals and equipment in Missouri.
The court also noted that the direct evidence supporting the substan-
tive offenses-that Felix had purchased chemicals and equipment
during the spring of 1987 and had manufactured methamphetamine
in Oklahoma-had been introduced at the Missouri trial to show
intent.
Held:The Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar Felix's prosecution on
either the substantive drug offenses or the conspiracy charge. Pp.
5-13.
(a)None of the substantive offenses for which Felix was prosecuted
in Oklahoma is in any sense the same offense for which he was
prosecuted in Missouri. The actual crimes charged in each case were
different in both time and place, and no common conduct links them.
In addition, mere overlap in proof between two prosecutions does not
establish a double jeopardy violation. Dowling v. United States, 493
U.S. 342. Thus, the Court of Appeals erred to the extent that it
assumed that if the Government offers in evidence in one prosecution
acts of misconduct that might ultimately be charged as criminal
offenses in a second prosecution, the latter prosecution is barred.
And it gave an extravagant reading to Grady, supra, which dis-
claimed any intention of adopting a ```same evidence''' test, id., at 521
and n. 12. Pp.6-8.
(b)A substantive crime and a conspiracy to commit that crime are
not the ``same offense'' for double jeopardy purposes, see, e. g., United
States v. Bayer, 331 U.S. 532; Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S.
640, 643, even if they are based on the same underlying incidents,
because the ``essence'' of a conspiracy offense ``is in the agreement or
confederation to commit a crime,'' Bayer, supra, at 542. This estab-
lished doctrine predates, and was not questioned in, Grady, supra.
In addition, while Grady-which involved a State's reliance on a
defendant's two traffic offense convictions to sustain later-filed
homicide and assault charges arising from the same accident-may
be useful in cases arising from a ``single course of conduct,'' it is
much less helpful in analyzing prosecutions involving multilayered
conduct, such as the conspiracy prosecution here. Thus, the Court
of Appeals erred in essentially reading Grady as substituting for the
``same offence'' language of the Double Jeopardy Clause a test based
on whether the two prosecutions involve the same conduct.
Pp.9-12.
926 F.2d 1522, reversed.
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which White,
O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and Thomas, JJ., joined, and in
Parts I and II of which Stevens and Blackmun, JJ., joined. Stevens,
J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment,
in which Blackmun, J., joined.