MR. JUSTICE POWELL delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires the Court to consider Wharton's Rule, a doctrine of criminal law enunciating an exception to the general principle that a conspiracy and the substantive offense that is its immediate end are discrete crimes for which separate sanctions may be imposed.
I
Petitioners were tried under a six-count indictment alleging a variety of federal gambling offenses. Each of the eight petitioners, along with seven unindicted coconspirators and six codefendants, was charged, inter alia,
II
Wharton's Rule owes its name to Francis Wharton, whose treatise on criminal law identified the doctrine and its fundamental rationale:
The classic formulation of Wharton's Rule requires that the conspiracy indictment be dismissed before trial. Wharton's description of the Rule indicates that, where it is applicable, an indictment for conspiracy "cannot be maintained," ibid., a conclusion echoed by Anderson's more recent formulation, see n. 5, supra, and by statements
Federal courts likewise have disagreed as to the proper application of the recognized "third-party exception," which renders Wharton's Rule inapplicable when the conspiracy involves the cooperation of a greater number of persons than is required for commission of the substantive offense. See Gebardi v. United States, supra, at 122 n. 6. In the present case, the Third Circuit concluded that the third-party exception permitted prosecution because the conspiracy involved more than the five persons required to commit the substantive offense, 477 F.2d 999,
The Courts of Appeals are at odds even over the fundamental question whether Wharton's Rule ever applies to a charge for conspiracy to violate § 1955. The Seventh Circuit holds that it does. Hunter, supra; United States v. Clarke, 500 F.2d 1405 (1974), cert. denied, post, p. 925. The Fourth and Fifth Circuits, on the other hand, have declared that it does not. United States v. Bobo, 477 F.2d 974 (CA4 1973), cert. pending sub nom. Gray v. United States, No. 73-231; United States v. Pacheco, 489 F.2d 554 (CA5 1974), cert. pending, No. 73-1510.
As this brief description indicates, the history of the application of Wharton's Rule to charges for conspiracy to violate § 1955 fully supports the Fourth Circuit's observation that "rather than being a rule, [it] is a concept, the confines of which have been delineated in widely diverse fashion by the courts." United States v. Bobo, supra, at 986. With this diversity of views in mind, we turn to an examination of the history and purposes of the Rule.
III
A
Traditionally the law has considered conspiracy and the completed substantive offense to be separate crimes. Conspiracy is an inchoate offense, the essence of which is an agreement to commit an unlawful act. See, e. g., United States v. Feola, ante, p. 671; Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 644 (1946); Braverman v. United States, 317 U.S. 49, 53 (1942).
The consistent rationale of this long line of decisions rests on the very nature of the crime of conspiracy. This Court repeatedly has recognized that a conspiracy poses distinct dangers quite apart from those of the substantive offense.
As Mr. Justice Jackson, no friend of the law of conspiracy, see Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 445
B
The historical difference between the conspiracy and its end has led this Court consistently to attribute to Congress "a tacit purpose—in the absence of any inconsistent expression—to maintain a long-established distinction between offenses essentially different; a distinction whose practical importance in the criminal law is not easily overestimated." Ibid.; Callanan, supra, at 594. Wharton's Rule announces an exception to this general principle.
The Rule traces its origin to the decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Shannon v. Commonwealth, 14 Pa. 226 (1850), a case in which the court ordered dismissal of an indictment alleging conspiracy to commit adultery that was brought after the State had failed to obtain conviction for the substantive offense. Prominent among the concerns voiced in the Shannon opinion is the possibility that the State could force the defendant to undergo subsequent prosecution for a lesser offense after failing to prove the greater. The Shannon court's holding reflects this concern, stating that "where concert is a constituent part of the act to be done, as it is in fornication and adultery, a party acquitted of the major cannot be indicted of the minor." Id., at 227-228.
Wharton's treatise first reported the case as one based on principles of double jeopardy, see F. Wharton, Criminal Law 198 (2d ed. 1852), and indicated that it was
This Court's previous discussions of Wharton's Rule have not elaborated upon its precise role in federal law. In most instances, the Court simply has identified the Rule and described it in terms similar to those used in Wharton's treatise. But in United States v. Holte, 236 U.S. 140 (1915), the sole case in which the Court felt compelled specifically to consider the applicability of Wharton's Rule, it declined to adopt an expansive definition of its scope. In that case, Wharton's Rule was advanced as a bar to prosecution of a female for conspiracy to violate the Mann Act. Rejecting that contention, the Court adopted a narrow construction of the Rule that focuses on the statutory requirements of the substantive offense rather than the evidence offered to prove those elements at trial:
Wharton's Rule first emerged at a time when the contours of the law of conspiracy were in the process of active formulation. The general question whether the conspiracy merged into the completed felony offense remained for some time a matter of uncertain resolution.
C
This Court's prior decisions indicate that the broadly formulated Wharton's Rule does not rest on principles of double jeopardy, see Pereira v. United States, 347 U.S. 1, 11 (1954); Pinkerton, supra, at 643-644.
The conduct proscribed by § 1955 is significantly different from the offenses to which the Rule traditionally has been applied. Unlike the consequences of the classic Wharton's Rule offenses, the harm attendant upon the commission of the substantive offense is not restricted to the parties to the agreement. Large-scale gambling activities seek to elicit the participation of additional persons— the bettors—who are parties neither to the conspiracy nor to the substantive offense that results from it. Moreover, the parties prosecuted for the conspiracy need not be the same persons who are prosecuted for commission of the substantive offense. An endeavor as complex as a large-scale gambling enterprise might involve persons who have played appreciably different roles, and whose level of culpability varies significantly. It might, therefore, be appropriate to prosecute the owners and organizers of large-scale gambling operations both for the conspiracy and for the substantive offense but to prosecute the lesser participants only for the substantive offense. Nor can it fairly be maintained that agreements to enter into large-scale gambling activities are not likely to generate additional agreements to engage in other criminal endeavors. As shown in Part IV hereof, the legislative history of § 1955 provides documented testimony to the contrary.
But a legal principle commands less respect when extended beyond the logic that supports it. In this case, the significant differences in characteristics and consequences of the kinds of offenses that gave rise to Wharton's Rule and the activities proscribed by § 1955 counsel against attributing significant weight to the presumption the Rule erects. More important, as the Rule is essentially an aid to the determination of legislative intent, it must defer to a discernible legislative judgment. We turn now to that inquiry.
IV
The basic purpose of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, Pub. L. No. 91-452, 84 Stat. 922, 923, was "to seek the eradication of organized crime in the United States by strengthening the legal tools in the evidence-gathering process, by establishing new penal prohibitions, and by providing enhanced sanctions and new remedies to deal with the unlawful activities of those engaged in organized crime." The content of the Act reflects the dedication with which the Legislature pursued this purpose. In addition to enacting provisions to facilitate the discovery and proof of organized criminal activities, Congress passed a number of relatively severe penalty provisions. For example, Title X, codified in 18 U. S. C. §§ 3575-3578,
Major gambling activities were a principal focus of congressional concern. Large-scale gambling enterprises were seen to be both a substantive evil and a source of funds for other criminal conduct. See S. Rep. No. 91-617, pp. 71-73 (1969).
In drafting the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, Congress manifested its clear awareness of the distinct nature of a conspiracy and the substantive offenses that might constitute its immediate end. The identification of "special offenders" in Title X speaks both to persons who commit specific felonies during the course of a pattern of criminal activity and to those who enter into conspiracies to engage in patterns of criminal conduct. 18 U. S. C. § 3575 (e). And Congress specifically utilized the law of conspiracy to discourage organized crime's corruption of state and local officials for the purpose of facilitating gambling enterprises. 18 U. S. C. § 1511.
Nor do we find merit to the argument that the congressional requirement of participation of "five or more persons" as an element of the substantive offense under § 1955 represents a legislative attempt to merge the conspiracy and the substantive offense into a single crime. The history of the Act instead reveals that this requirement was designed to restrict federal intervention to cases in which federal interests are substantially implicated. The findings accompanying Title VIII, see note
Viewed in the context of this legislation, there simply is no basis for relying on a presumption to reach a result so
V
In expressing these conclusions we do not imply that the distinct nature of the crimes of conspiracy to violate and violation of § 1955 should prompt prosecutors to seek separate convictions in every case, or judges necessarily to sentence in a manner that imposes an additional sanction for conspiracy to violate § 1955 and the consummation of that end. Those decisions fall within the sound discretion of each, and should be rendered in accordance with the facts and circumstances of a particular case. We conclude only that Congress intended to retain these traditional options. Neither Wharton's Rule nor the history and structure of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 persuade us to the contrary.
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting.
The eight petitioners in this case were tried, along with other codefendants, on a multiple-count indictment alleging the commission of various offenses in connection with gambling activities. Petitioners were convicted both of participating in an "illegal gambling business," 18 U. S. C. § 1955, and of conspiring to commit that offense, 18 U. S. C. § 371. On both statutory and constitutional
I
In my view the Double Jeopardy Clause forbids simultaneous prosecution under §§ 1955 and 371. Wharton's Rule in its original formulation was rooted in the double jeopardy concern of avoiding multiple prosecutions. Carter v. McClaughry, 183 U.S. 365, 394-395 (1902), and later cases
The evidence against petitioners consisted largely of conversations that involved gambling transactions. The Government's theory of the case was that petitioner Iannelli was the central figure in the enterprise who, through other employees or agents, received bets, arranged payoffs, and parceled out commissions. The evidence established, in the Government's view, "syndicated gambling," the kind of activity proscribed by § 1955. The very same evidence was relied upon to establish the conspiracy —a conspiracy, apparently, enduring as long as the substantive offense continued, and provable by the same acts that established the violation of § 1955. Thus the very same transactions among the defendants gave rise to criminal liability under both statutes.
Under these circumstances, I would require the prosecutor to choose between § 371 and § 1955 as the instrument for criminal punishment. See my dissenting opinion in Gore v. United States, 357 U.S. 386, 395-397 (1958). where the Government brought three charges based on
II
Apart from my views of the Double Jeopardy Clause, I would reverse on the additional ground that Congress did not intend to permit simultaneous convictions under §§ 371 and 1955 for the same acts. The rule that a conspiracy remains separable from the completed crime, thus permitting simultaneous conviction for both, rests on the assumption that the act of conspiring presents special dangers the Legislature did not address in defining the substantive crime and that are not adequately checked by its prosecution.
Title 18 U. S. C. § 1955, which creates the substantive offense, is aimed at a particular form of concerted activity. The provision was added by the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, Pub. L. 91-452, 84 Stat. 922. This statute, as its title indicates, was directed at criminal activity carried out by large organizations, described by Congress as hierarchical in structure and as having their own system of law and independent enforcement institutions.
Conviction under § 1955 satisfies, in my view, the social concerns that punishment for conspiracy is supposed to address. The provision was aimed not at the single unlawful wager but at "syndicated gambling." Congress viewed this activity as harmful because on such a scale
All this the majority seems to concede when it acknowledges a "presumption that the two [crimes] merge when the substantive offense is proved." Ante, at 786. But the majority concludes that simultaneous conviction is authorized because it is not "explicitly excluded." Ante, at 789. The majority thus implicitly concedes that the statute is silent on the matter of simultaneous conviction.
The majority suggests, ante, at 784, that § 371 may be
Congress did address the matter of sentence enhancement in Title X of the Act, codified in 18 U. S. C. §§ 3575-3578. These provisions authorize augmented punishment, to a maximum of imprisonment for 25 years, for felonies committed by a "dangerous special offender," § 3575 (b). Some of the procedural obstacles to sentence enhancement under these provisions, and the constitutional questions raised thereby, are now being litigated in the District Courts.
In any case, the special procedures of Title X are at odds with any notion that § 371 would be used to enhance punishment. Sentence may be increased under § 3575 only if the judge makes special findings that the defendant is "dangerous," § 3575 (f). And § 3575 (a) requires that "[i]n no case shall the fact that the defendant is alleged to be a dangerous special offender be an issue upon the trial . . . [or] be disclosed to the jury . . . ." The trial judge must state the reasons for enhancing sentence, § 3575 (b), and there are provisions for appellate review, § 3576. Among the purposes of Title X was "improving the rationality, consistency, and effectiveness of sentencing by testing concepts of limiting and guiding sentencing discretion,"
Conspiracy, if charged in a § 1955 prosecution, should be charged as a preparatory offense that merges with the completed crime, and considered by the jury only if it first acquits the defendant of the § 1955 charge. The trial judge did allude to this use of the conspiracy charge,
I would accordingly reverse these convictions.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL join Part II of this opinion.
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, dissenting.
In Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81 (1955), this Court held that in criminal cases "[w]hen Congress leaves to the Judiciary the task of imputing to Congress an undeclared will, the ambiguity should be resolved in favor of lenity." Id., at 83. I agree with MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS that "[§] 1955 is . . . most sensibly viewed as a statute directed at conspiracy in a particular context," ante, at 795, and that the statute is at best silent on whether punishment for both the substantive crime and conspiracy was intended. In this situation, I would invoke Bell's rule of lenity. I therefore dissent.
FootNotes
"If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. . . ."
"(a) Whoever conducts, finances, manages, supervises, directs, or owns all or part of an illegal gambling business shall be fined not more than $20,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
"(b) As used in this section—
"(1) `illegal gambling business' means a gambling business which—
"(i) is a violation of the law of a State or political subdivision in which it is conducted;
"(ii) involves five or more persons who conduct, finance, manage, supervise, direct, or own all or part of such business; and
"(iii) has been or remains in substantially continuous operation for a period in excess of thirty days or has a gross revenue of $2,000 in any single day.
"(2) `gambling' includes but is not limited to pool-selling, book making, maintaining slot machines, roulette wheels or dice tables, and conducting lotteries, policy, bolita or numbers games, or selling chances therein. . . ."
"An agreement by two persons to commit a particular crime cannot be prosecuted as a conspiracy when the crime is of such a nature as to necessarily require the participation of two persons for its commission." 1 R. Anderson, Wharton's Criminal Law and Procedure § 89, p. 191 (1957).
"Of this class of cases we say that the substantive offense contemplated by the statute itself involves the same combination or community of purpose of two persons only which is prosecuted here as conspiracy. . . . [T]hose decisions . . . hold, consistently with the theory upon which conspiracies are punished, that where it is impossible under any circumstances to commit the substantive offense without cooperative action, the preliminary agreement between the same parties to commit the offense is not an indictable conspiracy either at common law . . . or under the federal statute." (Citations omitted.)
See also Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 642 (1946); United States v. Katz, 271 U.S. 354, 355 (1926); United States v. Holte, 236 U.S. 140, 145 (1915).
"It has been recently held in Pennsylvania, that no indictment lies for a conspiracy between a man and a woman to commit adultery. It was said by the learned judge who tried the case, that where concert is the essential ingredient to the act, there is no conspiracy; but from the peculiar circumstances of the case, it is clear that this authority cannot be used beyond the class of cases to which it belongs." 3 F. Wharton, Criminal Law § 2321, p. 78 (6th ed. 1868).
Wharton's treatises likewise recognized the difficulty posed by the concept of merger of the felony and the conspiracy to commit that offense. The seventh edition of the treatise notes that "[t]he technical rule of the old common law pleaders, that a misdemeanor always sinks into a felony when the two meet" had been applied to the law of conspiracy. 2 F. Wharton, Criminal Law § 2294, p. 637 (7th ed. 1874). Wharton was more critical of this concept than Carson, however, observing that the rule was one "with very little substantial reason." Ibid. He discussed approvingly English and American cases that were beginning to reflect a narrow view of the merger doctrine in the law of conspiracy and to indicate that the conspiracy might be pursued as an independent offense even when the felony was committed. Id., at 638-639. Wharton subsequently indicated that the proper sentencing disposition in a case of conviction for both offenses was to apportion the penalty between the two. 2 F. Wharton, Criminal Law § 1344, p. 198 (8th ed. 1880), quoting from R. v. Button, 11 Q. B. (Ad. & E., N. S.) *929, 116 Eng. Rep. 720 (1848).
Our determination that Congress authorized prosecution and conviction for both offenses in all cases, see Part IV, infra, makes it unnecessary to decide whether the exception to Wharton's Rule could properly be applied to conspiracies to violate § 1955 involving more than five persons. See supra, at 775. We note, however, that the statute and its legislative history seem to suggest that it could not. By its terms, § 1955 reaches gambling activities involving "five or more persons." Moreover, the legislative history of the statute indicates that Congress assumed that it would generally be applied in cases in which more than the statutory minimum number were involved. See n. 21, infra. It thus would seem anomalous to conclude that Congress intended the substantive offense to subsume the conspiracy in one case but not in the other.
"If confederacy constituted conspiracy, without regard to the quality of the act to be done, a party might incur the guilt of it by having agreed to be the passive subject of a battery, which did not involve him in a breach of the peace. By such preconcerted encounters, it has been said, a reputation for prowess is sometimes purchased by gentlemen of the fancy. In the same way there might be a conspiracy to commit suicide by drowning or hanging in concert, according to the method of the Parisian roues, though no one could be indicted if the felony were committed. It may be said, such conspiracies are ridiculous and improbable. But nothing is more ridiculous than a conspiracy to commit adultery—were we not bound to treat it with becoming gravity, it might provoke a smile— or more improbable than that the parties would deliberately postpone an opportunity to appease the most unruly of their appetites. These are subtile premises for a legal conclusion; but their subtilty is in the analysis of the principle, not in the manner of treating it."
"Most large-city gambling is established or controlled by organized crime members through elaborate hierarchies.
.....
"There is no accurate way of ascertaining organized crime's gross revenue from gambling in the United States. Estimates of the annual intake have varied from $7 to $50 billion. Legal betting at racetracks reaches a gross annual figure of almost $5 billion, and most enforcement officials believe that illegal wagering on horse races, lotteries, and sporting events totals at least $20 billion each year. Analysis of organized criminal betting operations indicates that the profit is as high as one-third of gross revenue—or $6 to $7 billion each year. While the Commission cannot judge the accuracy of these figures, even the most conservative estimates place substantial capital in the hands of organized crime leaders." Report of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society 188-189 (1967).
"It is anticipated that cases in which this standard can be met will ordinarily involve business-type gambling operations of considerably greater magnitude than this definition would indicate, . . . because it is usually possible to prove only a relatively small proportion of the total operations of a gambling enterprise. Thus, the legislation would in practice not apply to gambling that is sporadic or of insignificant monetary proportions. It will reach only those who prey systematically upon our citizens and whose syndicated operations are so continuous and so substantial as to be a matter of national concern." S. Rep. No. 91-617, p. 73 (1969).
"For two or more to confederate and combine together to commit or cause to be committed a breach of the criminal laws, is an offense of the gravest character, sometimes quite outweighing, in injury to the public, the mere commission of the contemplated crime. It involves deliberate plotting to subvert the laws, educating and preparing the conspirators for further and habitual criminal practices. And it is characterized by secrecy, rendering it difficult of detection, requiring more time for its discovery, and adding to the importance of punishing it when discovered."
"It is theoretically possible that two people could conspire to form a business of five [participants] or more. It would be theoretically possible, too, that if the business were underway and only reached a total of four, . . . there would be no violation of Section 1955, but there still could be a conspiracy charge on the part of those who planned the agreement to ultimately make a business of five, even though they never actually reached five." Tr. 2505.
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