Davis v. State

¶1Concurring in Part and Dissenting in Part:

¶2¶ 1 I disagree with the majority’s disposition of Proposition I. After conducting the appropriate analysis following the statutory directive and well-settled law, I conclude that Davis’s conviction for larceny from the house violates the § 11 prohibition against double punishment because the victim’s purse was not stolen for its own sake; rather, Davis intended to use the keys inside the purse to steal the victim’s truck.1

¶3¶2 I write separately to take issue with the majority’s unnecessary rejection of the controlling case on Oklahoma’s statutory prohibition against double punishment. The opinion shows the majority simply fails to understand Hale v. State,2in which this Court summarized decades of case law to set forth a simple test for determining whether a defendant is subject to punishment twice for an act or omission. Even a cursory review of the statutory language and our subsequent cases show Hale expands neither the statute nor the concept of double punishment. The majority’s claim that the Hale language has caused widespread confusion is unsupported by recent cases or filings before this Court.

¶4*129¶ 3 Reasonable persons may reach different results interpreting § 11 using Hale (or any other test), and I respect the majority’s determination that Davis’s conviction for larceny from a house does not violate § 11 using the Hale test. I am left to wonder why the majority, having reached this unremarkable conclusion, insists on fixing problems not raised as error on appeal.3 Both parties cite Hale without complaint and ar-' gue that Davis’s convictions do or don’t violate § 11 as applied there. There is no reason to “specifically reject our prior cases” applying Hale. I can only conclude the majority is overreaching in order to overturn case law it doesn’t like. This is exactly the sort of judicial activism members of the majority complain of in other cases.4