1. The court of appeals erred in holding that a double-jeopardy violation occurred when Appellant was convicted and punished for each distinct material false or misleading statement he made in each loan application at issue because each such statement constituted an allowable unit of prosecution under Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 32.32 given that each statement related to separate matters and was sufficient standing alone to cause the granting of credit in an amount of more than $200,0002.Jones worked for a mortgage company and submitted two uniform residential loan applications on two separate residential properties. He also made false statements on the applications stating that he owned two fictitious bank accounts. He also submitted someone else's credit report as his own. He was charged under two different indictments, but each indictment had three counts. All of the counts within each indictment dealt with a single loan application (I think the implication is that each indictment represented a separate loan application; it wasn't six counts for just one application). He was convicted on each of these counts, receiving six sentences. Jones argued that he should only have received one sentence for each loan application because each application was an allowable unit of prosecution. Thus, double jeopardy barred him from receiving six sentences when he should have received two.
2. The court of appeals' holding that the gravamen of the offense of false statement to obtain property or credit is the property or credit sought or obtained pursuant to the false or misleading statement or statements conflicts with the plain language of Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 32.32 defining the offense and is, therefore, contrary to the principles of statutory construction.
3. The court of appeals' holding that the gravamen of the offense of false statement to obtain property or credit is the property or credit sought or obtained pursuant to the false or misleading statement or statements conflicts with the decision in Cheney v. State, 755 S.W.2d 123 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988), stating that the gravamen of the offense is the act of making such a statement and that the offense is complete once the written, deceptive statement relative to obtaining property or credit is made.
4. The court of appeals erred in analogizing the offense of false statement to obtain property or credit, which addresses deceptive conduct, and the offense of felony theft, which focuses on the acquisition of property, to determine the allowable unit of prosecution under Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 32.32 for false statement to obtain property or credit.
5.By holding that the allowable unit of prosecution for false statement to obtain property or credit is the property or credit sought or obtained pursuant to the false or misleading statement or statements rather than each material false or misleading statement made to obtain property or credit, the court of appeals has judicially mandated aggregation of distinct offenses committed under Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 32.32 and denied the State discretion in matters of aggregation.
The Fort Worth Court of Appeals agreed. According to the Court, the allowable unit of prosecution is the property sought or obtained via the false statements. While the Court of Criminal Appeals had previously indicated that the gravamen of the offense of false-statement-to-obtain-credit was making the statement in Cheney v. State. However, that case dealt with whether the offense of theft was in pari materia with false-statement-to-obtain credit. Moreover, since that case, the legislature had added a value ladder to the FSTOC offense to increase the penalty based upon the value of the property secured with the false statement. This, according to the majority, the amended offense is more analogous to a theft charge where the allowable unit of prosecution is the object or objects stolen. The court of appeals modified the judgments to vacate the second and third counts in each indictment. Here's a link to the underlying court of appeals case info and to the CCA case info.
[I wonder if we'll get another eighth-grade grammar test out of this. I know, that's jury unanimity, but I think that whenever I see the word "gravamen." It's almost Pavlovian now. This also kind of reminded me of Huffman v. State, the failure to stop and render aid case, just because that case dealt with a lot of things happening to lead to one offense. That's why I think the State was smart to note that each individual false statement, standing alone, could've secured the total monetary amount. Seems to mesh well with the CCA's previous discussion of FSTOC in Cheney v. State, but the majority's analogy to the theft statute also seems to make sense, at least superficially. We'll have to wait and see.]
