Roy Irby v. United States

(dissenting):

There are two questions before us. The first is whether, in some cases, the D. C. housebreaking and robbery statutes prohibit cumulative punishment. The second is whether Irby’s is one of those cases.

The answer to the first question depends entirely upon statutory construction.1 The issue is whether Congress authorized cumulative punishment not whether the trial judge properly exercised judicial sentencing discretion. No doubt, the process of statutory construction, which entails examining the history of these common law crimes, the legislative history of the statutes, the words…