United States v. Lenoir

I agree completely with Judge Pearson’s opinion, and write separately only to add further comments about the law of sentencing in multiple offense convictions.

It is entirely appropriate that the lead opinion speaks of “cumulative punishments” and avoids the unfortunate term “sentence multiplicity.” A careful reading of Supreme Court precedents leads me to conclude there is only one stream of constitutional case law on multiplicity, not two. The law of multiplicity has its roots in the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment (“nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be…