Ervin v. State

In Ervin v. State, 991 S.W.2d 804 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999), the Court of Criminal Appeals laid out a non-exclusive list of factors to consider when examining whether two offenses are the same in the context of multiple punishments. These factors include: whether the offenses are in the same statutory section; whether the offenses are phrased in the alternative; whether the offenses are named similarly; whether the offenses have common punishment ranges; whether the offenses have a common focus; whether the common focus tends to indicate a single instance of conduct; whether the elements that differ between the two offenses can be considered the same under an imputed theory of liability that would result in the offenses being considered the same under Blockburger; and 8) whether there is legislative history containing an articulation of an intent to treat the offenses as the same or different for double-jeopardy purposes. Id. at 814. The Court concluded that manslaughter and intoxication manslaughter are the same offense for double jeopardy purposes when they involve the same victim, and imposing convictions for both violates the Double Jeopardy Clause. Ervin, 991 S.W.2d at 817. In arriving at this conclusion, the court recognized that the statute defining intoxication manslaughter does not include a mental state, while the statute defining manslaughter requires a mental state of "recklessly." In finding the two offenses were nevertheless the "same offense" for double jeopardy purposes, the Ervin court found that intoxication manslaughter can be viewed as having the element of recklessness by imputation, thus making the offenses the same under the liberalized, "imputation" version of the Blockburger test (finding that intoxication was an imputed form of recklessness). Id. at 816. Ervin v. State involved the imputation of a culpable mental state.