Ray White v. United States

White stands convicted of six counts of an eight count indictment charging violations of the federal narcotics law. White was sentenced to imprisonment of five years on counts 1, 4, 5 and 8 and to two years on counts 3 and 7, all sentences concurrent.

Under the usual rule, if we find ■one of the counts under which a five year sentence was imposed to be a valid conviction, we are obligated to go no further. Sinclair v. United States, 279 U.S. 263 , 49 S.Ct. 268 , 73 L.Ed. 692 ; Williams v. United States, 9 Cir., 236 F.2d 894 , 16 Alaska 417 .

In the trial court at the close of the government’s case, the defendant moved for dismissal or a directed verdict as to all counts. The motion was granted as to counts 2 and 6. Then the defendant elected to present considerable oral evidence. When the testimony was done, defendant moved for dismissal of counts 4 and 8 only, but did not renew the motion as to counts 1, 3, 5 and 7. As indicated above, five year concurrent sentences were ultimately imposed upon White on counts 1 and 5, along with counts 4 and 8. Thus, we have two counts (Nos. 1 and 4) with five year concurrent sentences, the sufficiency of which was not at the close of the…