Cite as: 517 U. S. 292 (1996)
Syllabus
the Government's argument would be limited by Ball v. United States, 470 U. S. 856, 861-865, in which the Court concluded that Congress did not intend to allow punishment for both illegally "receiving" and illegally "possessing" a firearm; held that the only remedy consistent with the congressional intent was to vacate one of the underlying convictions as well as the concurrent sentence based upon it; and explained that the second conviction does not evaporate simply because of its sentence's concurrence, since it has potential adverse collateral consequences— e. g., delay of parole eligibility or an increased sentence under a recidivist statute for a future offense—that make it presumptively impermissible to impose. Although petitioner did not challenge the $50 assessment below, the fact that § 3013 required its imposition renders it as much a collateral consequence of the conspiracy conviction as the consequences recognized by Ball. Pp. 301-303. (c) Also rejected is the Government's argument that the presumption against multiple punishments is overcome here because Congress has clearly indicated its intent to allow courts to impose them. Support for that view cannot be inferred from the fact that this Court's Jeffers judgment allowed convictions under both §§ 846 and 848 to stand, since those convictions were entered in separate trials, the Court's review addressed only the § 848 conviction, and that conviction was affirmed because the four-Justice plurality decided that Jeffers had waived any right to object, see 432 U. S., at 152-154, and because Justice White took the hereinbefore-rejected position that conspiracy was not a lesser included offense of CCE, see id., at 158 (opinion concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). As to this issue, then, the judgment is not entitled to precedential weight because it amounts at best to an unexplained affirmance by an equally divided court. Pp. 303-304. (d) The Government's argument that Congress intended to allow multiple convictions here to provide a "backup" conviction, preventing a defendant who later successfully challenges his greater offense from escaping punishment altogether, is unpersuasive. There is no reason why this particular pair of greater and lesser offenses should present any novel problem not already addressed by the federal appellate courts, which have uniformly concluded—with this Court's approval, see, e. g., Morris v. Mathews, 475 U. S. 237, 246-247—that they may direct the entry of judgment for a lesser included offense when a conviction for a greater offense is reversed on grounds affecting only the greater offense. Pp. 305-307. (e) Because the Court here adheres to the presumption that Congress intended to authorize only one punishment, one of petitioner's convictions, as well as its concurrent sentence, is unauthorized punishment
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