Opinion ID: 495278
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Divided Predicate Acts

Text: 64 Caspersen and Kragness maintain that the verdict against them on Count II is fatally ambiguous because the indictment charged two predicate acts, acts 10(a) and 10(b), that were in fact a single act. 18 Act 10(a) alleged that, on or about December 22, 1979, Kragness, Caspersen, Deters, and Aleto imported marijuana from Mexico to the United States, violating 21 U.S.C. Sec. 952(a). Act 10(b) alleged that on the same date, Kragness, Caspersen, and Aleto possessed marijuana with intent to distribute it, violating 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(a)(1). Kragness and Caspersen assert that 10(a) and 10(b) both refer to one act, bringing a single shipment of marijuana into the United States from Mexico, that simultaneously violated two statutes. This, they continue, means that the jury may have found the two predicate acts necessary to a RICO violation from what was actually only one act. 65 We agree with the defendants that it is not proper under RICO to charge two predicate acts where one action violates two statutes. 19 A pattern of racketeering activity requires at least two acts of racketeering, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1961(5) (emphasis added), not at least two statutory offenses. We do not think that the factor of  'continuity plus relationship,'  Sedima, 473 U.S. at 496 n. 14, 105 S.Ct. at 3285 n. 14, quoting S.Rep. No. 91-617, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 158 (1969) (emphasis added), which Congress thought necessary to establish a pattern, can be present where only a single act, albeit an act that violates two statutes, has been committed. See United States v. Phillips, 664 F.2d 971, 1038-39 (5th Cir. Unit B 1981), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1136, 102 S.Ct. 2965, 73 L.Ed.2d 1354 (1982); but see United States v. Bascaro, 742 F.2d 1335, 1360-61 (11th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1017, 105 S.Ct. 3476, 87 L.Ed.2d 613 (1985). 20 66 Any error involved in charging 10(a) and 10(b) as separate predicate acts is harmless as to Kragness because he was convicted on Count XI, which charged a substantive offense identical to Count II's predicate act 10(d). Count XI and act 10(d) both allege that on or about December 26, 1979, Kragness traveled in interstate commerce, from Minnesota to Washington, for the purpose of promoting trafficking in marijuana, a violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1952(a). Having convicted Kragness on Count XI, the jury must have found that he committed act 10(d); therefore, it is clear that the jury did not find the requisite two predicate acts from acts 10(a) and 10(b) alone. 67 As to Caspersen, however, our analysis requires a different conclusion. Although evidence of many other predicate acts was strong, we cannot know from the jury's general verdict of guilty which acts it found Caspersen had committed. There is a possibility that his conviction is based on a finding that he committed acts 10(a) and 10(b), but no others. As a practical matter, this seems most unlikely, but in a criminal case a conviction may not be upheld on the basis of speculation or inference, however strong, of this kind. It is the jury that must convict, not an appellate court. If the instructions leave open the logical possibility that the verdict is based on a legally insufficient predicate, the conviction cannot stand. That is the case here, and Caspersen's conviction on Count II (substantive RICO) must be reversed.