Opinion ID: 202026
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fair Trial Considerations.

Text: 29 At a bare minimum, see supra Part III(A), the lower court's so-called partial directed verdict exemplified its decision to narrow the scope of the charge lodged against the defendant. After the court took that position, it was perfectly reasonable for the defendant to expect the court to instruct the jury only on the spoke conspiracy. The court did just the opposite; it gave a generic conspiracy instruction and made specific references to the hub conspiracy (e.g., the government claims that . . . Yeje-Cabrera . . . was the top supplier and . . . he had various people working with him . . . [and the defendant] would distribute [Yeje-Cabrera's cocaine]). The court also told the jury that [using] the garage . . . to store cocaine . . . would be facilitating the . . . conspiracy. By that allusion, the court could only have meant the hub conspiracy. 30 Following the charge, defense counsel objected. As the basis for the objection, counsel cited the incongruity between the instructions as given and the court's earlier grant of a partial directed verdict. 3 The court declined to modify the instructions. 31 Of course, the jurors were not present when the court partially directed a verdict, nor were they informed of that ruling at any later time. This is potentially important because the district court, when it reversed its field, used the fact that the jury was never privy to the erroneous ruling as one reason why the rather generic jury charge regarding the law of conspiracy allowed the jurors to convict the defendant of membership in the hub conspiracy. Green, 346 F.Supp.2d at 338. We find that reasoning problematic. 32 As the defendant suggests, it is possible to think of this situation in terms of either a material variance or a constructive amendment of the indictment. See, e.g., United States v. Glenn, 828 F.2d 855, 858 (1st Cir.1987) (describing a variance, in the conspiracy context, as a showing that the government proved understandings or agreements different from those charged and explaining that a defendant can upset a conviction if prejudice results); United States v. Dunn, 758 F.2d 30, 35 (1st Cir. 1985) (explaining that a constructive amendment, which embodies a material alteration of the charging terms of the indictment, whether literally or in effect, is regarded as prejudicial per se). Either of these routes, if successfully pursued, would at most earn the defendant a retrial, and there is a simpler, more direct route that leads to precisely the same result. As we see it, the district court abridged the defendant's right to a fair trial when, after ruling one way, it proceeded to act in a wholly inconsistent manner without any prior notice. 33 Fair notice is one of the essentials in a trial, whether at the outset of the proceedings or at subsequent stages of the case. See, e.g., Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749, 760-64, 82 S.Ct. 1038, 8 L.Ed.2d 240 (1962). The concern with fairness (and, hence, with notice) is heightened in criminal cases. A serious and prejudicial infringement of the right to a fair trail can violate due process. Cf. Neron v. Tierney, 841 F.2d 1197, 1200 (1st Cir.1988) (The Due Process Clause guarantees a criminal defendant that his trial will comport with prevailing notions of fundamental fairness. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). Where, as here, a court makes a ruling that places a criminal defendant on notice of the parameters of the charge to be put to the jury and subsequently reneges on that commitment without forewarning the defendant, the court's error is serious and may well be prejudicial. Cf. In re Fidelity/Micron Sec. Litig., 167 F.3d 735, 737 n. 1 (1st Cir.1999) (disapproving of courts imposing rules of practice without some form of notice that would allow the parties and their counsel to conform their conduct accordingly). In this instance, prejudice is sufficiently likely to justify a new trial. 34 We elaborate briefly. In announcing its partial directed verdict, the district court led the defendant to believe, at a minimum, that it was setting a course that would govern the remainder of the trial — only the spoke conspiracy would be put to the jury — and defense counsel was entitled to rely on that statement. The court, however, did not deliver on its implicit promise; it refused, despite a contemporaneous objection, to conform its jury instructions to its earlier statement. That action, undertaken without any notice whatever, offended fundamental fairness. See Bae v. Peters, 950 F.2d 469, 478 (7th Cir.1991) (acknowledging that a due process violation can occur if a last-minute change in the charge. . . prejudice[s] a defendant's opportunity to defend himself); cf. Lee County Branch of the NAACP v. City of Opelika, 748 F.2d 1473, 1480 n. 12 (11th Cir.1984) (observing that due process . . . mandate[s] that when the rules of the game are changed, the players must be afforded a full and fair opportunity to play by the new regulations (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). 35 Having confirmed that an error of constitutional proportion occurred, we are confined in the remainder of our analysis by a special variant of the harmless error standard. Under that formulation, we must order a new trial unless the government, as the beneficiary of the error, can show beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967); United States v. Flores, 968 F.2d 1366, 1372 n. 7 (1st Cir.1992). This means that the government must convince us, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the guilty verdict in this case was unaffected by the district court's tergiversation. The government has not carried that burden. 36 The defendant was at least arguably prejudiced by the court's actions in two ways. First, the transcript makes it abundantly clear that defense counsel shaped his summation around the narrower charge that the court had led him to believe would be put to the jury. That argument focused exclusively on the absence of credible evidence of the defendant's personal involvement with cocaine. The lawyer neither challenged the defendant's putative membership in the broader conspiracy nor addressed the concept of multiple conspiracies. Second, defense counsel never requested a multiple conspiracy instruction, even though the defendant, so long as the hub conspiracy remained in play, may well have been entitled to one. See, e.g., United States v. Boylan, 898 F.2d 230, 243 (1st Cir.1990) (If, on the evidence adduced at trial, a reasonable jury could find more than one . . . illicit agreement, or could find an agreement different from the one charged, a multiple conspiracy instruction is proper and should be given if requested.). We think it quite likely that, had counsel known that the court would reverse direction and permit the jury to mull the larger hub conspiracy, he would have pressed for such an instruction. 37 The short of it is that the defendant tailored his summation and his requests for instructions to what the court had indicated would be the focal point of the jury deliberations. The court, however, pulled the rug out from under the defense when, without notice or an opportunity for cure, it reverted to a different, inconsistent focal point. Had defense counsel been forewarned, he could have made a much more forceful summation and, in all probability, received a more favorable charge (one that included a multiple conspiracy instruction). Given the disadvantages under which the court's error forced defense counsel to labor, we are not persuaded that, absent the error, the verdict would inevitably have been the same. The error, therefore, cannot be deemed harmless. 4