Opinion ID: 2554909
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Specific Unanimity Instructions As Applied to the Overt Act Requirement

Text: Title 11, section 512 of the Delaware Code provides: A person is guilty of conspiracy in the second degree when, intending to promote or facilitate the commission of a felony, the person: (1) Agrees with another person or persons that they or 1 or more of them will engage in conduct constituting the felony or an attempt or solicitation to commit the felony; or (2) Agrees to aid another person or persons in the planning or commission of the felony or an attempt or solicitation to commit the felony; and the person or another person with whom the person conspired commits an overt act in pursuance of the conspiracy. Conspiracy in the second degree is a class G felony. The crime of conspiracy is different from many other crimes because in the context of a Probst analysis, a jury often may have several conceptually different overt acts from which to choose, and indeed, different co-conspirators may commit those conceptually different overt acts. [11] In light of the unusual circumstances that the crime of conspiracy presents to a jury, some courts prefer to instruct the jury to agree unanimously upon the particular overt act that supports the conspiracy conviction. But, state courts throughout the country are divided on this issue. [12] In the federal system, the model jury instructions of the various Circuits of the United States Courts of Appeals also illustrate this disagreement. [13] For example, the Third Circuit Model Criminal Jury Instructions relevantly provide: You must unanimously agree on the overt act that was committed. [14] Similarly, the Ninth Circuit Model Criminal Jury Instructions relevantly provide: [O]ne of the members of the conspiracy performed at least one overt act . . . for the purpose of carrying out the conspiracy, with all of you agreeing on a particular overt act that you find was committed. [15] Two other Circuits provide in their model instructions that the jury should be instructed to agree unanimously on the particular overt act. [16] The Sixth Circuit's Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions relevantly provide: It is unclear whether an augmented unanimity instruction specifically requiring unanimous agreement on the same overt act is necessary. [17] The remaining Circuits do not address the issue in their model criminal jury instructions. [18] In United States v. Chen Chiang Liu, [19] the Ninth Circuit, despite its model instructions, explained: It is not clear that a district court must instruct a jury that it must make a unanimous finding of which overt act was committed in furtherance of the conspiracy. [20] The court in Chen speculated that the United States Constitution might not require the instruction, [21] citing to Schad v. Arizona [22] for the following proposition: A way of framing the issue is suggested by analogy. Our cases reflect a long-established rule of the criminal law that an indictment need not specify which overt act, among several named, was the means by which a crime was committed. . . . We have never suggested that in returning general verdicts in such cases the jurors should be required to agree upon a single means of commission, any more than the indictments were required to specify one alone. [23]