Opinion ID: 2399779
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The patchwork verdict theory.

Text: This is the theory of the Essex County Prosecutor's Office. That office reasons that it is immaterial whether the underlying felony was the robbery of Pettie, Dortch, Mosley, or Murphy. The Criminal Code requires only that a jury unanimously agree that a murder has occurred in the course of a felony. The Prosecutor reasons that when there is sufficient evidence to support two or more alternative theories to sustain a felony-murder conviction, a jury need not designate which theory it relies on, so long as there is sufficient evidence to sustain each predicate felony conviction. State v. Garcia, 243 Kan. 662, 763 P. 2d 585, 591 (1988) (citing State v. Guffie, 749 P. 2d 976 (Colo.Ct.App.1987) for the proposition that jury need not specify which of two victims was robbed). The prosecutor relies on our decision in State v. Parker, that a specific unanimity instruction is required only when it appears that a genuine possibility of jury confusion exists or that a conviction may occur as a result of different jurors concluding that a defendant committed conceptually distinct acts. 124 N.J. 628, 641, 592 A. 2d 228 (1991), cert. denied, 503 U.S. 939, 112 S.Ct. 1483, 117 L. Ed. 2d 625 (1992). That theory will not work in this case because [t]he rule stated in Guffie has no application where one of the alternative felony theories is invalid, either on constitutional grounds or for lack of sufficient evidence to support an independent conviction of the defendant on one of the felony theories. Garcia, supra, 763 P. 2d at 591-92; see also Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359, 51 S.Ct. 532, 75 L. Ed. 1117 (1931) (recognizing that general verdict of guilty could not stand if jury relied on two or more independent grounds, one of which was insufficient). In this case a felony-murder conviction based on the uncharged robbery of Pettie is invalid on constitutional grounds because the defendant had no notice of it. In addition, the theory is belied by the jury's verdict. The jurors returned unanimous verdicts of acquittal on the underlying robberies charged. See State v. Dancyger, 29 N.J. 76, 148 A. 2d 155, cert. denied, 360 U.S. 903, 79 S.Ct. 1286, 3 L. Ed. 2d 1255 (1959). Thus, the verdict is evidence that the individual jurors were not divided among defendant's various robbery charges. Had the jurors informed the court that they were hung on the robbery charges, the possibility of a patchwork verdict might exist. A hung jury might indicate that each juror thought defendant guilty of at least one of the robbery charges, while no charge received unanimous agreement. Under that scenario, the jury would have found defendant guilty of felony murder based on the fact that all jurors found defendant committed one of the predicate felonies yet could not come to an agreement on which felony it was. That, however, was not the case here. In addition, the jury's question whether it could convict defendant of robbery if he had not taken anything from the robbery victims suggests that it was engaged in collective deliberations, not a patchwork verdict. When we have upheld felony-murder convictions without requiring specific unanimity on the underlying predicate felony, we have observed that the jury had unanimously convicted the defendant of all of the underlying predicate felonies. E.g., State v. Harris, 141 N.J. 525, 562-63, 662 A. 2d 333 (1995). That is also not the case here.