Opinion ID: 788340
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to instruct the jury on multiple conspiracies

Text: 160 Appellants did not object to the conspiracy instructions given to the jury, so we review this claim for plain error. Jones v. United States, 527 U.S. 373, 388, 119 S.Ct. 2090, 144 L.Ed.2d 370 (1999); Franklin, 321 F.3d 1231. A multiple conspiracies instruction is required only if the defendants' theory of the charged conspiracy or conspiracies is supported by law and has some foundation in the evidence. United States v. Anguiano, 873 F.2d 1314, 1317 (9th Cir.1989) (internal quotation marks omitted). [E]ven if the evidence would have supported such an instruction, the failure to give it is error only if the instructions as a whole, considered in the context of the entire trial, did not fairly and adequately cover the issues, including that theory. Id. Evidence sufficient to support a multiple conspiracies instruction is present where a jury could reasonably conclude that some of the defendants were only involved in separate conspiracies unrelated to the overall conspiracy charged in the indictment. Id. (emphasis added) (citing Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 750, 66 S.Ct. 1239). 33 161 We hold that the jury instructions given by the district court fairly and adequately covered the defense theory of the case. In addition to instructing the jury on what it must find in order to conclude that the conspiracies charged in counts two, three, and four existed, the district court also told the jury: 162 With regard to each of the conspiracies charged in the First Superseding Indictment, you must decide whether the conspiracy charged in the indictment existed and, if it did, who at least some of its members were. If you find that the conspiracy charged did not exist, then you must return a not guilty verdict even though you may find that some other conspiracy existed. Similarly, if you find that any defendant was not a member of the charged conspiracy, you must find that defendant not guilty, even though that defendant may have been a member of some other conspiracy. 163 Although the district court did not specifically use the term multiple conspiracies, the instruction is sufficient to cover the Appellants' theory of the case—that the evidence offered at trial did not establish the single overarching conspiracy alleged in each of counts two, three, and four, but rather several smaller and unrelated conspiracies. The district court's detailed instructions on the elements of a conspiracy further support this conclusion: the jury was instructed on the legal definition of a conspiracy, with its required elements of an agreement among the participants with the specific intent to agree; specific intent to commit the particular crime charged; and overt acts to further or accomplish the object of the conspiracy. Given these instructions, the jury could decide that the large overarching conspiracy charged by the government in each count did not exist, but that other unrelated conspiracies did; or that a particular defendant did not participate in the overall conspiracy, but rather in a different and unrelated conspiracy. 34 The district court did not commit plain error. 164