Opinion ID: 489490
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Modified Allen Charge

Text: 19 Nichols argues that the district court's modified Allen charge 2 was premature and coercive. After deliberating three and a half hours one day, and over five hours the next, the jury sent a note to the judge stating they were deadlocked on all four counts. The judge recalled the jury and gave them a supplemental instruction that follows in its entirety: 20 In a large proportion of the cases and perhaps strictly speaking in all cases absolute certainty cannot be attained nor can it be expected. Although the verdict to which a juror agrees must, of course, be his own verdict or her own verdict, the result of his or her own convictions, and not a mere acquiescence in the conclusion of his or her fellow jurors, yet, in order to bring 12 minds to a unanimous result you must examine the questions submitted to you with candor and with the proper regard and deference to the opinions of each other. You should consider that you are selected in the same manner and from the same source from which any future jury must be selected. There is no reason to suppose that this case will ever be submitted to 12 men and women more intelligent, more impartial or more competent to decide it or that more or clearer evidence will be produced on one side or the other, and with this view it is your duty to decide the case, if you can consciously do so without violence to your individual judgment. 21 In the event you cannot so decide, a jury has a right to fail to agree. In order to make a decision more practical the law imposes the burden of proof on one party or the other in all cases. The high burden of proof which must be sustained by the prosecution has not changed. In the present case the burden of proof is on the government to establish with respect to each count each essential element of the offense, and to establish that essential element beyond a reasonable doubt. And if with respect to any element of any count you are left in reasonable doubt, the defendant is entitled to the benefit of such doubt and must be acquitted. But in conferring together you ought to pay proper respect to each other's opinions and you ought to listen with the disposition to being convinced to each other's arguments. Thus where there is a disagreement jurors favoring acquittal should consider whether a doubt in their own mind is a reasonable one when it makes no impression upon the minds of the other equally honest and equally intelligent who have heard the same evidence and with the same degree of attention and with an equal desire to arrive at the truth and under the sanction of the same oath. 22 On the other hand, jurors for conviction ought seriously to ask themselves whether they should doubt the correctness of a judgment which is not concurred in by others with whom they are associated and distrust the weight or sufficiency of that evidence which fails to carry conviction in the minds of their fellow jurors. 23 Finally, not only should jurors in the minority reexamine their positions, but jurors in the majority should also do so, to see whether they have given careful consideration and sufficient weight to the evidence which has favorably impressed the persons in disagreement with them. 24 Incidentally, if you are unable to reach a unanimous verdict as to all four counts, you are free to return a verdict on those counts, if any, as to which all of you agree. 25 I am instructing you now to go back and resume your deliberations. 26 This modified Allen charge meets the guidelines we set in United States v. Flannery, 451 F.2d 880, 883 (1st Cir.1971). The jury had deliberated for nearly nine hours over two days and had reported to the judge sua sponte that they had reached a deadlock. See United States v. Rengifo, 789 F.2d 975, 977, 985 (1st Cir.1986) (after seven hours deliberation the charge, given by the same judge who tried this case, was the correct response to the information that the jury was at an impasse). The instruction was carefully phrased so that (1) the onus of reexamination would not be on the minority alone ...; (2) a jury would not feel compelled to reach agreement ...; and (3) jurors would be reminded of the burden of proof. United States v. Angiulo, 485 F.2d 37, 39 (1st Cir.1973). 3 The fact that the jury returned its verdict late in the day and only one hour after the charge was given does not show that the charge was coercive. See United States v. Rengifo, 789 F.2d at 977, 985 (jury given modified Allen charge at 7:30 p.m., after deliberating since noon, and returned verdict two hours later).