Opinion ID: 202749
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Witness Tampering Conspiracy

Text: 22 Capozzi appeals from his conviction in the second trial on Count 3, the multi-object witness tampering conspiracy. He argues that the government's concession that two of the three asserted objects of the conspiracy (conspiring to attempt to kill Silva and engaging in misleading conduct towards her, as opposed to conspiring to kill her) were insufficiently supported by the evidence, combined with the general verdict returned by the jury, necessarily means he is entitled to a new trial on Count 3. 23 Count 3 charged Capozzi and four co-defendants with a violation of the general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371. It alleged a multi-object conspiracy to violate various provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 1512, the federal witness tampering statute. The charging language of Count 3, as it went to the jury, included in relevant part the following: 24 the defendants herein, and co-conspirator Kevin Meuse [now deceased] did knowingly, willfully, and unlawfully combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with one another and with others known and unknown to the grand jury, to commit offenses against the United States; that is, to kill and attempt to kill another person and to engage in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to hinder, delay, and prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer of the United States relating to the commission or possible commission of federal offense, . . . in violation of Title 18 United States Code, Sections 1512(a)(1)(c), 1512(b)(3), and 2. 25 The indictment followed the usual practice of using the conjunction and in reference to the planned offenses, but guilt can be established by adequate proof on any one of the three charged grounds. See Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 51, 59-60, 112 S.Ct. 466, 116 L.Ed.2d 371 (1991) (holding that the Due Process Clause does not require a general guilty verdict on a multi-prong conspiracy be set aside if the evidence is inadequate to support conviction as to one of the objects). 26 The district court properly instructed the jury that guilt must be based upon proof of an agreement to commit any one of the three objects of the conspiracy and that the jury had to be unanimous as to which if any of the three objects were proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Before the case went to the jury, Capozzi requested a special verdict on Count 3, arguing that a special verdict was needed in order to clarify sentencing issues, specifically the application of the advisory sentencing guidelines. The court denied the request. Capozzi did not then assert that a special verdict was needed to evaluate the sufficiency of the evidence as to each object of the conspiracy, nor did he claim in a post-verdict Fed.R.Crim.P. 29 motion for acquittal that the conviction needed to be set aside because the government had failed to prove one or more of the three objects. He argued only that there was insufficient evidence to support each of the three objects of the witness tampering conspiracy, not that a general verdict prevented a determination of which prong of the conspiracy the jury really focused on in convicting him. 27 In response to Capozzi's motion for acquittal, the government conceded there was insufficient evidence offered at trial to establish that Capozzi agreed to the commission of witness tampering by misleading conduct or by the heroin overdose attempted killing of Silva. But the government contended there was ample evidence to support the first charged object of the alleged witness tampering conspiracy, to wit, the successful killing of Silva. This being so, the Count 3 conviction fell within the well-established principle repeated by this court in United States v. Murray: When a jury returns a guilty verdict on an indictment charging several acts in the conjunctive, the verdict stands if the evidence is sufficient with respect to any one of the acts charged. 621 F.2d 1163, 1171 n. 10 (1st Cir.1980). See Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 51, 59-60, 112 S.Ct. 466, 116 L.Ed.2d 371 (1991); see also Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 420, 90 S.Ct. 642, 24 L.Ed.2d 610 (1970); United States v. Richman, 600 F.2d 286, 298 (1st Cir.1979). 28 As a preliminary matter, the government argues that Capozzi forfeited his claim on this issue by failing to raise it at the district court level. See United States v. Lilly, 13 F.3d 15, 17-18 (1st Cir.1994) (arguments not seasonably addressed to the trial court may not be raised for the first time in an appellate venue). Because he did not preserve the particular claim related to the general verdict issue, we review his arguments only for plain error. No matter the standard, however, Capozzi's claim fails. 29 On appeal Capozzi no longer argues, as he did below, that there was insufficient evidence as to all three objects of the conspiracy. In fact, in his appellate brief he writes, [i]t is apparent that the verdict in this matter is required to be set aside because it is un-supportable on two ground[s], but not another, and it is impossible to tell which ground the jury selected (emphasis supplied). He thus effectively concedes that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he joined a conspiracy to engage in witness tampering by killing Silva. Capozzi instead relies on Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298, 77 S.Ct. 1064, 1 L.Ed.2d 1356 (1957), for his argument that the general verdict does not demonstrate whether the jury convicted on a reasonably supported basis. 30 The Supreme Court distinguished Yates in its later decision in Griffin, 502 U.S. at 56, 112 S.Ct. 466. The issue in Griffin was whether, in a federal prosecution, a general guilty verdict on a multiple-object conspiracy charge must be set aside if the evidence is inadequate to support conviction as to one of the objects. Id. at 47, 112 S.Ct. 466 (emphasis supplied). The Griffin Court distinguished Yates and its prior decision in Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359, 51 S.Ct. 532, 75 L.Ed. 1117 (1931), as dealing with general verdicts in which there were legal or constitutional (but not merely evidentiary) defects in one of several charged means that may have supported the jury's verdict. Griffin, 502 U.S. at 51-56, 112 S.Ct. 466. The Griffin Court relied on its post- Yates holding in Turner that when a jury returns a guilty verdict on an indictment charging several acts in the conjunctive, as Turner's indictment did, the verdict stands if the evidence is sufficient with respect to any one of the acts charged. Griffin, 502 U.S. at 56-57, 112 S.Ct. 466 (citing Turner, 396 U.S. at 420, 90 S.Ct. 642). Here, where the evidence was sufficient as to one prong of the three-pronged charged conspiracy (and Capozzi does not argue otherwise on appeal), Griffin makes clear that the district court did not err in upholding Capozzi's conviction on Count 3. 2