Opinion ID: 592253
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicability of Issue Preclusion to Retrials After Partial Acquittals

Text: 16 The government's argument on issue preclusion is a simple syllogism based on two premises. The first premise is that a retrial of mistried counts does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause because the retrial is a continuation of the original jeopardy. Richardson, 468 U.S. at 323, 104 S.Ct. at 3085. The second, that collateral estoppel is embodied in the Double Jeopardy Clause. Ashe, 397 U.S. at 445-46, 90 S.Ct. at 1195; Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 346, 110 S.Ct. 668, 671, 107 L.Ed.2d 708 (1990) (Double Jeopardy Clause incorporates the doctrine of collateral estoppel); United States v. Gentile, 816 F.2d 1157, 1162 (7th Cir.1987). If retrials of mistried counts do not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause, the government reasons, neither can they implicate the derivative doctrine of collateral estoppel. 17 Sometimes simple syllogisms are simply sophistic. That is the case here. The government's argument assumes that because collateral estoppel is embodied in the Double Jeopardy Clause, collateral estoppel is co-extensive with the Double Jeopardy Clause's other protections. Thus, the government asks us to hold that collateral estoppel can never apply in circumstances where double jeopardy does not. Such a holding would eliminate collateral estoppel from criminal cases and overrule Ashe. A criminal defendant has no need for the benefits of issue preclusion if his entire prosecution is barred by double jeopardy; if double jeopardy bars the entire prosecution, then a court need not consider whether particular issues are precluded from relitigation. 6 Precisely contrary to the government's assertion, collateral estoppel is applicable in criminal cases only when double jeopardy is not. The circumstances of Ashe illustrate this fact perfectly. The defendant Ashe was accused of robbing six poker players. After Ashe had been acquitted of robbing one of them, the government attempted to prosecute him for robbing one of the other players. Double jeopardy certainly did not bar this successive prosecution, because robbing player number 2 was not the same offense as robbing player number 1. State v. Ashe, 350 S.W.2d 768, 770 (Mo.1961). But that fact did not prevent the Supreme Court from considering whether collateral estoppel protected the defendant, even though the Court noted that collateral estoppel in criminal cases is a part of the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against double jeopardy. 397 U.S. at 441-43, 90 S.Ct. at 1193-94. Thus, the Supreme Court held that collateral estoppel applied even though double jeopardy did not. 7 Id. at 443, 90 S.Ct. at 1194; see also Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. at 166 n. 6, 97 S.Ct. at 2226 n. 6 (Even if two offenses are sufficiently different to permit the imposition of consecutive sentences, successive prosecutions will be barred in some circumstances where the second prosecution requires the relitigation of factual issues already resolved by the first.). The government's syllogism fails. 8 18 The government's syllogism does have some significance, however, because it demonstrates that this case is not really about collateral estoppel. When a defendant is retried on hung counts, the retrial does not violate double jeopardy because the defendant is considered to be in continuing jeopardy, Jeffers v. United States, 432 U.S. 137, 152, 97 S.Ct. 2207, 2217, 53 L.Ed.2d 168 (1977); the original jeopardy never terminated. But the retrial cannot be collateral if it is a continuation of the first trial. Any issue preclusion in these circumstances, therefore, is not collateral. Issue preclusion within the confines of a single claim or cause of action is known as direct estoppel. 18 Charles A. Wright et al., Federal Practice & Procedure § 4418, at 169 (1981). Direct estoppel prevents a party from relitigating a fact which was already determined against it in a decision that finally disposes of a part of a claim on the merits but does not preclude all further action on the remainder of the claim; issues common to both parts of the claim are precluded, even though new issues remain to be decided. Id. at 169-70. Consider, as an example, a civil case for legal and equitable relief, where the claim for damages is tried to a jury, and the claim for equitable relief, to a judge. Any facts necessarily and finally decided by the jury are binding on the judge. Id. at 174-75; see, e.g., Ohio-Sealy Mattress Mfg. Co. v. Sealy, Inc., 585 F.2d 821, 843-45 (7th Cir.1978) (denoting this form of issue preclusion collateral estoppel), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 930, 99 S.Ct. 1267, 59 L.Ed.2d 486 (1979). 19 The question raised by the government, then, is whether direct estoppel should apply in a criminal case. In a retrial of a mistried count in a multicount indictment, does direct estoppel bar the government from relitigating issues that were necessarily and finally decided in the defendant's favor by reason of the jury's partial acquittal on other counts? We hold that it does. Circuit cases recognize issue preclusion in retrials of mistried counts, and the implications of related Supreme Court precedents, as well as the policies which underlie them, support those cases. A number of circuits, including this one, have held that issue preclusion bar[s] the Government from relitigating a question of fact that was determined in defendant's favor by a partial verdict. See, e.g., United States v. Mespoulede, 597 F.2d 329, 336 (2d Cir.1979) (when defendant was acquitted of drug possession but jury hung on conspiracy to distribute, collateral estoppel prevented government from proving issues necessarily decided in defendant's favor in first trial); 9 Gentile, 816 F.2d at 1162; Kimberlin, 805 F.2d at 231-32; United States v. Frazier, 880 F.2d 878, 883 (6th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1083, 110 S.Ct. 1142, 107 L.Ed.2d 1046 (1990); Green v. United States, 426 F.2d 661 (D.C.Cir.1970) (per curiam); Cosgrove v. United States, 224 F.2d 146 (9th Cir.1954). 20 The government argues that these cases have been implicitly overruled by recent Supreme Court decisions which establish the premises of its syllogism. As mentioned above, however, that syllogism does not establish that direct estoppel is inapplicable. Rather, we believe that Supreme Court precedent supports the appellate cases noted above. Whether direct estoppel should apply to retrials of mistried counts comes at the intersection of two independent rules of Supreme Court lineage. The first rule concerns inconsistent jury verdicts in a single proceeding. When a criminal defendant is tried for multiple counts in one proceeding, he or she cannot attack a conviction on one count on the ground that it is inconsistent with the jury's acquittal on another count. United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 105 S.Ct. 471, 83 L.Ed.2d 461 (1984); Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 52 S.Ct. 189, 76 L.Ed. 356 (1932). The other rule concerns the effects of acquittals in separate proceedings. When a criminal defendant has been acquitted for an offense in one proceeding, the law attaches particular significance to an acquittal, so that the acquittal, however mistaken [it] may have been, bars retrial for the same offense. United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 89, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 2193, 57 L.Ed.2d 65 (1978). Thus, acquittals bar successive convictions but have no effect on simultaneous ones. 21 Which rule should apply to a retrial of a mistried count? Is a conviction upon retrial after a partial verdict simultaneous or successive? We believe that the rule permitting inconsistent jury verdicts in a single proceeding is inapplicable. Inconsistent simultaneous verdicts are permissible because the jury may have properly reached its conclusion [on the conviction] ... and then through mistake, compromise, or lenity, arrived at an inconsistent conclusion on the acquitted count. Powell, 469 U.S. at 63-64, 105 S.Ct. at 476. Inconsistent verdicts are thus the price of jurors' inexperience, unanimity, and prerogative. This rationale does not apply to a retrial of mistried counts, because a new jury is impanelled for the retrial. Allowing a second jury to reconsider the very issue upon which the defendant has prevailed serves no valuable function. To the contrary, it implicates concerns about the injustice of exposing a defendant to repeated risks of conviction for the same conduct, and to the ordeal of multiple trials, that lie at the heart of the double jeopardy clause. Mespoulede, 597 F.2d at 336-37; see also Frazier, 880 F.2d at 882-83. That is precisely why the rule barring successive prosecutions after an acquittal is applicable here. As discussed supra at 276 n. 8, issue preclusion is necessary to give the acquitted defendant the full benefit of the protections in the Double Jeopardy Clause. Prosecutors have the discretion to charge a defendant who is accused of a rather limited criminal act with numerous separate crimes. But because the technical elements necessary to establish these different crimes often differ, the defendant who is acquitted on only some counts may receive no formal double jeopardy protection. Such a defendant could be subject to numerous retrials simply because of the multiplicity of technically distinct (though factually overlapping) counts. Although we do not question that outcome, we do not believe that the Government should also have the opportunity to hone its presentation on those issues which have already been decided against it. We fear that the Government, with its vastly superior resources, might wear down the defendant, so that 'even though innocent he may be found guilty.'  Scott, 437 U.S. at 89, 98 S.Ct. at 2193 (quoting Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 186-88, 78 S.Ct. 221, 223-24, 2 L.Ed.2d 199 (1957)). Nor should the defendants be forced to live in a continuous state of anxiety and insecurity concerning those issues. Green, at 186, 78 S.Ct. at 223. 10 Thus, even though the acquitted counts do not bar retrial on the mistried counts, they do bar relitigation of issues already resolved against the government. 22 Against the weight of binding appellate precedent and informative Supreme Court precedent, the government relies on dictum in Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U.S. at 500 n. 9, 104 S.Ct. at 2541 n. 9. In that case, the Court stated in a footnote, where the State has made no effort to prosecute the charges seriatim, the considerations of double jeopardy protection implicit in the application of collateral estoppel are inapplicable. The government's argument turns on this sentence. But Johnson involved a very different question from that now before us. In Johnson, the defendant was charged with four crimes. He offered to plead guilty to the two lesser offenses, and to plead not guilty to the two greater ones. The trial court accepted the guilty pleas over the State's objection. The trial court then held that under the Double Jeopardy Clause, the defendant's guilty pleas on the lesser offenses barred further prosecution on the more serious ones. Id. at 493-94, 104 S.Ct. at 2538. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the defendant should not be entitled to use the Double Jeopardy Clause as a sword to prevent the State from completing its prosecution on the remaining charges. Id. at 501-02, 104 S.Ct. at 2542. The Court also held that principles of collateral estoppel were inapplicable because the state did not prosecute the charges seriatim. Id. at 500 n. 9, 104 S.Ct. at 2541 n. 9. Indeed, Johnson's guilty plea did not really decide any factual issues, because the taking of a guilty plea is not the same as an adjudication on the merits after full trial, such as took place in Ashe v. Swenson. Id. Far from supporting the government's argument, Johnson is almost precisely opposite the present case. The Johnson Court emphasized that: 23 [n]o interest of respondent ... protected by the Double Jeopardy Clause is implicated by continuing prosecution on the remaining charges brought in the indictment.... Respondent has not been exposed to conviction on the charges to which he pleaded not guilty, nor has the State had the opportunity to marshall its evidence and resources more than once or to hone its presentation of its case through trial.... There simply has been none of the governmental overreaching that double jeopardy is supposed to prevent. On the other hand, ending prosecution now would deny the State its right to one full and fair opportunity to convict those who have violated its laws. 24 Id. at 501-02, 104 S.Ct. at 2542. 11 In contrast, Bailin is not using direct estoppel as a sword to prevent the government from having its one full opportunity to prosecute, but as a shield to prevent the government from having an opportunity to relitigate issues which were already decided in the first trial. 12 Thus, the government's reliance on the dictum in Ohio v. Johnson is unavailing. 25 There is a final reason for applying the Scott rule that acquittals bar future prosecutions rather than the Dunn/ Powell rule that acquittals do not invalidate simultaneous convictions. When a jury returns a simultaneous acquittal and conviction, a defendant cannot benefit from issue preclusion because inconsistent verdicts prevent a court from determining that any issue was necessarily decided against the government. Hoffer v. Morrow, 797 F.2d 348, 352 (7th Cir.1986); United States v. Price, 750 F.2d 363, 365 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 473 U.S. 904, 105 S.Ct. 3526, 87 L.Ed.2d 651 (1985). The government cannot prevail with the analogous argument that an acquittal on one count, coupled with a hung jury on a related count, makes it impossible to determine that the jury necessarily established any common element of those two offenses against the government. 13 A hung jury is defined as a jury so irreconcilably divided in opinion that they cannot agree upon any verdict by the required unanimity, Black's Law Dictionary 741 (6th ed. 1990), or as one that did not carry out the task assigned it. Anne B. Poulin, Collateral Estoppel in Criminal Cases, 58 Cinn.L.Rev. 1, 44 n. 12 (1989). Therefore, the jury's failure to reach a verdict [is] too inconclusive to qualify as inconsistent for the purposes of issue preclusion. Id. The powerful double jeopardy protections that attach to acquitted counts should not be outweighed by the inconclusiveness inherent in hung counts. 14 United States v. Seley, 957 F.2d 717, 723 (9th Cir.1992). If the Supreme Court would resolve this close and difficult question differently, we believe that a statement clearer than the dictum in Ohio v. Johnson is necessary. Therefore, we affirm the district court's holding. 26