Opinion ID: 198068
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Pinkerton Theory of Liability

Text: 24 Shea avers that the district court erred in instructing the jury on Count Three, which charged him with the use and carrying of firearms during and in relation to a crime of violence, here, attempted bank robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). We engage in de novo review of an alleged jury instruction error involv[ing] the interpretation of the elements of a statutory offense. See United States v. Pitrone, 115 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir.1997). The district court instructed the jury as to three alternative theories of liability on this charge: direct principal liability; aider and abettor liability; and liability for the foreseeable acts of co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy, pursuant to Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 90 L.Ed. 1489 (1946). In its Pinkerton charge, the district court instructed the jury that it could find Shea guilty of violating § 924(c), if it found, inter alia, that the defendant could reasonably have foreseen that the crime of using a firearm during or in relation to the attempted bank robbery might be committed by one or more of his co-conspirators (emphasis added). 25 Shea asserts that the Pinkerton instruction improperly permitted the jury to convict him on the § 924(c) charge without satisfying the more stringent knowledge requirement for § 924(c) aider and abettor liability. Indeed, conviction under an aider and abettor theory of liability calls for a higher mens rea requirement than that required for Pinkerton liability. In Pinkerton, the Supreme Court ruled that a co-conspirator may be held vicariously liable for the reasonably foreseeable substantive offenses committed by other co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy. See 328 U.S. at 647-48, 66 S.Ct. 1180. In contrast, for aider and abettor liability to attach, the government must prove that Shea knew to a practical certainty that the principal would be using a weapon during the commission of the armed bank robbery. United States v. Spinney, 65 F.3d 231, 239 (1st Cir.1995). However, Shea's assertion that the more strict knowledge requirement for aider and abettor liability somehow negates the lower mens rea requirement for an alternative Pinkerton charge has no support in case law or common sense. 26 Shea's argument relies primarily on this court's decision in Spinney. We find Spinney, which reversed a defendant's conviction on a § 924(c) charge because the government failed to establish that the defendant knew to a practical certainty that the principal would be using a weapon during a bank robbery, see id. at 239, to be inapposite. In Spinney, the defendant, Jeffrey Spinney, was indicted for conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery, aiding and abetting an armed bank robbery, and aiding and abetting the use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. However, because the conspiracy count was dismissed, the district court never issued a Pinkerton instruction for the § 924(c) offense. Thus, in Spinney, we simply stated the requisite knowledge requirement for an aider and abettor theory of liability without addressing the applicability of a Pinkerton instruction to a § 924(c) violation. 27 We agree with a number of our sister circuits that Pinkerton liability attaches to the use-or-carrying-of-a-firearm offense proscribed in § 924(c). See, e.g., United States v. Wilson, 135 F.3d 291, 305 (4th Cir.1998); United States v. Washington, 106 F.3d 983, 1011 (D.C.Cir.1997); United States v. Masotto, 73 F.3d 1233, 1240 (2d Cir.1996); United States v. Myers, 102 F.3d 227, 237 (6th Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1720, 137 L.Ed.2d 843 (1997); United States v. Wacker, 72 F.3d 1453, 1464 (10th Cir.1995). We cannot attribute to Congress an intent to punish other [violent criminal] activity where a gun is carried while exempting conspiracy, a situation that is traditionally considered more dangerous. United States v. Daz, 864 F.2d 544, 548 (7th Cir.1988). 28 While this court has yet to address a direct challenge to the applicability of a Pinkerton instruction to a § 924(c) charge, we assumed its applicability in United States v. DeMasi, 40 F.3d 1306, 1319-20 (1st Cir.1994). In that case, the district court instructed the jury on Pinkerton liability for a § 924(c) charge stemming from an attempted robbery of an armored truck, but failed to include the reasonably foreseeable qualification to the instruction. This court found that the use of firearms during and in relation to the attempted robbery ... was part and parcel to the object of the conspiracy itself. DeMasi, 40 F.3d at 1319. Accordingly, the court held that no rational jury could have found that [the defendant] conspired to rob the Brink's truck ... without also finding that the use of firearms in that robbery would be reasonably foreseeable. Id. at 1319-20. Thus, in DeMasi, this circuit sustained a § 924(c) conviction under a Pinkerton theory of liability. Here, we make explicit our view that a jury may be instructed on Pinkerton liability in connection with a charged violation of § 924(c) either as the sole or as an alternative theory of liability.