Opinion ID: 1494591
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The alleged inconsistent judgments

Text: The appellants contend that the evidence of assault required to support the convictions on the rape and kidnapping charges was the same as that on which the appellants were found not guilty in Nos. 4914 and 4915, and that the acquittal as to the assault and battery charges in the other cases necessitates the acquittal on the greater offenses of rape and kidnapping. When the court below granted the motions for acquittal with respect to Trials No. 4914 and 4915, Judge Powers said: In 4914 and 4915, in each one of those cases there is a count involving assault and battery. The decision of the Court with respect to these motions is not to be construed as indicating that there is an insufficiency of evidence in the case as to an assault and battery in connection with the rape case. In further discussion with the State's Attorney as to the action taken by the court in granting the motions in trials No. 4914 and 4915, Judge Powers said: We dismissed, or we granted the motion with respect to that case, but made a statement, we thought, making it clear that even though in the assault and battery count in that particular case there was a judgment of acquittal, that was not to be confused with the assault and battery charged under the rape case, because we concluded that there was sufficient evidence so that no motion would be granted with respect to assault and battery in the rape case. We granted the motion on all counts in those two cases. We did not grant the motion as to any counts in the rape case, and of course the kidnapping case had only one count. Then we made it clear that we were not holding that there was an insufficiency of evidence as to assault and battery in 4913, the case in which we did not grant any motion for judgment of acquittal. Assault is an essential ingredient of both rape and kidnapping, of which the appellants were convicted. When the lesser offense is a necessary part of the larger, a conviction or acquittal of the lesser crime bars a prosecution for the greater. See Bennett v. State, 229 Md. 208, 212-213, 182 A.2d 815 (1962) and Veney v. State, 227 Md. 608, 612-613, 177 A.2d 883 (1962) and cases therein cited. The appellants' position is that, whether this principle rests on the rule against double jeopardy or res judicata, it applies to inconsistent verdicts rendered on different counts, or different indictments, at the same trial, despite the statements made by the lower court when it granted the motions for judgments of acquittal. We have held that inconsistent verdicts of guilty under different counts of the same indictment, when both counts depended upon the same alleged acts, cannot stand. Tucker v. State, 237 Md. 422, 425, 206 A.2d 691 (1965) and cases therein cited. When there has been a conviction by a jury on one count and an inconsistent acquittal on another count, we have held that the conviction may stand. Ledbetter v. State, 224 Md. 271, 167 A.2d 596 (1961); Leet v. State, 203 Md. 285, 293-294, 100 A.2d 789 (1953) and cases therein cited. In these cases, we followed Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390 (1932), [1] in which Justice Holmes, giving the opinion for the majority of the Court, said [t]hat the verdict may have been the result of compromise, or of a mistake on the part of the jury, is possible. But verdicts cannot be upset by speculation or inquiry into such matters. The Justice quoted with approval the statement made in Steckler v. United States, 7 F.2d 59, 60 (2d Cir.1925): The most that can be said in such cases is that the verdict shows that either in the acquittal or the conviction the jury did not speak their real conclusions, but that does not show that they were not convinced of the defendant's guilt. We interpret the acquittal as no more than their assumption of a power which they had no right to exercise, but to which they were disposed through lenity. 284 U.S. at 393. In United States v. Maybury, 274 F.2d 899 (2d Cir.1960), the defendant had been tried in the District Court before a judge without a jury on two counts of an indictment. The first count charged Maybury with forging a check, the second, with uttering the check with intent to defraud the United States. The judge acquitted Maybury on the first count but found him guilty under the second. On appeal, it was held by the majority of the Circuit Court of Appeals that, on the facts presented, Dunn was not applicable and that the acquittal on the first count was inconsistent with the conviction on the second. [2] The conviction was reversed and a new trial ordered. Judge Friendly, in delivering the opinion of the majority of the court, traced the history of the jury as an alternative, not to trial by judge, but to the ancient methods of compurgation and ordeal. He pointed out that, as shown by Steckler (decided by the same court) and Dunn, it has not yet been deemed wise that the rationalization of the jury as a judicial body should be carried to the point of requiring consistency in a jury's verdict in a criminal trial. Another special consideration underlying the rule of Steckler and Dunn, he said, is the requirement of unanimity. Judge Friendly continued: None of these considerations is fairly applicable to the trial of a criminal case before a judge. There is no `arbitral' element in such a trial. While the historic position of the jury affords ample ground for tolerating the jury's assumption of the power to insure lenity, the judge is hardly the `voice of the country,' even when he sits in the jury's place.    There is no need to permit inconsistency in the disposition of various counts so that the judge may reach unanimity with himself; on the contrary, he should be forbidden this easy method for resolving doubts.    We do not believe we would enhance respect for law or for the courts by recognizing for a judge the same right to indulge in `vagaries' in the disposition of criminal charges that, for historic reasons, has been granted the jury. 274 F.2d at 903. [W]e reverse for inconsistency    because we can have no confidence in a judgment convicting Maybury of one crime when the judge, by his acquittal of another, appears to have rejected the only evidence that would support the conviction here. 274 F.2d at 905. We do not regard the result reached by Judge Friendly in his lucid and scholarly opinion to mean that, in the case before us, even on the reasoning followed in Maybury, the convictions must be set aside. Unlike the situation presented in Maybury, in this case there is no doubt of what the lower court meant to do. The record shows beyond controversy that the court was not exercising leniency, or resolving doubts by inconsistent findings. It was not indulging in vagaries. What the judges meant to do and why is made clear by the record. They dismissed all the charges against the appellants in connection with the indictments charging assault with intent to murder and robbery with a deadly weapon, but, in doing so, they explicitly stated that their decision as to those indictments was not to be construed as a finding of insufficient evidence of assault and battery as a base for the charges of rape and kidnapping. They were protecting the appellants' rights on charges of crimes which, in essence, the judges did not believe they had committed, but without prejudice to the findings on the charges of rape and kidnapping and each necessary ingredient of those crimes. All this the judges announced at the time of their granting of the motions of acquittal as to trials Nos. 4914 and 4915 and counsel for the appellants stated, in open court, that they understood what the judges intended to do. It would have been better practice, if, as the State suggested, the lower court had reserved its rulings on the assault and battery counts of the two indictments as to which it granted the motions for verdicts of acquittal. On their face, if what the judges said be disregarded, [3] the verdicts would be inconsistent. But the rendering of inconsistent verdicts, of itself, does not mean that the verdicts of conviction must be set aside if injustice has not been done. In Leet v. State, supra , followed in Ledbetter v. State, supra , we said it does not follow that a conviction on one count may not stand because of an inconsistent acquittal on another count. 203 Md. at 293. While it is true that, in Leet and Ledbetter, as in Dunn and Steckler, the inconsistent verdicts were rendered by a jury, that fact, in our opinion, constitutes only one instance in which it may be determined that justice does not require a reversal. In Maybury, as we read it, the conviction was reversed, not only because the inconsistent verdicts were given by a judge, but because the appellate court could have no confidence in the judgment of conviction when the judge, by his acquittal of the defendant of one crime, appeared to have rejected the only evidence that would support his conviction of another. There is no such lack of confidence here. The fairness of what the judges meant to do is apparent. What the judges did, in form, was in the professional sense inartistic, and in logic, inconsistent. What they did, in substance, was in accord with the proper administration of justice. The protection afforded persons accused of crimes by the principles of double jeopardy and res judicata is basic to our system of justice, but it is the fundament of these principles to which we look. Only a few months ago, in Brown v. State, 237 Md. 492, 207 A.2d 103 (1965), we applied what we regarded as the essence of these rules to the situation there before us in favor of the accused, even though, technically, neither res judicata nor double jeopardy was applicable. Conversely, in this case, we hold that, when, regardless of the particular words the judges used, the effect of what they meant to do was clear, admittedly understood, and proper, there was no unfairness or infringement of the appellants' constitutional rights. The protection of society, which is as basic to ordered liberty as the protection of the rights of the individual, is not to be jeopardized because, in doing what they did, the judges' terminology should have been more precise. Judgments affirmed.