Opinion ID: 3010345
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Conspiracy to Violate Civil Rights

Text: The statute under which the defendants were convicted, 18 U.S.C. S 241, makes it a crime for two or more persons _________________________________________________________________ 1. The government argued before us that the alleged mail fraud conspiracy had two objectives: to deprive citizens of the honest services of public employees and to deprive the Commonwealth of fines. Without objection from the government, however, the case was submitted by the district court to the jury as a conspiracy with the single objective of depriving citizens of the honest services of the defendants. App. at 24243; 1109-11. 5 [to] conspire to injure . . . any person in any . . . state or Commonwealth . . . in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States. The evidence indicates that Cross and the Melogranes agreed to use their best efforts to cause the judge in the to be found guilty cases to consider factors other than the merits of the case and to find against the defendant. Cross and the Melogranes insist that they had no fair notice that this agreement would violate S 241. Because the fundamental due process right of a defendant in a criminal case to an impartial tribunal is so well established, and because that right is so clearly subverted by an agreement of this kind, we reject the defendants' contention that they had no fair notice. The right to a fair and impartial trial for the resolution of guilt lies at the very heart of the constitutional guarantee of due process, as the case law of the Supreme Court and this circuit reflects. In In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133 (1955), a Michigan judge who had presided over a one-person judge- grand jury later, in separate proceedings, adjudged witnesses in contempt for their conduct before him at the hearing. Id. at 133-34. The Supreme Court held this to be a violation of due process, opening its discussion of the law with the following passage: A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process. Fairness of course requires an absence of actual bias in the trial of cases. But our system of law has always endeavored to prevent even the probability of unfairness. Id. at 136. The Court warned that  `[e]very procedure which would offer a possible temptation to the average man as a judge . . . not to hold the balance nice, clear, and true between the State and the accused denies the latter due process of law.'  Id. (quoting Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 532 (1927)). Similarly, the Court held in Marshall v. Jerrico, Inc., 446 U.S. 238 (1980) that [t]he Due Process Clause entitles a person to an impartial and disinterested tribunal in both civil and criminal cases. 446 U.S. at 242. Among the concerns protected by this rule, the Court noted, is the preservation of both the appearance and reality of fairness, generating the feeling, so important to a popular government, that 6 justice has been done by ensuring that no person will be deprived of his interests in the absence of a proceeding in which he may present his case with assurance that the arbiter is not predisposed tofind against him. Id. (quoting Joint Anti-Fascist Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 172 (1951)). This circuit has also clearly acknowledged the fundamental right to a fair and unbiased adjudication of guilt. We defined the basic elements of due process not simply as notice and the opportunity to be heard, 2 but to be heard by a fair and impartial tribunal. Sill v. Pennsylvania State Univ., 462 F.2d 463, 469 (3d Cir. 1972) (emphasis added). Moreover, we announced unambiguously that [i]f someone is deprived of his right to an impartial tribunal, then he is denied his constitutional right to due process, regardless of the magnitude of the individual and state interest at stake, the risk of error and the likely value of additional safeguards. United Retail & Wholesale Employees Teamsters Union Local No. 115 Pension Plan v. Yahn & McDonnell, Inc., 787 F.2d 128, 138 (3d Cir. 1985). Indeed, we emphasized that [t]he unfairness that results from biased decisionmakers strikes so deeply at our sense of justice that it differs qualitatively from the injury that results from insufficient procedures. Id. The defendants attempt to escape the clear import of these teachings by pointing out that they arose in the context of misconduct on the part of the decision maker, and that no decided case imposes criminal liability for violating S 241 by influencing or attempting to influence a _________________________________________________________________ 2. The defendants claim that all of those whom they conspired to injure received the fundamental tenets of due process: notice and an opportunity to be heard. But due process cannot be satisfied when the state provides a hearing at which the judge is not really listening or before which the decision has already been made. A myriad of cases hold that mere notice and hearing are not enough if the state has contrived a conviction through the pretense of trial. See, e.g., Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 112 (1935) (deliberate presentation of perjured testimony by the State); Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959) (same); Pyle v. Kansas, 317 U.S. 213 (1942) (same). 7 decision maker. However, where, as here, the civil right allegedly violated is defined in the preexisting case law in a way that gave clear notice that the defendant's proposed conduct would abridge it, a prior conviction on analogous facts is not necessary. This is clear from the Supreme Court's recent decision in United States v. Lanier, 117 S. Ct. 1219 (1997). Lanier was convicted under 18 U.S.C. S 242 for violating the constitutional rights of five women by assaulting them sexually while he was serving as a state judge. Section 242 prohibits the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States by anyone acting under color of . . . law.3 The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals set aside the conviction for lack of any notice to the public that this ambiguous criminal statute included simple or sexual assault crimes within its coverage. United States v. Lanier, 73 F.3d 1380, 1384 (6th Cir. 1997). The Supreme Court unanimously reversed, holding that the Court of Appeals had employed an incorrect standard for determining whether particular conduct falls within the proscriptions of S 242. United States v. Lanier, 117 S. Ct. 1219 (1997). As the Court pointed out, the touchstone is whether the statute, either standing alone or as construed by the courts, made it reasonably clear at the relevant time that the defendant's conduct was criminal. Id. at 1225. The Court of Appeals in Lanier recognized two prerequisites for a conviction under S 242: (1) a prior decision of the Supreme Court recognizing the constitutional right at issue, and (2) a prior conviction in a factual situation fundamentally similar to the one at bar. The Supreme Court rejected this view. It noted that no case has confined the range of relevant decisions to Supreme Court precedent. Id. at 1226. As for factual similarity, the Court pointed out that it had upheld convictions under S 241 despite notable factual distinctions between prior _________________________________________________________________ 3. Section 242 is thus the substantive counterpart to the conspiracy statute in 18 U.S.C. S 241, which is the focus of this appeal. Section 241 forbids conspiracies to violate federally protected rights, whether the conspirators act under color of law or not. 8 decisions and the convictions at issue so long as the prior decisions gave reasonable warning that the conduct at issue violated constitutional rights. Id. at 1227. It conceded that [i]n some circumstances, as when an earlier case expressly leaves open whether a general rule applies to the particular type of conduct at issue, a very high degree of prior factual particularity may be necessary. Id. But, the Court continued, general statements of the law are not inherently incapable of giving fair and clear warning, and in other instances a general constitutional rule already identified in the decisional law may apply with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question, even though the very action in question has [not] previously been held unlawful. Id. (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987)). This case falls squarely within the language just quoted. No earlier case leaves open whether prejudicing a judge against a defendant violates the defendant's right to a fair and impartial trial; rather, the general constitutional rule already identified in the decisional law--that people are entitled to fair adjudication of their guilt before an impartial tribunal--applies with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question. We therefore affirm the conviction for conspiracy to violate civil rights.