Opinion ID: 220729
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Unanimity as to a crime's elements

Text: The government points us toward United States v. Lee, 317 F.3d 26 (1st Cir. 2003). In Lee, the defendant was convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a)(3), which prohibited possession of fifteen or more. . . counterfeit or unauthorized access devices. Lee claimed that the jury was required to agree on which fifteen unauthorized credit cards he actually possessed. After considering the statutory text, relevant legal traditions, the structure of the law, its legislative history and implications for unfairness, see Lee, 317 F.3d at 37, we, on de novo review, rejected the claim and held that the identity of the particular devices possessed by a defendant is not an element under 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a)(3). Id. at 40. We cautioned, however, that [a]scertainment of the level at which unanimity is required . . . tends to be offense-specific. Id. at 37. The government insists that Lee controls the outcome here as well. If so, then the appellants' claims are doomed. If a claim fails under de novo review, then it must of course also fail under plain error review. So the question is whether Lee governs. It does not. The government fails to appreciate that the appellants are not contending that the jury had to be given a specific unanimity instruction because proof of a specific transaction is an element of § 666(a)(1)(A), i.e., that the government must in every prosecution under § 666(a)(1)(A) show a single, unambiguous qualifying transaction. What the appellants are claiming is rather that the indictment brought against them bundled multiple discrete violations of the statute under single counts, meaning that, in the absence of a specific unanimity instruction, it is unclear which (if any) of the referenced crimes commanded the jury's unanimous assent. This claim is fundamentally not about the elements of § 666(a)(1)(A); it is about the structure of the indictment. See United States v. Holley, 942 F.2d 916, 927 (5th Cir.1991) (distinguishing alternative mentes reae for a single killing from the situation where a single count as submitted to the jury embraces two or more separate offenses, though each be a violation of the same statute). [20] This latter issue was not broached in Lee. The statute at issue in Lee, 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a)(3), defined the crime in terms of possession of fifteen or more unauthorized credit cards. The text of the statute thus supported our finding that the statute did not consist of fifteen acts of possessing an unauthorized credit card, but, rather, a single act of possession of fifteen such devices. Lee, 317 F.3d at 39-40. As we noted, the starting point of the analysis was the text of the statute, and the statute in that case made it reasonably clear that Congress's emphasis was not on the identity of the actual items . . . but, rather, on the possession thereof. Id. at 38. Because § 1029(a)(3) defined an offense in terms of possession of fifteen or more unauthorized credit cards, it was clear that even if some of the jurors thought that Lee possessed this pile of cards while other jurors thought he possessed that pile, either way Lee could have committed no more, and no less, than a single violation of § 1029(a)(3). The same cannot be said of the indictment brought against Newell and Parisi. The government claims that the elements of an offense under § 666 are: 1) the defendant was an agent of an Indian tribal government; 2) who embezzled, stole, fraudulently obtained or willingly converted property worth at least $5000 of tribal property [sic]; and 3) did so during a time when the tribal government received more than $10,000 in any one year from a qualifying federal assistance program. Counts 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 29 and 30 of the indictment each contained descriptions of numerous transactions. With a few exceptions, each of these transactions would seem, on its face, to be enough to make out an independent violation of § 666(a)(1)(A). For instance, count two claimed that Newell was an agent of the Tribe, that the tribe received benefits in excess of $10,000 through contract, grants, and cooperative agreements with U.S. Departments and agencies, and that he intentionally misapplied the following funds: (1) approximately $50,130 from the BIA Housing Improvement Program, and (2) approximately $44,000 from the Indian Township Housing Authority. In light of the government's characterization of the elements of § 666(a)(1)(A), it appears that proof of either (1) or (2) would have been sufficient to make out a complete violation. It thus appears that the appellants have a point when they complain that the challenged counts presented two or more distinct violations of the same statute . . . lumped together in a single count, an allegation that the government, for its part, does not deny. But if it is true that, for instance, misapplying $50,130 in BIA funds and misapplying $44,000 of Indian Township Housing Authority funds constitute discrete violations of the statute, then count two did not allege two different ways of committing one and the same crime, as in Lee, but rather alleged two entirely distinct crimes. Under these circumstances, an undifferentiated guilty verdict on count two would leave it entirely unclear whether the jurors unanimously agreed (a) that Newell had misapplied the $50,130 in BIA funds; (b) that he had misapplied the $44,000 in Indian Township Housing Authority funds; (c) that he had misapplied both; or (d) that he had misapplied either the BIA or the Housing Authority funds, although they were not in agreement as to which. In short, if a specific unanimity instruction was required, it was not because proof of which specific funds were misapplied is an element under § 666(a)(1)(A), but because this indictment was duplicitous in consolidating multiple complete offenses under single counts. Lee did not address this issue, and does not govern this case. The government has insisted in this appeal that the bundled allegations merely specify alternate means of committing a crime, and therefore no specific unanimity instruction was required. As we have noted, it is true that a jury does not need to agree upon a single means of commission of a crime. See Schad v. Arizona, 501 U.S. 624, 631, 111 S.Ct. 2491, 115 L.Ed.2d 555 (1991); see also Fed.R.Crim.P. 7(c) (A count may allege that the means by which the defendant committed the offense are unknown or that the defendant committed it by one or more specified means.). However, it does not follow from the fact that unanimity is not required with respect to alternative means of committing one and the same criminal act that unanimity is not required with respect to multiple instances of the same type of criminal act. [21]