Opinion ID: 3040457
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Alleged Allen Instruction

Text: A district court’s decision to issue an Allen instruction is reviewed for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Plunk, 153 F.3d 1011, 1027 (9th Cir. 1998), amended by 161 F.3d 1195 (9th Cir. 1998). An Allen instruction “must be upheld unless it is clear from the record that the charge had an impermissibly coercive effect on the jury.” Id. Whether a judge has improperly coerced a jury’s verdict is a mixed question of law and fact we review de novo. See Jiminez v. Myers, 40 F.3d 976, 979 (9th Cir. 1994).
Unanimous Verdicts Berger contends that the district judge gave an improper Allen charge when he met informally with the jury and that the charge effectively coerced the jury to reach unanimous verdicts against him on twelve counts in violation of Berger’s right to an impartial jury. We disagree. [1] This court has explained: The term “Allen charge” is the generic name for a class of supplemental jury instructions given when jurors are apparently deadlocked; the name derives from the first Supreme Court approval of such an instruction in Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492, 501-02 (1896). In their mildest form, these instructions carry reminders of the importance of securing a verdict and ask jurors to reconsider potentially unreasonable positions. In their stronger forms, these charges have been referred to as “dynamite charges,” because of their ability to “blast” a verdict out of a UNITED STATES v. BERGER 723 deadlocked jury. The charge has also been called the “third degree instruction,” “the shotgun instruction,” and “the nitroglycerin charge.” United States v. Mason, 658 F.2d 1263, 1265 n.1 (9th Cir. 1981) (citation omitted). The Allen instruction is most often used in cases of “apparent juror deadlock” to “admonish jurors to keep trying.” Id. at 1265; see also Weaver v. Thompson, 197 F.3d 359, 365 (9th Cir. 1999) (“In the archetypal Allen charge context, the judge instructs a deadlocked jury to strive for a unanimous verdict.”). In Weaver, this court stated that “[s]o long as the defendant has offered facts that fairly support an inference that jurors who did not agree with the majority felt pressure from the court to give up their conscientiously held beliefs in order to secure a verdict, we must proceed to the Allen charge analysis.” Weaver, 197 F.3d at 365. In the instant case, the district judge made comments that echoed a mild Allen instruction when he mentioned: “[W]ith respect to those of you who reached a particular conclusion, and that you will not change your minds[, i]t wouldn’t be wrong for you to reconsider your position if you can be convinced that perhaps your position was not accurate, that it could be wrong.” The court’s remarks came soon after Juror Roux commented: “There’s some of us that are dead set on our verdicts and others that are dead set. You could probably leave us in here a hundred years and we’ve deliberated, we’re gone over it and my vote will not change.” These comments fairly support the inference that the jury might have been deadlocked — at least as to some counts — and that the court’s comments could have been construed as instructing the jurors to reconsider their respective positions if convinced their position was not correct. Accordingly, a full Allen analysis is appropriate. We have stated that there is “nothing talismanic about any single element either making the charge valid or invalid; the fundamental question is whether the jury was improperly 724 UNITED STATES v. BERGER coerced, thus infringing the defendant’s due process rights.” Id. We apply a “totality of the circumstances” analysis when examining whether a judge’s statements to a jury were imper- missibly coercive. Jimenez, 40 F.3d at 980. In performing the Allen analysis, it is helpful to consider three relevant factors: “(1) the form of the instruction, (2) the time the jury deliberated after receiving the charge in relation to the total time of deliberation and (3) any other indicia of coerciveness.” United States v. Steele, 298 F.3d 906, 911 (9th Cir. 2002).1
Berger takes issue with three aspects of the “form” of the so-called Allen instruction the court delivered during its informal meeting with the jury. First, Berger complains that the judge’s comments omitted an instruction that jurors should not abandon their conscientiously held beliefs. Second, Berger alleges that the judge’s statements about his poor health coerced the jury into reaching a verdict. Finally, Berger claims that the judge strongly suggested to the jurors that they should work to a unanimous verdict when he said that if they did not follow his instruction it would be like “the Hatfields fighting the McCoys.” We conclude that Judge Takasugi’s remarks were not coercive. In addition, the ameliorative instruction cured any coerciveness that may have resulted from the judge’s informal comments to the jurors. a. The district court instructed the jurors to hold on to their beliefs At the end of the judge’s informal meeting with the jurors, he told them that “[i]t wouldn’t be wrong for you to recon- 1 Some cases have separated the second factor into two distinct factors: (1) the amount of time of deliberation following the charge and (2) the total time of deliberation. See Weaver, 197 F.3d at 366. Because those two considerations must be compared with each other, we find that it is more helpful to discuss them together. UNITED STATES v. BERGER 725 sider your position if you can be convinced that perhaps your position was not accurate, that it could be wrong.” If the jury was truly deadlocked, these words could be interpreted as directing the jury to “reconsider potentially unreasonable positions.” Mason, 658 F.2d at 1265 n.1. Berger contends that because the judge overlooked telling the jury to hold on to their “conscientiously held beliefs,” there was no adequate counterbalance to the coercive aspects of the so-called Allen instruction. [2] Generally, when a judge tells jurors to reconsider their positions, the judge must also warn the jurors to hold on to their conscientiously-held beliefs. See Mason, 658 F.2d at 1268 (reversing where instruction was more coercive than the instruction approved in Allen and failed to tell jurors in the minority not to abandon their conscientiously-held views); see also Jimenez, 40 F.3d at 981 & n.5 (noting that failure to instruct jurors to hold on to conscientiously held beliefs “weighs heavily in favor of the conclusion that the defendant’s right to a fair trial and impartial jury has been violated”); but see United States v. Cuozzo, 962 F.2d 945, 952 (9th Cir. 1992) (“While it is helpful for an Allen charge to include such ameliorative language, its lack does not itself necessarily require reversal.”). Berger, however, misconstrues the record when he contends that Judge Takasugi’s informal comments to the jury — which Berger characterizes as an Allen instruction — were not offset by other comments by the judge telling the jury to hold on to their beliefs. [3] First, the judge told the jurors: “The way I look at it, as long as your position is sincere, the position taken . . . is based upon your recollection of the evidence and law, there’s not much more we can ask for.” The judge’s statement was sub- stantially the same as an instruction telling jurors to hold on to their conscientiously held beliefs. Telling the jury to hold on to a “sincere” position based on a “recollection of the evidence and law” neutralized any potentially coercive effect and undercuts Berger’s contention. 726 UNITED STATES v. BERGER [4] Second, at the request of the defendants, the court gave an ameliorative instruction later that afternoon. The court instructed the jury: “You should not take from my remarks this morning any suggestion that you should change your views simply in order to reach an agreement or because other jurors think it is right.” That corrective instruction also neutralized any coercive effect of the court’s earlier informal comments. The instruction explained that each juror’s personal views were more important than the parties’ or the court’s interest in obtaining a unanimous verdict. Thus, we find that Berger’s first challenge to the court’s informal comments lacks merit. See United States v. Bonam, 772 F.2d 1449, 1451 (9th Cir. 1985) (“When the portion of the instruction that asks the minority to re-examine its views is counterbalanced by the caution that a juror should not abandon his conscientiously held views, we have generally upheld the instruction as not coercive.”); see also United States v. Ajiboye, 961 F.2d 892, 894 (9th Cir. 1992). b. It was not coercive for the judge to mention his recent illness [5] Berger next argues that the judge engaged in coercion when he told the jury he had been hospitalized during trial with a serious illness. Berger implies that because Judge Takasugi is a senior judge who made reference to his illness, the jury felt compelled to reach a verdict. Such an interpretation is a misreading of the transcript. The judge’s comments regarding his health cannot reasonably be read to have had any coercive effect on the jury. First, the judge tempered his comments about his health by saying, “But the heart and lungs are very strong, so I guess I’m going to stick around for a while.” Further, Berger’s contention that references to the judge’s illness pushed the jury to reach a verdict is under- mined by reading the judge’s next words, which were: “Jurors should not be forced to reach a verdict. Please understand that. Because any time you’re forced to reach a verdict you’re going to reach an improper verdict or for improper reasons. UNITED STATES v. BERGER 727 And so far as that’s concerned, there’s no time limit . . . .” The judge’s discussion of his illness did not create a coercive atmosphere. c. The judge’s statement that failure to reconsider a position would “be like the Hatfields fighting the McCoys” was not coercive Berger next focuses on the judge’s informal comment that it “wouldn’t be wrong for you to reconsider your position,” and that jurors “have to have that state of mind throughout the deliberations. Otherwise it’s going to be like the Hatfields fighting the McCoys. It’s not going to be promotive of a final conclusion.” Berger asserts that “[t]he court’s statements told the jurors that honest and conscientious beliefs were less important than getting along — indeed, these statements told the jurors that hanging on to such beliefs would make them responsible for inappropriate feuding.” [6] The comparison of a deadlocked jury to the Hatfields and the McCoys might have conveyed to the jury that the judge favored a unanimous agreement over a deadlock. But we must not consider that analogy in isolation. We must instead consider it in the context of the judge’s other informal remarks and his ameliorative instruction. See Jimenez, 40 F.3d at 980. When so viewed, the “Hatfields fighting the McCoys” comment was not coercive. As noted above, the judge told the jury that they would not be “forced to reach a verdict” and that jurors should not “change [their] views simply in order to reach an agreement or because other jurors think it is right.” Furthermore, the court later gave the ameliorative instruction that the jurors should not “change [their] views simply in order to reach an agreement or because other jurors think it is right.” Any coercive effect that emanated from the court’s “Hatfields fighting the McCoys” comment was neutralized by the court’s counterbalancing statements and corrective instruction. 728 UNITED STATES v. BERGER 2. The time the jury deliberated after the informal meeting in relation to the total time it deliberated does not suggest that the court’s statements were coercive “A jury verdict reached immediately after an Allen charge can be an indication of coercion.” Bonam, 772 F.2d at 1451. In contrast, this court has found no coercion existed in circumstances where the deliberations lasted some significant amount of time after an Allen instruction was given. See id. at 1450-51 (finding no coercion with just over one day of total deliberation, one-and-a-half hours of which came after Allen charge); see also Lorenzo, 43 F.3d at 1307 & n.3 (finding no coercion with five-and-a-half hours of deliberation coming after Allen charge); Cuozzo, 962 F.2d at 952 & n.6 (finding no coercion with two days and six hours of deliberation, six hours of which came after Allen charge); but see Weaver, 197 F.3d at 366 (finding coercion existed when jury returned with unanimous verdict five minutes after Allen charge). The jury deliberated at least seven hours following the challenged comments by the judge. On the morning of August 29, 2003, the court, with counsel’s consent, had its informal meeting after the jury had deliberated about three-and-a-half days. Following the judge’s meeting with the jurors, the jury deliberated until 3:19 p.m. At that time, the court gave the ameliorative instruction that the jury members should not “change [their] views simply in order to reach an agreement or because other jurors think it is right.” The court recessed for the weekend. The jury resumed deliberations at 9:30 a.m. on September 2, 2003, and reached a verdict that afternoon at 1:20 p.m. Seven hours was a substantial amount of time after the informal meeting. During that time, the jury could consider the charges against both defendants. In our opinion, seven hours was a “sufficient period of time to allow the jury to UNITED STATES v. BERGER 729 reach a reasoned decision in this case.” Cuozzo, 962 F.2d at 952 n.6. [7] Finally, we note that the jury’s verdict on September 2nd came after the three-day Labor Day holiday. We have held: The fact the jury reached its verdict half an hour after returning from a weekend recess could merely reflect that the jurors came to a resolution during a weekend when they individually pondered the evi- dence. The weekend interval itself probably would have diluted any coercive effect of an Allen charge given the prior Thursday. Steele, 298 F.3d at 911. Here, as in Steele, any potentially coercive effect of the judge’s remarks was diluted by the long holiday weekend and the time the jury deliberated after the court’s informal remarks. 3. There Were No Other Indicia of Coercion a. The Court’s informal statements to the jury were not directed toward a specific juror or set of jurors Berger argues that the judge’s informal comments were particularly coercive because they were directed at a specific juror, Juror Roux. This argument misrepresents the record, because the judge addressed his remarks toward the jurors as a group. The judge only knew that “some” of the jurors were set on one position and that “others” were set on another. The judge did not know which jurors favored guilt and which favored acquittal. Moreover, because of the complicated nature of the case, Juror Roux’s comment that “some of us . . . are dead set on our verdicts” might have related only to some of the dozens of charges the jurors had to consider. The record also does not reveal whether Juror Roux was in the majority or minority on any particular charge, nor how many jurors she 730 UNITED STATES v. BERGER was referring to when she said “some of us that are dead set on our verdicts.” Here, “the judge did not ask what the division was. There is no evidence that he knew who the dissenting juror[s were.] Further, the judge did not even know whether the majority position was to convict or acquit.” Lorenzo, 43 F.3d at 1307. Thus, Juror Roux could not have been singled out by the judge in his comments, which were made to the multiple jurors who were “dead set” on their verdicts. b. It is not clear that the jurors were in fact deadlocked Contrary to Berger’s contention, the jury was not deadlocked at the time the judge, with the consent of counsel, had an informal meeting with the jurors regarding scheduling issues. Berger’s case is distinguishable from other cases where an allegedly coercive Allen charge is made to an obviously deadlocked jury. In those cases, the jury typically sends out a note indicating that it is deadlocked and inquiring about the next appropriate step. See Jimenez, 40 F.3d at 978-79 (explaining that jury sent notes to judge that stated “We are unable to reach a verdict and feel strongly that we would not be able to reach a verdict” and “We are at an impasse and request further direction.”). [8] There is simply no evidence in the record that any of the jurors considered further deliberations to be futile. The jury knew that deliberations were ongoing. With the consent of counsel, the judge met informally with the jurors, who had served for over three months, about their issues regarding child care, travel to the courthouse, medical appointments, and vacation plans — hoping to schedule dates for more deliberation. Juror Lynch stated that the jury had not reviewed all the evidence and could not “say [the jury was] stuck on things,” rather, “everything [was] still undecided completely.” Thus, the judge did not make his remarks in an atmosphere UNITED STATES v. BERGER 731 where the jurors would have felt that unanimity was their only escape from the jury room. c. The jury was not unanimous on all counts The jury reached agreement on twelve counts against Berger. The jury deadlocked on the remaining twenty-four counts against Berger. The jury also deadlocked on all twenty-one counts against Metz. This result clearly tells us that the jury exercised “their rational and independent review of the evidence” and did not succumb to the court’s alleged coercion. See Plunk, 153 F.3d at 1027; Cuozzo, 962 F.2d at 952. [9] In light of the foregoing, we hold that Berger’s contention that the district court impermissibly coerced the jury to arrive at unanimous verdicts is without merit.