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

Heading: Unanimity as to a crime's instances

Text: The transactions detailed in counts 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 29 and 30 occurred on various dates and involved misapplications from various sources. Count two, for instance, merely specifies that at some point between October 1, 2002 and September 30, 2003, Newell misapplied some funds from the BIA and also some other funds from the Indian Township Housing Authority. The question now is how many statutory violations the alleged conduct states. We cannot evade this question because the Supreme Court has indicated, on at least two separate occasions, that the jury is required to unanimously agree as to which instances of a crime the defendant committed. In Schad, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Arizona's murder statute, which permitted conviction on a theory of either premeditation or felony murder. In his concurrence, Justice Scalia concurred with the plurality largely on grounds of legal tradition, and disavowed the plurality's explanation for why it is permissible to combine in one count killing in the course of robbery and killing by premeditation. Schad, 501 U.S. at 651, 111 S.Ct. 2491 (Scalia, J., concurring). After all, despite their moral equivalence, Justice Scalia noted that [w]e would not permit . . . an indictment charging that the defendant assaulted either X on Tuesday or Y on Wednesday. [22] Later, in Richardson v. United States, 526 U.S. 813, 815, 119 S.Ct. 1707, 143 L.Ed.2d 985 (1999), the Court held that a jury must agree unanimously as to the individual violations making up the series of violations element under the federal continuing criminal enterprise statute (CCE), 21 U.S.C. § 848(a). The majority specifically cited Justice Scalia's warning in Schad as authority for the proposition that the Constitution itself limits a State's power to define crimes in ways that would permit juries to convict while disagreeing about means, at least where that definition risks serious unfairness and lacks support in history or tradition. Id. at 820, 119 S.Ct. 1707. We have described the type of indictment singled out by Justice Scalia in Schad, and subsequently emphasized in Richardson, as duplicitousthat is, as one that join[s] in a single count . . . two or more distinct and separate offenses. United States v. Canas, 595 F.2d 73, 78 (1st Cir.1979). We must, therefore, now turn our attention squarely to the question of whether the transactions bundled under counts 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 29 and 30 were duplicitousthat is, whether they described distinct violations of §§ 666(a)(1)(A) and 669. If they did, then the failure to give specific unanimity instructions was error. If not, then not. Determining whether the challenged counts were duplicitous is no easy matter. [23] In some cases the standard for individuating crimes is obviouswe count murders, for instance, by counting bodies. But in other cases, determining how many crimes were committed is much less clear. See, e.g., United States v. Rivera Ramos, 856 F.2d 420, 422-23 (1st Cir.1988). The text of § 666 offers little guidance. Section 666(a)(1)(A) refers to property that is valued at $5000 or more and is owned by, or is under the care, custody or control of qualifying institutions. Section 669 refers to any of the moneys, funds, securities, premiums, credits, property, or other assets of a health care benefits program. Neither clearly specifies the baseline unit of prosecution. Although the statute is conditioned upon the organization's receipt of over $10,000 in benefits from a Federal program in any one year period, § 666(b), this is consistent with either (a) treating all qualifying transactions within a one-year period as aggregated together to state one offense under § 666(a)(1)(A), or (b) treating each qualifying transaction as an independent offense. The text of the statute thus fails to specify the allowable unit of prosecution. The legislative history of § 666 indicates that it was enacted as part of the Comprehensive Crime Bill of 1984, and that it was designed to create new offenses to augment the ability of the United States to vindicate significant acts of theft, fraud, and bribery involving Federal monies which are disbursed to private organizations or State and local governments pursuant to a Federal program. United States v. Cicco, 938 F.2d 441, 444 (3d Cir.1991) (citing S.Rep. No. 98-225, at 369 (1983), reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3182, 3510). This history does not illuminate Congress's preferred unit of prosecution. There is a surprising paucity of federal case law identifying the unit of prosecution for § 666. United States v. Nystrom, No. 07-30100-03, 2008 WL 4833984, at  (D.S.D. Nov. 4, 2008). We have previously held that the government may aggregate transactions occurring within a one-year time period in order to meet the $5000 jurisdictional minimum of § 666(a)(1)(A). United States v. Cruzado-Laureano, 404 F.3d 470, 484 (1st Cir.2005). Cruzado-Laureano relied on a case from the Sixth Circuit, United States v. Sanderson, 966 F.2d 184, 189 (6th Cir.1992), which concluded that aggregation to meet the jurisdictional minimum is permissible when the transactions are part of a single scheme. See also United States v. Hines, 541 F.3d 833, 837 (8th Cir.2008) (interpreting aggregation of transactions for purpose of § 666 generally); United States v. Webb, 691 F.Supp. 1164, 1168 (N.D.Ill.1988) ([A]ggregation is permissible where the thefts are part of a single plan.). These cases are not dispositive of the present controversy. These cases were concerned with the propriety of aggregation when the transactions involved sums which fell below the jurisdictional minimum and hence did not make out independent violations of § 666. However, one of the rationales for allowing aggregation under such circumstances is to ensure that poorly motivated officials do not evade liability under § 666 simply by stealing less than $5000 at a time. See Webb, 691 F.Supp. at 1168; Sanderson, 966 F.2d at 189. Worries about opportunistic evasion of liability do not apply to transactions that involve sums larger than the statutory minimum. Since most of the bundled transactions in this case involved sums greater than $5000, it is not clear whether this line of precedent would support the aggregation that occurred in this case. But see United States v. Urlacher, 784 F.Supp. 61, 64 (W.D.N.Y.1992) (holding that the unit of prosecution under § 666(a)(1)(A) is `$5,000 or more,' from whatever source, in any one year period in which the government or agency at issue receives more than $10,000 in Federal aid.). Fortunately, we are not completely without compass. We have previously given more general consideration to the individuation of criminal transactions. See United States v. Verrecchia, 196 F.3d 294, 297-301 (1st Cir.1999). In Verrecchia, an undercover sting caught the defendant attempting to fence stolen firearms. When he was arrested, the police discovered weapons in both his truck and in the adjacent barn. Verrecchia was subsequently charged with (among other things) one count related to the two weapons found in the truck and another for the twenty-one weapons found in the barn, under the auspices of the federal felon-in-possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Id. at 296. Verrecchia contended that the counts were duplicitous insofar as they each alleged multiple crimes, and that it was plain error not to instruct the jury that they had to agree on which gun or guns he was shown to have possessed. Id. at 297. We rejected the claim under plain error review, and held that [c]ontrary to Verrecchia's contention, . . . the government could not have properly charged him with twenty-three separate crimes for the twenty-three different guns he allegedly possessed. Id. at 298. We relied in part on the Supreme Court's decision in Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81, 75 S.Ct. 620, 99 L.Ed. 905 (1955), and in part on the overwhelming consensus from other courts of appeals that the simultaneous possession of multiple firearms . . . constitutes only one crime. Verrecchia, 196 F.3d at 297. In Bell, the Supreme Court emphasized the presupposition of our law to resolve doubts in the enforcement of a penal code against the imposition of harsher punishment. Bell, 349 U.S. at 83, 75 S.Ct. 620. Therefore, if Congress does not fix the punishment for a federal offense clearly and without ambiguity, doubt will be resolved against turning a single transaction into multiple offenses. Id. at 84, 75 S.Ct. 620. Accordingly, after finding that the language of § 922(g)(1) (referring to any firearm) was, like the language of the Mann Act at issue in Bell (18 U.S.C. § 2421, referring to any woman or girl), ambiguous as to the allowable unit of prosecution, and finding no indication of Congress's clear intent to treat each possession of a firearm as a separate violation, we applied Bell in holding that the government properly charged him with two offenses rather than twenty-threeone for the two guns found in the truck and the other for the twenty-one guns found in the shed. Verrecchia, 196 F.3d at 298. The government cites Verrecchia for the proposition that [w]here separate instances of the same act are grouped in a single count . . . there is no duplicity. This is a serious misunderstanding of Verrecchia. After all, on this view, the indictment in Verrecchia should have contained only one count, encompassing all twenty-three guns. But we quite clearly held that the indictment here correctly grouped the firearms into counts based on the place of possession. Id. at 298. Moreover, Bell, on which we relied, did not say that every instance of the same type of criminal act could be lumped together under one count. It said that, for the sake of lenity, a single transaction should not be split up into multiple offenses. The focus on the transaction as the unit of prosecution explains why there were two counts in Verrecchia, rather than either one or twenty-three: possession of the guns in the truck counted as one transaction, and possession of the guns in the shed counted as another. Thus, Verrecchia permitted bundling of guns by transaction, not simply qua instances of the same type of criminal act. See also United States v. Waldman, 579 F.2d 649, 654 (1st Cir.1978) (identifying appropriate unit of prosecution under 15 U.S.C. § 77(q)a to be separate transactions accompanied by the use of the mails). But see United States v. Campbell, No. 90-1130, 1990 WL 151318, at -2 (1st Cir. July 19, 1990) (treating unit of prosecution under 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d) as possession of the individual firearm). [24] But if, as we held in Verrecchia, the fact that some guns are stored in a shed and others in a truck parked next to it is sufficient to constitute two distinct transactions, then there is a compelling claim that misapplying funds from agency A in March and misapplying funds from agency B in July is also sufficient to constitute two distinct transactions. Thus, far from supporting the government's position, Verrecchia appears to seriously undermine it. In light of Verrecchia, insofar as the conduct aggregated under counts 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 29 and 30 involved distinct transactions, the counts must be deemed to bundle within their ambit multiple distinct violations of § 666(a)(1)(A). There is thus reason to believe that the indictment brought against Newell and Parisi was constitutionally infirm. For the only sense in which it is true that a duplicitous count merely specifies alternate means of committing some crime is in the sense in which it is true that an indictment that alleges that A killed B on Monday, C on Tuesday and D on Wednesday specifies alternate means of committing a single instance of the crime of murder. The Supreme Court has made quite clear that this form of indictment violates a defendant's right to a unanimous verdict. See Richardson, 526 U.S. at 820, 119 S.Ct. 1707; Schad, 501 U.S. at 651, 111 S.Ct. 2491 (Scalia, J., concurring). Other circuits have come to similar conclusions. In United States v. Holley , the Fifth Circuit held that an indictment that charged counts of perjury on the basis of multiple statements required a specific unanimity instruction, as the government was required to prove dissimilar facts to show the knowing falsity of each statement. Holley, 942 F.2d at 928-29. The Holley court specifically relied on Justice Scalia's warning against duplicitous indictments in Schad. Id. at 927; see also Bins v. United States, 331 F.2d 390, 393 (5th Cir. 1964) (noting that a two-count indictment, each count of which alleged multiple acts of uttering and publishing false documents in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1010, was duplicitous, as [t]he filing of each false document would constitute a crime, and each should be alleged in a separate and distinct count of the indictment.). The Third Circuit has held that the unanimity requirement extends to an indictment that includes several transactions or occurrences, any of which could constitute one of the acts proscribed by the charged statutes. United States v. Beros, 833 F.2d 455, 460-61 (3d Cir.1987). The Beros court noted that just as the sixth amendment requires jury unanimity in federal criminal cases on each delineated offense that it finds a defendant culpable . . . it must also require unanimity regarding the specific act or acts which constitutes that offense. Absent such certainty, the unanimity requirement would provide too little protection in too many instances. Id. at 461. The Seventh Circuit came to the same conclusion in a case very similar to Holley. See United States v. Fawley, 137 F.3d 458, 471 (7th Cir.1998). But see United States v. Margiotta, 646 F.2d 729, 733 (2d Cir.1981) (holding that the policy considerations behind the unanimity requirement suggest that a single count of an indictment should not be found impermissibly duplicitous whenever it contains several allegations that could have been stated as separate offenses . . . but only when the failure to do so risks unfairness to the defendant.). The risks of serious unfairness presented by a duplicitous indictment are apparent. In conditions where jurors disagree among themselves as to just which offenses the evidence supports, the defendant may nevertheless wind up convicted because the jurors agree that the evidence showed that he had committed an offense, even if it was ambiguous as to which one. See United States v. Valerio, 48 F.3d 58, 63 (1st Cir.1995). In other words, although a jury may return a guilty verdict even if the jurors disagree about how a specific crime was committed, this is quite different from allowing a jury to return a guilty verdict when they disagree even as to which crime or crimes were committed. The Supreme Court emphasized just this kind of danger in Richardson, warning that the lack of a unanimity instruction could cover up wide disagreement among the jurors about just what the defendant did, or did not, do. Richardson, 526 U.S. at 819, 119 S.Ct. 1707; see also Beros, 833 F.2d at 460 (observing that a general unanimity instruction is likely to be inadequate where the complexity of the case, or other factors, creates the potential that the jury will be confused.). Secondly, in criminal cases, the government is still ostensibly required to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States v. Ayewoh, 627 F.3d 914, 930 (1st Cir.2010) (Thompson, J., dissenting). In aggregating multiple instances of the same crime, the prosecution may bundle together alleged offenses that are strongly supported by the evidence with ones that are only moderately, or even weakly, supported by the evidence. If a jury does not specifically indicate that it has assented to each alleged offense, then by assenting to the bundle it has done no more than indicate its agreement with the proposition that the defendant is guilty of some, though perhaps not all, of the charged conduct. (And it may not have even indicated that much, if the jurors did not agree which offense was committedwhich, again, we simply do not know without an specific jury instruction). The consequences of conviction on that count may potentially lead to punishment over and above what the government's proof actually sustains. This is a danger we have stressed before, albeit in the context of unanimity as to a crime's elements rather than duplicity per se. See Lee, 317 F.3d at 36 (noting that the unanimity requirement. . . helps to ensure that no defendant will be convicted unless the government has carried its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that leaving jurors free to convict despite disagreements about critical facts will imperil the integrity of the reasonable doubt standard.). For these reasons, we hold that charges 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 29 and 30 were duplicitous, and that the failure to provide a specific unanimity instruction was error.