Opinion ID: 198477
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Carrying a gun during and in relation to a drug crime

Text: 26 Hernandez challenges two related aspects of the jury instructions on count two, namely, the failure to give a specific unanimity charge on which gun was carried, and the omission of the words knowing and in relation to from certain portions of the instructions. 27 i. Unanimity on which gun was carried. Hernandez claims that the court committed plain error because the jury was not instructed that it had to agree which gun Hernandez carried before he could be convicted. Raised for the first time on appeal, this claim is also reviewed for plain error. 28 In this case no error was committed. The court was not required to give a specific unanimity instruction because the jury, in fact, was not required to agree on the specific gun carried. Although Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 31(a) requires that a criminal conviction be unanimous, the jury need not necessarily agree on the facts underlying that conviction. See United States v. Tarvers, 833 F.2d 1068, 1074 (1st Cir.1987) (unanimity generally not required with respect to a specific act underlying an element of a charged offense). When the government alleges in a single count that the defendant committed the offense by one or more specified means, the Supreme Court has never suggested that in returning general verdicts in such cases the jurors should be required to agree on a single means of commission, any more than the indictments were required to specify one alone. Schad v. Arizona, 501 U.S. 624, 631, 111 S.Ct. 2491, 115 L.Ed.2d 555 (1991); see also United States v. Reeder, 170 F.3d 93, 105 (1st Cir.1999) (noting that the jury must agree that the government has proven all the elements of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt, but it need not agree on the means by which all the elements were accomplished). 29 Although unanimity is required when such a determination matters for sentencing purposes, see United States v. Melvin, 27 F.3d 710, 715 (1st Cir.1994) (finding enhanced mandatory sentence resulting from one particular firearm not supportable when the jury might have concluded that defendant possessed a different firearm not subject to the enhancement), the jury need not reach unanimous agreement on the identity of the weapon when the defendant is charged with violating § 924(c) due to possession of more than one firearm and none of the weapons justifies more than the statutory minimum sentence. See United States v. Correa-Ventura, 6 F.3d 1070, 1075-87 (5th Cir.1993) (concluding that specific unanimity was not required when § 924(c) conviction could have been based on any one of ten weapons seized). 30 ii. Omission of knowing and in relation to during instructions. Next, Hernandez argues that the court committed plain error by omitting both knowing and in relation to from the instructions. He argues that his licensed pistol had no relationship to the drug offense and that he did not knowingly carry the weapon found under Ramirez's seat. Consequently, the instructions allowed the jury to convict him either for his routine possession of a concealed weapon as authorized by his permit or without knowing the gun was under Ramirez's seat. The court instructed the jury as follows: 31 Now, Count Two of the indictment charges the defendant with carrying a pistol or firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking transaction.... 32 Now, two essential elements are required to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in order to establish the offense charged in Count Two of the indictment. And these are as follows: First, that the defendant committed a drug trafficking crime for which he may be prosecuted in a court of the United States. And second, that during the commission of that crime, the defendant carried a firearm. 33 The fact that a person may have a permit to carry a weapon is irrelevant in this matter. The issue is whether the firearm was carried during and in relation to the commission of the crime. 34 Hernandez's counsel failed to object to this instruction, and it is also reviewed for plain error. 35 When presented with a strikingly similar situation in United States v. Luciano-Mosquera, 63 F.3d 1142, 1156 (1st Cir.1995), we found that the omission of in relation to did not constitute plain error. However, Hernandez argues that Luciano-Mosquera was decided before the Supreme Court's decision in Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 137 L.Ed.2d 718 (1997), in which the Court found the omission of an element of an offense to be plainly erroneous. The government asserts, in response, that the court used the phrase in relation to both before identifying the specific elements and after, when it said that the issue is whether the firearm was carried during and in relation to the commission of the crime. Rather than wade into the murky waters of defining the elements of this crime, cf. United States v. Munoz, 143 F.3d 632, 637 (2d Cir.1998) (discussing a challenge to the 'in relation to' element of § 924(c)(1)); United States v. Currier, 151 F.3d 39, 41 (1st Cir.1998) (describing during and in relation to as a single element), we will assume, arguendo, both that the court's failure to mention it as a separate element was error and that the error was plain. 36 Here again Hernandez has failed to meet his burden of proving that his substantial rights were affected. See Olano, 507 U.S. at 734 (It is the defendant rather than the Government who bears the burden of persuasion with respect to prejudice.). To demonstrate prejudice Hernandez must show that the court's omission affected the outcome of the trial. See id. We are convinced that the outcome was not affected, and the result would have been precisely the same. First, the jury found that he was an active participant in the drug deal, and rejected his mere presence defense. Second, it was undisputed that he was carrying a concealed weapon, albeit with a permit. Third, apart from the existence of the permit itself, there was no reason to believe that the gun was not in relation to the drug crime. The jury heard no evidence that he routinely carried the gun for self-protection, or, for that matter, that he had ever carried it on any other occasion. Especially in light of the court's mentioning in relation to earlier, and its final statement that the issue is whether the firearm was carried during and in relation to the commission of the crime, Hernandez has failed to convince us that, had the court repeated the in relation to requirement as a explicit element, the jury would not have convicted him of possessing his weapon during and in relation to the drug crime. 37 He also claims that the court failed to include a knowledge requirement in its instruction, and the jury therefore could have convicted him of carrying the gun under Ramirez's seat even though he was unaware of it. The simple response to this contention is that the statute does not include an explicit knowledge requirement, undoubtedly because it would be redundant. The statute applies an additional punishment for any person who, during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime ... uses or carries a firearm[.] 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1). The fact that the gun is carried in relation to the drug crime requires that the defendant have an identified reason for carrying the weapon. See Smith v. United States, 508 U.S. 223, 238, 113 S.Ct. 2050, 124 L.Ed.2d 138 (1993) (The phrase 'in relation to' thus, at a minimum, clarifies that the firearm must have some purpose or effect with respect to the drug trafficking crime; its presence or involvement cannot be the result of accident or coincidence.). It is logically impossible for an individual to carry something for a specified purpose without knowingly carrying it. See United States v. Padilla, 751 F.Supp. 761 (N.D.Ill.1990) (noting that § 924(c)(1)'s terms necessarily include a knowledge element). If the jury found that he had constructively carried the gun under Ramirez's seat in relation to the drug transaction, by definition it determined that he knowingly carried it. 38