Opinion ID: 220729
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Were specific unanimity instructions required?

Text: Many of the counts in the indictmentspecifically, counts 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 29 and 30alleged multiple fraudulent transactions. Each of these counts listed multiple instances of the misapplication of funds occurring within discrete one-year windows. The appellants now object that the structure of the indictment was duplicitous and violated their right to a unanimous verdict. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 31(a). The gist of the appellants' complaint is that counts 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 29 and 30 of the indictment allowed the jury to vote to convict even though they may have disagreed as to which specific acts of intentional misapplication were proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Some of the jurors could have thought, for instance, that the appellants had intentionally misapplied funds on only a particular subset of occasions, whereas other jurors could have thought that they had misapplied funds on a different subset of occasions. Despite this disagreement, the jurors could still have all agreed that the government had proven that appellants had intentionally misapplied at least some funds, and voted to convict on that basis. The question is whether unanimity on that proposition would be sufficient to sustain the convictions. Normally, [a] party's entitlement to a unanimity instruction presents a question of law, meaning that the district court's answer to that question engenders de novo review. United States v. Lee, 317 F.3d 26, 35 (1st Cir.2003). However, in this case, neither Newell nor Parisi raised the issue below, so we review for plain error. United States v. Pagan-Santini, 451 F.3d 258, 267 (1st Cir.2006); United States v. Puerta, 38 F.3d 34, 40-41 (1st Cir.1994). Plain error is established by showing not only that error occurred, but that it was plain or obvious, violated substantial rights, and seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. United States v. Perez-Montanez, 202 F.3d 434, 442 (1st Cir.2000) (quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993)). The characterization of the issue as one of jury unanimity is in some respects misleading. No one disputes that conviction requires unanimous agreement amongst the jurors. The issue is rather what it is that they must be unanimous about. This question is subtle and difficult, and raises two closely related sets of issues. The first is: when is a disputed facte.g., whether the crime occurred on a Monday or a Tuesday, with a knife or a gun, against this or that victimone that the jury must unanimously agree upon, and when is it merely dispensable detail? And the second is: when is a defendant's conduct one violation of a statute, and when is it many? Although the basic issue raised in this portion of the appeal concerns the second questionpotential duplicity in the indictmentthe government devotes substantial energy to resisting the appellants' argument on grounds that proof of a specific transaction is not an element under the relevant statutes. But, as we now explain, even if not always in the most perspicuous manner, our cases have distinguished between unanimity as to a crime's elements and unanimity as to a crime's instances.
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]
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.
Nevertheless, despite our concern about the form of the indictment in this case, we cannot lose sight of the fact that these issues were not raised below and so are before us on plain error review. As we have noted on an earlier occasion, the hurdle of plain error nowhere looms larger than in the context of alleged instructional errors. United States v. Paniagua-Ramos, 251 F.3d 242, 246 (1st Cir.2001). Although we have concluded that the failure to provide a specific unanimity instruction was error and violated the appellants' right to a unanimous jury verdict, this alone is not sufficient to satisfy the rigors of plain error review. To prevail under plain error requires showing, among other things, that any error of law was plainthat is, that it was obvious and clear under current law. Smith v. Kmart Corp., 177 F.3d 19, 26 (1st Cir.1999). We cannot say that the error here met that standard. We note that this court has previously rejected a claim substantially similar to that brought by the appellants, albeit with fairly minimal analysis. See Pagan-Santini, 451 F.3d at 267. Moreover, as we noted in Pagan-Santini, the law is less clear than it might be as to when juror unanimity is required in the face of alternative paths to a verdict. Id.; see also United States v. Marino, 277 F.3d 11, 32 (1st Cir.2002) (declining to find plain error in trial court's failure to give specific unanimity instruction with respect to charge of conspiracy to murder thirteen individuals on grounds of the unsettled state of the law.) It appears not to have gotten any clearer since then. In light of the presence of some, even if not exactly overwhelming, countervailing authority, and because of the lack of doctrinal clarity in this areathe relevant unit of prosecution under § 666(a)(1)(A), the crucial issue underpinning the appellants' claim, appears not to have been hitherto addressed by this circuitwe cannot say with confidence that any error here was plain. We emphasize, however, that because we hold that the indictment was impermissibly duplicitous, plain error review may prove to be cold comfort for similarly defective charging instruments going forward.