Opinion ID: 658352
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence of Multiple Conspiracies

Text: 126 Among the 35 charged predicate acts to the CCE, count 1 of the indictment listed three separate conspiracies: (1) a conspiracy between Rupley, Sr., and Bonnenfant to distribute cocaine from November 1975 to December 1981 (not charged as a separate count due to the statute of limitations); (2) a conspiracy between all four CCE defendants to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine from December 1981 to September 1987 (also charged as count 2); and (3) a conspiracy between Rupley, Sr., and the Bakers to cultivate, grow, and manufacture marijuana from late 1982 to late 1985 (also charged as count 3). Although the district court initially instructed the jury not to consider evidence of the cocaine conspiracy against the Bakers or evidence of the marijuana conspiracy against Bonnenfant, it later reversed itself, admitting cocaine evidence against the Bakers and marijuana evidence against Bonnenfant without limitation. Thus, for example, cocaine evidence was admitted against the Bakers under count 1 although they did not join the Company until after the alleged cocaine conspiracy ended, and marijuana found in Bonnenfant's room upon his arrest was admitted against him under count 1 although he was not charged in the count 3 marijuana conspiracy. Bonnenfant and the Bakers argue that the district court erred in admitting against them evidence of conspiracies in which they did not participate. 127 The government contended at trial that because the CCE statute encompasses the elements of a conspiracy, see Jeffers v. United States, 432 U.S. 137, 149-50, 97 S.Ct. 2207, 2216, 53 L.Ed.2d 168 (1977), vicarious liability for coconspirators' substantive offenses under Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 647, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 1184, 90 L.Ed. 1489 (1946), should apply equally to a CCE charge. Although the prosecution later disavowed the Pinkerton analogy and agreed to limiting instructions on the cocaine and marijuana conspiracies, the district court apparently adopted the government's earlier conspiracy analogy and admitted against all four CCE defendants evidence of all acts allegedly committed in furtherance of the criminal enterprise. 128 It is true that the CCE statute requires a defendant to act in concert with five or more people. This in concert element, however, refers to the relationship between the CCE defendant and those whom he organizes, supervises, or manages; that is, it contemplates a vertical, or hierarchical, nexus. Insofar as a CCE includes a conspiracy, it is a conspiracy between the CCE defendant and his underlings. Some courts have concluded that Pinkerton liability applies along that vertical nexus. See United States v. Graewe, 774 F.2d 106, 108 (6th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1068, 106 S.Ct. 826, 88 L.Ed.2d 798, 474 U.S. 1069, 106 S.Ct. 828, 88 L.Ed.2d 800 (1986); United States v. Michel, 588 F.2d 986, 999 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 825, 100 S.Ct. 47, 62 L.Ed.2d 32 (1979). 14 The statute, however, does not require that jointly charged CCE defendants act in concert with one another. Thus there is no basis for imputing predicate offenses under Pinkerton along a horizontal nexus between a CCE defendant and others charged in the same count. 15 129 To admit evidence of one CCE defendant's predicate offenses against other CCE defendants who never participated in those offenses assumes the existence of a conspiracy that the government in this case neither alleged nor proved. Bonnenfant was found to have acted in concert with those whom he organized, supervised, or managed, not with his CCE codefendants. Similarly, the Bakers acted in concert not with Rupley, Sr., and Bonnenfant, but with the individuals whom they organized, supervised, or managed with respect to their series of Title 21 violations. If the government believed that Rupley, Sr., Bonnenfant, and the Bakers were conspirators in a single umbrella narcotics conspiracy that encompassed the other conspiracies, then the indictment should have charged such a conspiracy and acts in furtherance thereof could have been imputed among the defendants under Pinkerton. Charging the four defendants with individually meeting the CCE statutory requirements is not a substitute for alleging an additional conspiracy among the CCE defendants. We therefore hold that the district court misapplied Pinkerton in admitting the marijuana evidence against Bonnenfant and the cocaine evidence against the Bakers. 130 We conclude, however, that this error was harmless. See United States v. Chu Kong Yin, 935 F.2d 990, 994 (9th Cir.1991) (nonconstitutional evidentiary errors will be reversed for abuse of discretion only if they more likely than not affected the verdict). Rupley, Sr., was unanimously convicted of 11 separate Title 21 offenses, Bonnenfant was convicted of seven, and the Bakers were each convicted of five. As to each CCE defendant, the jury properly could have used any three of his convictions as predicate acts for the CCE conviction. Significantly, only Dwain Baker challenges the sufficiency of the evidence for his CCE conviction, and then only with regard to the five or more persons requirement. The prosecutor did not argue Pinkerton liability to the jury as a basis for the CCE convictions. The most reasonable conclusion is that the jury properly found the continuing series element of each CCE conviction satisfied by drug crimes for which that defendant was convicted, not offenses in which the defendant was uninvolved. 131 The CCE defendants also argue that joining three conspiracies within count 1 rendered the count duplicitous. We disagree. A count is duplicitous if it joins two or more distinct and separate offenses. United States v. UCO Oil Co., 546 F.2d 833, 835 (9th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 966, 97 S.Ct. 1646, 52 L.Ed.2d 357 (1977). Count 1 charges only a single offense (engaging in a CCE) which is by definition based on a series of predicate acts. Title 21 conspiracy violations may serve as predicate offenses under the CCE statute. Hernandez-Escarsega, 886 F.2d at 1571. 132 Finally, the CCE defendants allege that including multiple conspiracies in the CCE count raises the possibility of a nonunanimous verdict. The district court, however, instructed the jury that it was required to agree unanimously on which three acts constituted the continuing series of violations committed by each CCE defendant and on the five or more persons with whom each defendant committed those violations. In view of the numerous Title 21 violations of which each CCE defendant was unanimously convicted, there is no reason to believe that the jury did not unanimously agree on the three predicate violations. See United States v. LeMaux, 994 F.2d 684, 689 (9th Cir.1993) (even where unanimity instruction on predicate acts was not given, unanimous substantive convictions and overwhelming evidence made it inconceivable that jury would not have convicted CCE defendant).