Opinion ID: 151938
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: The Defendants Were Properly Convicted by General Verdict on Count 2

Text: Gerhard and Riley urge that the verdict form was deficient for Count 2 because it did not allow the jury to specify which object of the dual-object conspiracy charged in that count was the basis for its verdict. Count 2 charged defendants with conspiracy to interfere with federal officers in the discharge of their duties, in violation of §§ 371 and 111(a) (Count 2A), as well as conspiracy to be an accessory after the fact in violation of §§ 371 and 3 (Count 2B). Relying on challenges to the legality of Counts 2A and 2B that we rejected above, defendants assert that the guilty verdict on Count 2 must be vacated because the form's phrasing resulted in uncertainty as to the particular object(s) of the conspiracy on which the jury relied and one or both of them may have been legally insufficient. [12] The Supreme Court has held that a jury may render a general verdict on a multiobject conspiracy, provided (1) the evidence is sufficient with respect to any one of the acts charged, and (2) the jury could not have relied on a defective legal theory. Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 59-60, 112 S.Ct. 466, 116 L.Ed.2d 371 (1991); see also Sochor v. Florida, 504 U.S. 527, 538, 112 S.Ct. 2114, 119 L.Ed.2d 326 (1992); United States v. Capozzi, 486 F.3d 711, 718 (1st Cir.2007). Since defendants have made no meritorious challenges to the legal or evidentiary sufficiency of either Count 2A or Count 2B, their argument necessarily fails. E.g., Griffin, 502 U.S. at 59-60, 112 S.Ct. 466.