Opinion ID: 1209703
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reviewability of Inconsistent Verdicts

Text: The district court held that it had discretion under Fed.R.Crim.P. 33 to vacate any judgment and grant a new trial if the interest of justice so requires. The court further held that the jury's penalty verdicts on Counts Seven and Eight were inconsistent, and that the inconsistency was a product of irrationality that required the court to set aside the verdict on Count Eight. The court concluded there was no valid explanation for the jury's inconsistent findings other than complete arbitrariness. A threshold question we must answer is whether any apparent inconsistency between the jury's verdicts presents a reviewable error. [T]he Supreme Court has repeatedly held that a jury may announce logically inconsistent verdicts in a criminal case. United States v. Clemmer, 918 F.2d 570, 573 (6th Cir.1990) (emphasis added) (citing United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 105 S.Ct. 471, 83 L.Ed.2d 461 (1984), and Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 52 S.Ct. 189, 76 L.Ed. 356 (1932)). Inconsistent verdicts therefore present a situation where error, in the sense that the jury has not followed the court's instructions, most certainly has occurred, but it is unclear whose ox has been gored. Given this uncertainty, and the fact that the Government is precluded from challenging the acquittal, it is hardly satisfactory to allow the defendant to receive a new trial on the conviction as a matter of course. Powell, 469 U.S. at 65, 105 S.Ct. 471. It is unclear whose ox has been gored because [a] jury that inconsistently convicts the defendant of one offense and acquits him of another is as likely to have erred in acquitting him of the one as in convicting him of the other. United States v. Johnson, 223 F.3d 665, 675 (7th Cir.2000). Juries are permitted to acquit out of compassion or compromise or because of `their assumption of a power which they had no right to exercise, but to which they were disposed through lenity.' Standefer v. United States, 447 U.S. 10, 22, 100 S.Ct. 1999, 64 L.Ed.2d 689 (1980) (quoting Dunn, 284 U.S. at 393, 52 S.Ct. 189). Accordingly, inconsistent verdicts are generally held not to be reviewable. See United States v. Dykes, 406 F.3d 717, 722 (D.C.Cir.2005) (defendant acquitted on charge of possessing cocaine base found in bedroom but convicted of possessing the marijuana found in the room could not attack verdict of conviction as inconsistent); United States v. Espinoza, 338 F.3d 1140, 1147 (10th Cir.2003) (There are sound reasons, however, not to concern ourselves with the consistency of jury verdicts in criminal cases); United States v. Chilingirian, 280 F.3d 704, 710-11 (6th Cir.2002) (applying Powell to trial judge's verdicts convicting defendant of conspiracy to commit money laundering but acquitting him of related mail and wire fraud counts); United States v. Reyes, 270 F.3d 1158, 1168 (7th Cir.2001) (refusing to review claim that convictions of substantive offenses were inconsistent with acquittal of conspiracy charge); United States v. Alicea, 205 F.3d 480, 484 (1st Cir.2000) (a claim that the jury verdict is internally inconsistent is essentially unreviewable); United States v. Mitchell, 146 F.3d 1338, 1343 (11th Cir.1998) (applying Powell to defendant's claim that jury's verdict of conviction for violating 18 U.S.C. § 2113(d) was inconsistent with jury's verdict of acquittal on charge of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)); United States v. Hart, 963 F.2d 1278, 1280 (9th Cir.1992) (review for inconsistency is prohibited). In light of these authorities, the district court was on shaky footing to even entertain Lawrence's inconsistent-verdicts challenge. The practical reasons for not doing so noted by the Supreme Court in Powell and Standefer are no less applicable here. The district court was well aware of these authorities, but concluded that inconsistent verdicts are reviewable if the inconsistency is the product of irrationality. In support of this conclusion, the court cited Getsy v. Mitchell, 456 F.3d 575 (6th Cir. 2006) ( Getsy I ). The district court's reliance on Getsy I is problematic for two reasons. First, the Getsy I decision was vacated one week after the district court issued its ruling in this case, when the Sixth Circuit granted en banc review. The en banc court went on to reject Getsy's inconsistent-verdicts argument, reaffirming Powell 's teaching that inconsistent verdicts are generally not reviewable. Getsy v. Mitchell, 495 F.3d 295, 307-08 (2007) (en banc) ( Getsy II ). The second fundamental reason why the district court's reliance on Getsy I is erroneous is that Getsy presented an entirely different kind of inconsistency than is presented in this case. Getsy involved two codefendants charged with the same offenses stemming from the same murder who were tried separately. One defendant was convicted of all charged offenses and was sentenced to death; the other was convicted of some but not all charged offenses and was sentenced to life in prison. Even the panel majority in Getsy I, without specifically identifying what was irrational about the inconsistency before it, recognized that review of a claim of inconsistent verdicts on separate charges against a single defendanti.e., the very claim presented in this casewould be precluded by Powell. Getsy I, 456 F.3d at 590. Hence, Getsy I affords no support for the district court's analysis. The district court also relied on the Seventh Circuit's decision in United States v. Johnson, 223 F.3d at 675-76. This reliance, too, is misplaced. Johnson recognizes that, notwithstanding the general rule that inconsistent verdicts are not reviewable, a sentence of death imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor must be set aside unless the error is shown to have been harmless. Id. at 676 (citing 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c)(2)(A)). Thus, an inconsistency so serious as to indicate that a verdict is the product of irrationality is reviewable. Id. In Johnson, where the defendant was charged with two murders, jurors made different findings regarding asserted mitigating factors that were equally applicable to both murders. Yet, these inconsistent findings were deemed inconsequential where all jurors unanimously concluded, regarding both murder charges, that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors. The court observed that the jurors are required to agree about their verdict, not about every fact. Id. Because the jury was in unanimous agreement as to the bottom line, there was no reason to believe their verdict was the product of irrationality. Id. See also Wainwright v. Lockhart, 80 F.3d 1226, 1231-32 (8th Cir.1996) (rejecting challenge based on inconsistent mitigation factor findings where jury unanimously and specifically found that aggravating circumstances outweighed all mitigating circumstances). The instant facts come squarely within the holding of Johnson. Here, although the individual jurors made different findings regarding mitigating factors in relation to the two separate death-eligible offenses, their bottom line determinations that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors as to Count Eight but not Count Seven were unanimous. Here, as in Johnson, inconsistencies among individual juror findings pose no cognizable problem; it is only when jury verdicts are marked by such inconsistency as to indicate arbitrariness or irrationality that relief may be warranted.