Court Opinion

ID: 9486702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:56:40.139141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:52.683689
License: Public Domain

K.K. HALL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The majority invokes the invited error doctrine to avoid having to decide the question of whether Herrera is serving a sentence for a crime that may not exist. I would reach the question and, upon reaching it, hold that Herrera was improperly convicted of aiding and abetting a continuing criminal enterprise (CCE).
For the reasons outlined in United States v. Amen, 831 F.2d 373 (2nd Cir.1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 1021, 108 S.Ct. 1573, 99 L.Ed.2d 889 (1988), and in Judge Easter-brook’s dissenting opinion in United States v. Pino-Perez, 870 F.2d 1230 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 901, 110 S.Ct. 260, 107 L.Ed.2d 209 (1989), I believe that the CCE statute, 21 U.S.C. § 848, will not support a conviction of a defendant charged as an aider and abettor.
*77The majority holds that if it was error to permit such a verdict to be returned, the error was invited and will not be excused. However, even if there were invited error, I believe that allowing the error to go uncorrected would be a “miscarriage of justice” because I believe Herrera to be “actually innocent of the crime of which he was convicted.” Wilson v. Lindler, 995 F.2d 1256, 1266 (4th Cir.1993) (Widener, J. dissenting) (discussing exceptions to invited error doctrine in Ninth Circuit) (citation omitted) (opinion adopted by majority in Wilson v. Lindler, 8 F.3d 173 (4th Cir.1993) (en banc), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 114 S.Ct. 1101, 127 L.Ed.2d 414 (1994)); cf. Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 346, 94 S.Ct. 2298, 2305, 41 L.Ed.2d 109 (1974) (holding that a non-constitutional claim, determined against the defendant in a prior direct appeal, is cognizable in a § 2255 proceeding if new law has been made since the trial and appeal; describing conviction and punishment “for an act that the law does not make criminal [as] a circumstance [that] inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice.... ”).
Had the trial court, without a request from the defendant, instructed the jury that Herrera could be found guilty of a single charge of CCE as either (1) a principal or (2) an aider and abettor, we would be compelled to reverse the conviction were we to adopt the reasoning in Amen. See United States v. Mallas, 762 F.2d 361, 363 n. 3 (4th Cir.1985) (whenever a jury considers alternate theories of liability, the conviction must be reversed “if either theory is an improper basis for punishment”). At the very least, we would not be faced with any invited error obstacle in deciding whether we should even reach the issue of aider and abettor culpability. However, the majority now erects an insurmountable obstacle to review of the substantive issue because Herrera’s counsel, acting on the basis of a 1984 decision from another circuit, took the precautionary measure of requesting a verdict that could have resulted in a sentence below the mandatory minimum.*
Another way to approach this case is to imagine how we would rule were the Supreme Court to decide tomorrow that Amen is correct. Would we fall back on the invited error doctrine to uphold a conviction for a crime that never existed? The situation would not be unlike the one that'we encountered in United States v. Mandel, 862 F.2d 1067 (4th Cir.1988) (vacating 1977 convictions on the basis of a 1987 Supreme Court decision in a different case that the underlying conduct was not within the reach of the statute of conviction), cert. denied, 491 U.S. 906, 109 S.Ct. 3190, 105 L.Ed.2d 699 (1989). In Mandel, in response to the government claim that coram nobis relief was inappropriate, we said the error was “of the most fundamental character.” Id. at 1075. Granted, Mandel concerned a dispositive Supreme Court ruling, whereas we are faced with an aspect of the brooding omnipresence as yet unexplored in this circuit. However, because the potential injustice in this ease is “of the most fundamental character,” we should not rely on defense counsel’s tactical decision— entirely defensible at the time — to avoid exploring the issue.
Even if it were invited error to permit the jury to return an aider and abettor guilty verdict, I would hold that exceptional circumstances impel reversal of the conviction. The majority emphasizes the strength of the government’s evidence, but the strongest case imaginable cannot erase the fact that the jury specifically decided that Herrera was not guilty as a CCE principal. If Amen is correct, and we should decide that it is, then fundamental precepts of justice demand that Herrera be granted relief.

 In United States v. Ambrose, 740 F.2d 505 (7th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1017, 105 S.Ct. 3479, 87 L.Ed.2d 614 (1985), the Seventh Circuit had held that a defendant could be convicted as an aider and abettor of a CCE but that such a conviction would not carry with it the mandatory minimum sentence of ten years without the possibility of parole. The government correctly recognizes that Herrera's request for an aiding and abetting instruction was based on Ambrose and the hope for a sentence less than ten years. See majority op. at 75 n. 1.