Court Opinion

ID: 9478838
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:00:22.058344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:39.365498
License: Public Domain

STAPLETON, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the judgment of the court. I write separately because I fear the court’s distinction between special interrogatories as a tool for clarifying a verdict and as an aid to sentencing is likely to send an unin*956tended message that may curtail utilization of special interrogatories.
Using special interrogatories to find out whether a jury, that has already returned a verdict of guilty on a conspiracy charge, found the defendant guilty of conspiring to commit a felony or of conspiring to commit a misdemeanor infringes the jury’s prerogatives no more or less if one characterizes the practice as “clarifying an ambiguous verdict” than if one characterizes it as an essential “aid to sentencing.” However one characterizes such a use of special interrogatories, any constraining influence on jury nullification seems to me nill or at least de minimus, and given the utility of special interrogatories in this context, I would sanction their use.
As Judge Weis, writing for this Court in United States v. Desmond, 670 F.2d 414, 418 (3d Cir.1982), has observed:
... [Tjhere are circumstances where the use of special findings may be necessary; for example, in treason cases where the Constitution requires a finding of an overt act, Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717, 72 S.Ct. 950, 96 L.Ed. 1249 (1952), or where a determination of certain facts will be crucial to the sentence such as in certain conspiracy cases. In the latter situation, the appropriate information may be obtained by submitting special interrogatories to the jury after a guilty verdict has been returned. See, e.g., United States v. Uzzolino, 651 F.2d 207 (3d Cir.1981). See also, 8A Moore’s Federal Practice and Procedure § 31.02[3].
This observation is consistent with the conclusions reached in the caselaw from other circuits. E.g., United States v. Buishas, 791 F.2d 1310, 1317 (7th Cir.1986) (in a §§ 846, 841 conspiracy case, special interrogatories are proper for sentencing purposes when they are designed to determine the amount of the object drug in which the defendants were dealing); United States v. Dennis, 786 F.2d 1029, 1038-1040 (11th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1037, 107 S.Ct. 1973, 1974, 95 L.Ed.2d 814 (1987) (stating in dicta that in a § 846 conspiracy count charging the defendants with conspiracy to distribute two or more separate drugs for which differing sentences are possible, the trial judge should use special interrogatories to clarify which of the charged drugs the defendants were found by the jury to have conspired to distribute); United States v. Orozco-Prada, 732 F.2d 1076, 1083-1084 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 845, 105 S.Ct. 154, 155, 83 L.Ed.2d 92 (1984) (indicating that in a case where there were two objects of a conspiracy with different penalties contained in one count, a special verdict is appropriate to determine which object the jury found to be supported by the evidence); United States v. Carman, 577 F.2d 556, 566-568 (9th Cir.1978) (stating that in a conspiracy count that contains an invalid as well as valid object offenses and where a “one-is-enough” instruction is given, a special verdict can be used with respect to each substantive crime that the composite conspiracy count mentions); United States v. Quicksey, 525 F.2d 337, 341 (4th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1087, 96 S.Ct. 878, 47 L.Ed.2d 97 (1976) (the defendants were charged in one count with two conspiracies that allowed for different sentences, a general conspiracy and a drug conspiracy, the court stated that “in the absence of a special verdict, it is not possible to ascertain [which statute] the jury intended to find the defendant guilty of conspiracy to violate ...”); Williams v. United States, 238 F.2d 215, 218 (5th Cir.1956), cert. denied, 352 U.S. 1024, 77 S.Ct. 589, 1 L.Ed.2d 596 (1957) (stating that the defendant could have requested, inter alia, a special verdict requiring the jury to specify which offense(s) they found the conspiracy was concerned with if they found the accused guilty); see also 1 F. Devitt, C. Blackmar, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions, § 18.09, at 592-593 (3d ed. 1977); 8A Moore’s Federal Practice, 1131.02[3], pp. 31-10, 31-11 (2d ed. 1988).
The problem in the case before us is not the intrusive nature of special interrogatories as here used. The problem is that by giving the jury a verdict sheet that was inconsistent with the charge, the district court created such a confusing situation for the jury that one can have no confi*957dence in the product of its labors. Because I believe this error irremediably tainted the jury’s deliberations, I join in the court’s judgment.