Court Opinion

ID: 9764474
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:24:04.015359+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:57.294908
License: Public Domain

TERRY, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
I disagree with my colleagues on two grounds. First and foremost, I simply cannot understand why, if inconsistent verdicts are permissible, as the majority concedes they are, it would be error for a trial judge not to instruct a jury that its verdicts on the several counts of an indictment should be consistent with one another. Jury verdicts do not have to be logical; on the contrary, this and other courts have long upheld the right of a jury to be illogical. Second, on the record in this ease, even assuming that a judge has some obligation to give such an instruction when a jury tells the court that it is “confused,” I cannot agree- that this jury revealed any confusion in its notes to the court. Accordingly, I dissent.
My colleagues recognize, as they must, that inconsistent jury verdicts are permissible. The Supreme Court has said so on at least four occasions, beginning sixty years ago in Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 52 S.Ct. 189, 76 L.Ed. 356 (1932),1 and *505all the federal circuits2 and this court3 have so held. The reason for this rule is obvious: “In the interest of promoting the often necessary process of compromise among jurors in their differing assessments of evidence, courts tolerate inconsistency in jury verdicts.” Haynesworth v. United States, 473 A.2d 366, 368 (D.C.1984). Given this firmly established acceptance of inconsistent verdicts, I agree with the government that “the supplemental instruction requested by appellant was plainly contrary to law,” and that the trial judge therefore did not abuse — and could not have abused — his discretion by refusing to give it.
Furthermore, I think the trial judge was totally correct when he concluded that the jury had “not expressed any confusion” in the notes it sent during its deliberations. The four notes, sent at 10:20 a.m., 12:10 p.m., 3:30 p.m., and 4:50 p.m., all said substantially the same thing: that the jury could not reach a verdict on any of the first three counts of the indictment, but that it had agreed with respect to the last four counts.4 There was nothing in any of the notes suggesting any confusion or misunderstanding on the jurors’ part. With all respect, I think my colleagues are seeing phantoms when they say that “the existence of confusion was, at least, the most reasonable inference,” ante at 502, and that the jurors “must necessarily have been confused as to what the judge’s instructions required,” ante at 502.
In my view, the majority places far too much stress on a single word in the Supreme Court’s opinion in United States v. Powell, supra note 1. The Powell Court referred to the return of inconsistent verdicts as “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.” 469 U.S. at 65, 105 S.Ct. at 477, cited ante at 503. Seizing on the word “error,” my colleagues proceed to find a reversible one in this case. I think they read Powell too broadly. The fact that the Supreme Court put the word “error” in quotation marks suggests to me that it is not necessarily speaking of legal error, or error that is judicially remediable, but rather “error” in the broader colloquial sense of “mistake” or “blunder.” But whatever the word may mean in Powell, my colleagues apparently assume that every error has, or should have, a remedy. With this I surely cannot agree. If the majority were correct, there would be no such thing in the law as harmless error — but of course there is. See also, e.g., 1 Am.Jur.2d Actions § 70 (1962) (discussing damnum abs-que injuria, “damage without wrong”).
In sum, I am unwilling to hold that the trial judge erred as a matter of law, or even that he abused his discretion, in refusing to give the instruction that appellant requested. Under the long line of cases beginning with Dunn, appellant had no right to insist that the jury return a verdict that was not inconsistent, or even that it be *506told to do so. Since my colleagues take a different view, I respectfully dissent.

. Accord, United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 105 S.Ct. 471, 83 L.Ed.2d 461 (1984); Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 101, 94 S.Ct. 2887, *5052899, 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974); United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U.S. 277, 64 S.Ct. 134, 88 L.Ed. 48 (1943); cf. Standefer v. United States, 447 U.S. 10, 100 S.Ct. 1999, 64 L.Ed.2d 689 (1980) (acquittal of principal does not preclude conviction of aider and abettor).

. See United States v. Fox, 140 U.S.App.D.C. 129, 132 n. 21, 433 F.2d 1235, 1238 n. 21 (1970) (collecting cases from all the circuits).

. E.g., Steadman v. United States, 358 A.2d 329, 332 (D.C.1976) (“a jury verdict need not be logically consistent”).

. The first note read as follows:
We the members of the jury cannot reach a verdict on the first three, but reached a verdict on the last four charges.
The second note said:
Your Honor, we the members of the jury cannot reach a verdict on the first three charges. Last four charges a verdict has been reached.
The third note said:
Your Honor, we the members of the jury cannot reach a verdict on the first three charges. Charges four through seven a verdict has been reached.
The fourth note said:
Your Honor, we the members of the jury have once again and during the course of the day cannot reach a verdict on the first three charges. And a verdict on the last four charges.