Court Opinion

ID: 9489037
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:03:33.575921+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:16.413698
License: Public Domain

ROGERS, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
Although I join the majority’s conclusion that Vaughn failed to demonstrate that the jury at his first trial actually decided that if he sold drugs on April 7 and August 20, the government entrapped him into doing so, I write separately because the majority discounts the importance of Vaughn’s resistance to the government agent’s inducements on April 22 and after. Majority opinion at 551. Without evidence of that resistance, no rational jury could find, on the basis of the other evidence at Vaughn’s first trial, that he was entrapped on May 5 without necessarily implying that he was not predisposed to sell drugs on April 7. The majority, by failing to give sufficient weight to this crucial evidence, in my view, misconstrues what it means for a jury to “actually decide” an issue for collateral estoppel purposes.
The majority relies in part on the fact that the jury was not instructed to reach any conclusion about the alleged April 7 sale, and therefore had only to decide that “Vaughn was not predisposed to sell crack in May and June.” Id. at 551. The majority notes that even if there had been no evidence of an intervening change in Vaughn’s disposition, the jury might have thought that “he was predisposed to sell crack on April 7 but had a change of heart before May 5.” Id. at 551. Without any evidence to support that theory, however, only an irrational jury could have come to such a conclusion. The majority also points out that the jury may not have come to any conclusion at all concerning the April 7 sale. Although the majority is correct that Vaughn must show that the issue in question “was actually decided in the first proceeding,” Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 350, 110 S.Ct. 668, 673, 107 L.Ed.2d 708 (1990), it is not enough to posit a scenario in which the jury did not determine the question at issue: “[Cjourts must ‘examine the record of the prior proceeding ... and conclude whether a rational jury could have grounded its verdict on an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration.’ ” Id. (emphasis added) (quoting Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 444, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1194, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970)). Thus, if there were no rational way to reconcile the jury’s verdict with a finding that Vaughn was predisposed to sell crack when .first contacted by the agent on April 7, it would follow that the jury had “actually decided” a dispositive issue in the instant case, barring the government from trying Vaughn for the April 7 sale.1
Without the evidence from April 22 and the days that followed, Vaughn could persuasively argue that no rational jury could have simultaneously found that he was entrapped into making the May 5 sale while finding that he was predisposed to sell crack when first approached on April 7. The jury heard that the agent first met Vaughn on April 7. The agent bought drags in Vaughn’s presence, although Vaughn insisted that he did not participate in the sale. The agent then *554asked Vaughn if he would sell the agent a large quantity of crack at a later date. Vaughn admitted that he sold crack to the agent on May 5. If this was all that the jury had heard, the only way it could rationally have found that Vaughn had been entrapped into making the May 5 sale would have been to conclude that he had not been predisposed to sell crack prior to the agent’s April 7 inducement. The issue, after all is predisposition: whether, in the Supreme Court’s words, “the defendant was disposed to commit the criminal act prior to first being approached by Government agents.” Jacobson v. United States, 503 U.S. 540, 549, 112 S.Ct. 1535, 1540, 118 L.Ed.2d 174 (1992). If Vaughn were not “predisposed” to make the May 5 sale, it could only mean, assuming there was no evidence regarding intervening events, that he was not predisposed as of the government’s attempt to induce him to sell crack on April 7. Thus, without such intervening evidence, a rational jury would have actually decided a dispositive issue in the instant ease by its verdict in the first case, notwithstanding the fact that it was not asked to render any decision about the events of April 7. See Ashe, 397 U.S. at 444 & n. 9, 90 S.Ct. at 1194 & n. 9.
Therefore, to determine what the jury “actually decided” under Dowling, we must carefully examine the evidence and jury instructions from the first trial. Under Ashe, 397 U.S. at 445, 90 S.Ct. at 1195, the court must presume that the jury acted rationally. In that case the jury was not instructed to make any finding with regard to the robbery of Roberts, id. at 439 nn. 2-3, 90 S.Ct. at 1191-92 nn. 2-3, yet the Supreme Court held that the government was collaterally es-topped from prosecuting the defendant for robbing Roberts after the jury had acquitted the defendant of robbing Knight, another victim of the same robbery. Id. at 445, 90 S.Ct. at 1195. The only “rationally conceivable” explanation of the verdict in light of the evidence at the Knight trial was inconsistent with the defendant having robbed Roberts. Id. Therefore, even though the jury in the instant case was not instructed explicitly to find anything about April 7, what it had to say about May 5 could, depending on the evidence before it, imply findings with respect to April 7. Only upon examining the evidence that was before the jury does it become clear that the verdict did not necessarily imply a finding of no predisposition as of April 7, much less as of August 20.
The cross-examination of the agent and Vaughn’s direct examination as well as the defense. opening and closing arguments focused on the agent’s repeated inducements on and after April 22. There was also ample evidence from which the jury could have concluded that Vaughn resisted the agent’s inducements for a period of time after that date. Vaughn told the jury that the agent called him repeatedly to request crack. According to Vaughn, he did not take any steps toward obtaining crack to sell to the agent, but kept “stringing him along” by promising to make the sale. Vaughn explained that he was both afraid of the agent’s cousin, who had a reputation for violence, and attracted by the agent’s generosity in buying him a meal and promising to introduce him to women. The agent confirmed that Vaughn twice promised to sell him crack, but on one occasion did not have the drugs at the appointed time and on the other did not even show up at all.
In other words, there was evidence from which a jury could rationally conclude that Vaughn, a purportedly reformed drug dealer, readily sold crack to the agent when first approached on April 7, but that he thought better of it on further reflection and had to be entrapped into making a second sale on May 5. Not only could the jury reasonably rely on the post-April 22 evidence to show lack of predisposition,- the jury could rationally have regarded April 22 as the beginning of government inducement.2 The district court, correctly in light of Jacobson, informed the jury that it must consider whether Vaughn was disposed to commit the offense “before the inducement.” Thus, considering the evidence and the instructions, the jury could have concluded that the government first *555induced Vaughn to make the May 5 sale on April 22 and that Vaughn was not disposed to make the sale before that inducement. Because the jury could rationally have so found and acquitted Vaughn of the May 5 sale on that basis, the government is not collaterally estopped from contesting Vaughn’s predisposition to make the April 7 sale. And, for the reasons set forth by the majority, the government is not collaterally estopped as to the August 20 sale. Accordingly, the district court correctly ruled that the Fifth Amendment does not bar Vaughn’s second trial.3

. The majority correctly notes that “no one can say the jury necessarily concluded that Vaughn sold crack to the agent on April 7.” Majority opinion at 551. I do not understand the majority to consider this fact dispositive, for if the jury had concluded that Vaughn was not predisposed to sell crack prior to being induced on April 7, Vaughn would have established, by collateral es-toppel, a complete legal defense to the offense charged in count one of the instant indictment, and that count would have to be dismissed.

. The jury was instructed that "a request by law enforcement officials to engage in criminal activity, standing alone, is not an inducement.” Cf. United States v. McKinley, 70 F.3d 1307, 1314 (D.C.Cir.1995) (citing United States v. Ellis, 23 F.3d 1268 (7th Cir.1994)).

. The government states in its brief that "upon request, it would be appropriate for the district court in [Vaughn’s] second trial to instruct the jury that it must accept as conclusive the entrapment findings of the previous jury.” Appellee's Brief at 12.