Court Opinion

ID: 9495131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:55:01.50115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:49.651688
License: Public Domain

AMBRO, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur both in the majority’s decision and in nearly all its reasoning. Nonetheless, I write separately because the majority permits a mischievous loose line, which it takes from United States v. Gibbs, 190 F.3d 188 (3d Cir.1999), to remain part of our conspiracy jurisprudence. That line states that “a conspiracy can be inferred from evidence ... from which it appears ... that the activities of the participants ... could not have been carried on except as the result of a preconceived scheme or common understanding.” Id. at 197.1 This line is dictum and misstates our settled conspiracy law. We should repudiate it before it enables a guilty defendant to go free in an erroneous acquittal.
The problem with the offending dictum is that it suggests that a jury may not consider a defendant’s conduct to be evidence of a conspiracy unless there is no other explanation for it. That has never been the law in this Circuit. Indeed, the offending dictum is inconsistent with the principle that we must accept the jury’s verdict “if any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.” Gibbs, 190 F.3d at 197. The majority and I agree that the offending dictum does not state a requirement for proving a conspiracy and cannot justify a post-verdict acquittal in this case. We part company, however, in deciding what to do with this language. I would simply reject it; the majority tries to work around it.
The majority adopts the Government’s argument that we need not worry about the offending dictum because it does not purport to state a requirement in conspiracy cases, but merely describes one of many ways that the Government may prove a conspiracy. Maj.Op. at 477-78. Its explanation for this reading is that the sentence merely says that “a conspiracy can be inferred” from evidence that admits no other explanation, not that a conspiracy “cannot be inferred unless” such evidence exists. According to the majority, if this language stated a requirement, it would not use the word “can.”
This explanation is unconvincing. First, another panel of our Court has already misread this language as if it states a requirement for conspiracy cases. In United States v. Schramm, 75 F.3d 156 (3d Cir.1996), this Court, reversing a conspiracy conviction, observed: ‘We, therefore, cannot conclude that the evidence adduced at trial allows a reasonable inference, that the activities of the participants ... could not have been carried on except as the *481result of a preconceived scheme or common understanding.” Id. at 162 (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added). The majority insists that the offending dictum merely suggests one way to prove a conspiracy, but Schramm obviously did not read it that way. Instead, Schramm said (in dicta, as explained below) that unless the standard is satisfied, no conspiracy exists. This demonstrates that as long as we allow the offending dictum to linger in our jurisprudence, courts will misread it to state a conspiracy requirement.
Moreover, it is natural that Schramm, having erroneously decided to cite the offending dictum, interpreted it to state a requirement. For example, if a judge charges a jury as follows — “you can find the defendant guilty of bank robbery from evidence that (1) he entered a financial institution and (2) obtained money by force” — -he has obviously laid out the requirements for a bank robbery conviction. He has not simply suggested one of many ways that the jury may find the defendant guilty (even though the charge does not technically exclude that interpretation). Similarly, when the offending dictum says that “a conspiracy can be inferred from evidence ... from which it appears ... that the activities of the participants ... could not have been carried on except as the result of a preconceived scheme or common understanding,” the most natural reading is that it states a requirement, not a suggestion to the Government about one way to prove a conspiracy.
Unlike the majority, which tries to sidestep the offending dictum, I would simply reject it and state clearly that the courts of this Circuit should henceforth ignore it. The best evidence that it is not good law is that none of our cases takes it seriously. The sentence originated in our 1966 opinion in United States v. Barrow, 363 F.2d 62, 64 (3d Cir.1966). Barrow apparently spawned this dictum without any precedent, following it with a string citation to four cases that do not support it. Id!2 Moreover, notwithstanding its apparent announcement of a new conspiracy standard, Barrow itself did not apply that standard. Instead, it upheld conspiracy convictions for operating illegal gambling businesses because a jury “Could have” inferred the defendants’ involvement and the evidence was “susceptible of a reasonable and logical inference” that a conspiracy existed. Id. at 64-65.
Subsequent conspiracy cases quoted, but similarly declined to apply, the offending dictum. In United States v. Ellis, 595 F.2d 154 (3d Cir.1979), police officers were convicted of a conspiracy to violate the *482civil rights of suspects in their custody. Id. at 160. We quoted the line from Barrow, but then upheld their conspiracy convictions without considering whether the evidence foreclosed every possibility other than the existence of a preconceived scheme or common understanding. Seven years later, in United States v. Kapp, 781 F.2d 1008 (3d Cir.1986), in which we faced an “admittedly sparse record,” we again parroted the offending dictum, but then upheld a conviction for conspiracy to transport stolen motor vehicles because the defendant’s participation in the conspiracy “could be inferred” from the evidence. Id. at 1010. In Schramm, as noted above, we misstated the offending dictum as a conspiracy requirement, but still did not rely on it. Rather we stated that “there must be evidence tending to prove that defendant entered into an agreement and knew that the agreement had the specific unlawful purpose charged in the indictment,” 75 F.3d at 159 (citation omitted) (emphasis added), and we only reversed the conviction in that case because no evidence supported it. Id. at 160. Finally, in Gibbs we upheld a conspiracy drug conviction even though we acknowledged that a mere buyer-seller relationship cannot prove a drug conspiracy and the district court had “no evidence that [the defendant] ever did anything to further the conspiracy other than buy and sell drugs.” 190 F.3d at 199. Paying no attention to whether the evidence permitted no conclusion other than a preconceived scheme or common design, we upheld the conviction because “a reasonable jury could have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that [the defendant] knew that he was dealing with a larger drug operation.” Id. at 202.
Not only have we consistently ignored the offending dictum in our conspiracy analyses, we have frequently contradicted it. E.g., United States v. Dent, 149 F.3d 180, 188 (3d Cir.1998) (“To sustain the jury’s verdict, the evidence does not need to be inconsistent with every conclusion save that of guilt.”) (citation omitted); United States v. Gonzalez, 918 F.2d 1129, 1132 (3d Cir.1990) (same); United States v. Monticello, 264 F.2d 47, 49-50 (3d Cir.1959) (same).
That this Court has, for almost forty years, refused to apply the offending dictum makes sense. That language, taken literally, states an incorrect and almost impossible standard. It requires the Government to prove a negative: that no other explanation could possibly exist for a given set of facts except a conspiracy. This conflicts sharply with the basic principle, which Gibbs itself affirms, that we must uphold the jury’s verdict whenever any rational view of the facts permits. Gibbs, 190 F.3d at 197. Moreover, it improperly transforms the reasonable doubt standard into a requirement of jury certainty. See Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1, 18, 114 S.Ct. 1239, 127 L.Ed.2d 583 (1994) (approving a jury instruction stating that reasonable doubt does not mean “absolute or mathematical certainty”). We should unambiguously reject this incorrect language before it confuses the next court to consider it.

. As I discuss below, this sentence did not originate in Gibbs, but rather has been passed down through several of our opinions beginning with United States v. Barrow, 363 F.2d 62, 64 (3d Cir.1966). For convenience, I often refer to it as the “offending dictum" in this concurrence.

. The four cases are Glosser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942); United States v. Amedeo, 277 F.2d 375, 377 (3d Cir.1960); United States v. Monticello, 264 F.2d 47, 49-50 (3d Cir.1959); and United States v. Migliorino, 238 F.2d 7, 9 (3d Cir.1956). Glasser says about this issue that "[p]articipation in, a criminal conspiracy need not be proved by direct evidence; a common purpose and plan may be inferred from a development and collocation of circumstances.” 315 U.S. at 80, 62 S.Ct. 457 (internal quotation marks omitted). Amedeo notes that ”[c]onspiracy involves some action in concert among conspirators but no one claims any more that there must be express agreement among them. And a conspiracy may be proven by circumstantial evidence alone.” 277 F.2d at 377. Perhaps most importantly, Monticello states what appears to be the opposite of the offending dictum'. "[A] conspiracy charge may be sustained on such [circumstantial] evidence. Nor need the evidence be inconsistent with every conclusion save that of guilt, provided it does establish a case from which the jury can find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” 264 F.2d at 49-50. Finally, Migliorino provides that "[o]vert acts done in apparent pursuance of a common plan serve as evidence to demonstrate the existence of a conspiracy.” 238 F.2d at 9.