Court Opinion

ID: 9491338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:11:23.930527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:40.712480
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Rule 52(b) says that “[pjlain errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the *747attention of the court.” “May be”, not “must be”. A court has discretion to affirm even when a plain error has been committed. Reversal on account of a plain error is appropriate only if a second trial is apt to come out differently. It seems to me unlikely that Thomas can benefit from a remand, for if the prosecution replaces the conspiracy charge with a substantive charge he will have no viable defense.
If in order to convict Thomas of conspiracy the jury necessarily found all of the elements of the substantive offense, we could relabel the offense of conviction ourselves. Rutledge v. United States, 517 U.S. 292, 306, 116 S.Ct. 1241, 134 L.Ed.2d 419 (1996). Distribution of cocaine is not technically a lesser included offense of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, because it is possible to conspire in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 without committing any overt act, let alone selling drugs. United States v. Shabani, 513 U.S. 10, 115 S.Ct. 382, 130 L.Ed.2d 225 (1994). But in this ease the prosecution’s theory was that agreement could be inferred from multiple sales of crack cocaine. To convict Thomas in light of the evidence it heard and instructions it received, the jury must have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Thomas distributed cocaine to Jones. At oral argument a judge asked Thomas’s lawyer what the point of a second trial would be. He replied that perhaps witnesses would die between now and then, making the prosecution’s task harder. Even if they did, the result would not change given the tape recordings — and anyway it is not the function of the plain-error doctrine to give the defendant lucky breaks. The jury instructions were faulty, but the outcome of the trial was a just response to Thomas’s activities.
This is not to say that a court of appeals could convict Thomas of distributing cocaine. He has not been charged with or tried on that offense, and he is entitled to the benefit of both indictment and trial no matter how obvious his guilt. Summary judgment does not exist in criminal cases. See United States v. Ladish Malting Co., 135 F.3d 484, 490-91 (7th Cir.1998). But when deciding whether the proceedings during trial were so flawed that a court should relieve a defendant of his forfeiture, judges ought to consider what is apt to happen next. If impeccable process will lead to another guilty verdict and the same sentence, why not say that no injustice has been done and let the first verdict stand?
Perhaps there is an answer to this line of reasoning, but Thomas has not given it. And the reason for this omission is that the United States Attorney did not advance an argument along the lines I have sketched — or indeed any argument bearing on the exercise of our discretion under Rule 52(b). Forfeitures by the prosecutor are at least as conclusive as forfeitures by the defense, because there is no plain-error escape hatch for pros-ecutorial oversights. The possibility of considering the likely outcome of a new trial on a different charge as an element in the exercise of discretion under Rule 52(b) is sufficiently novel that it should not be pursued without giving the accused an opportunity to reply. So I join both the judgment and the opinion of the court.