Court Opinion

ID: 9494044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:27:36.018519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:11.260139
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, District Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I would dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
I agree with the majority that there is no way to construe the district court’s actions without being forced to conclude that the court erred. Either it erred by sending the case to the jury after granting Baggett’s motion for judgment of acquittal, or it erred by issuing an order purporting to grant the motion rather than reserving decision until after the verdict. However, the trial judge’s written order, which purported to grant Baggett’s motion prior to the jury’s verdict,1 and her statements on the record to the effect that she had granted the motion, demonstrate that she had granted the motion prior to the verdict.
The temptation is to try to discern the district judge’s intent. The source of this temptation, I suspect, is the recognition by bench and bar and in the academy that Fed.R.Crim.P. 29 gives district judges de facto power to determine whether the government will be able to take an appeal from a judgment of acquittal. See 5 LaFave et al., Criminal Procedure § 25.3(e), text accompanying n. 35 (2d ed. 1999) (“The end result ... is to give trial judges a means for preserving the government’s opportunity to appeal where the judge *1098sides with the defense on a legal issue that will control as to the sufficiency of the evidence”). Here, the majority makes a strong case that the district judge intended to preserve the government’s appeal. Indeed, it is impossible otherwise to understand her reasons for submitting the case to the jury. But the rule that the government may not appeal a judgment of acquittal entered prior to the verdict is not intended to give district courts the power to decide whether an appeal may be taken. Rather, the district court’s power is a consequence of the Double Jeopardy Clause, which does not permit a second trial once jeopardy has attached but which does permit reinstatement of a jury verdict.
We should focus, then, not on what the district judge intended to do or thought she was doing, but on what she did. In my view, she granted the motion. She thought that by “holding] in abeyance entry of judgment” and submitting the case to the jury, she could preserve the government’s appeal. But while Rule 29 allows the district judge to reserve decision-that is, to put off a decision until later in the proceedings — it does not allow her to decide and then give no effect to her decision until after the jury’s verdict.
The two cases upon which the majority principally relies, United States v. LoRussao, 695 F.2d 45 (2d Cir.1982), and United States v. Byrne, 203 F.3d 671 (9th Cir.2000), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 121 S.Ct. 861, 148 L.Ed.2d 774 (2001), are distinguishable. In LoRusso, the trial court ruled that the evidence was insufficient to prove the charge in the indictment but, on the government’s immediate request, that a lesser included charge could be presented to the jury. As the Second Circuit pointed out, 695 F.2d at 52, the trial court was implementing Rules 29(a) and 31(c) (relating to lesser included offenses) together. It makes sense that a judge could find the evidence insufficient to prove one element yet allow the case to go to the jury on a lesser included charge. But it does not follow that a judge can find the evidence insufficient to prove an offense and then let the case go to the jury on the same charge.
In Byrne, as Judge Cole notes in a footnote, the court made it clear that it was reconsidering its decision by leaving open the possibility that the government could convince her to change her mind. See Byrne, supra at 674. In the instant case, on the other hand, the judge made it abundantly clear that she had already made up her mind and that nothing would change it. She said so on the record, and she issued a written order purporting to be a judgment of acquittal before the jury entered its verdict.
It is true that in United States v. Mills, 204 F.3d 669 (6th Cir.2000), we exercised jurisdiction over an appeal when the district court had submitted the case to the jury already having decided to grant the motion for a judgment of acquittal. But as the majority recognizes, Mills does not discuss the double jeopardy issue, and in any case, we should not compound old errors by repeating them.
As I would find we lack jurisdiction, I do not reach the merits of the government’s appeal.

. The majority finds that the record does not clearly show whether the district judge's written order purporting to grant Baggett’s motion for judgment of acquittal was issued before or after the jury’s verdict. But the order's text clearly shows that it was issued prior to the verdict, or even prior to the submission of the case to the jury. The judge wrote: “the Court will allow the matter to be submitted to the jury ...” (Emphasis supplied). We should presume that the order means what it says. Cf. Chick v. Wingo, 387 F.2d 330, 331 (6th Cir.1967) (state court's records entitled to a presumption of regularity). Moreover, the time at which the order was file-stamped by the clerk is irrelevant to the time of its effectiveness. "A judgment is not what is entered but what was directed by the court, or it may be neglected altogether.... In the very nature of things, the act must be perfect before its history can be so; and the imperfection or neglect of its history fails to modify or obliterate the act.” In re Ackermann, 82 F.2d 971, 973 (6th Cir.1936) (citation omitted). While Ackermann was not decided under the Federal Rules, its principle is sound: a court’s order is complete when made, not when entered on the docket or file-stamped. See also Dalton v. Bowers, 53 F.2d 373, 374 (2d Cir.1931) (“Entry is for most purposes not necessary to the validity of an order”); cf. Robinson v. Waterman S.S. Co., 7 F.R.D. 51 (D.N.J.1947) (in federal civil practice, complaint is effective when "filed,” not when "entered”).