Court Opinion

ID: 9499351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:45:52.301732+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:11.309657
License: Public Domain

SMITH, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
As the majority ably explains, the charge to the jury was deficient because it failed to instruct on the “unity of purpose” element required for the predicate drug *98trafficking offense. See United States v. Gibbs, 190 F.3d 188, 197 (3d Cir.1999) (explaining that a drug conspiracy requires that the “government must establish a unity of purpose between the alleged conspirators, an intent to achieve a common goal, and an agreement to work together toward that goal”). Like the majority, I conclude that this deficiency was not harmless and requires that Korey’s conviction be vacated. I write separately, however, because my analysis, based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999), diverges from that of the majority.
In Neder, the Supreme Court determined that the omission of an essential element from a jury charge is subject to harmless error review. Id. at 15, 119 S.Ct. 1827. Because there was overwhelming and undisputed evidence regarding the omitted element, the Court concluded that the deficient jury instruction was harmless error. Id. at 18, 119 S.Ct. 1827. The Court instructed that a reviewing court must “conduct a thorough examination of the record. If at the end of that examination, the court cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury verdict would have been the same absent the error, for example, where the defendant contested the omitted element and raised evidence sufficient to support a contrary finding — it should not find the error harmless.” Id. at 19, 119 S.Ct. 1827.
In my view, Neder teaches that the focus in deciding if the omission of an instruction on an element of an offense is harmless is on whether there is any evidence to establish the omitted element. If there is no evidence on the omitted element, the deficiency in the instruction is not harmless because a jury could not have found that the prosecution proved this element beyond a reasonable doubt. Likewise, if there is evidence on the omitted element and it is contested, the deficiency in the instruction is not harmless because the jury would need to deliberate on the evidence and decide whether the element had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. However, when there is evidence on the omitted element that is not disputed, then the deficient instruction is harmless because “answering the question of whether the jury verdict would have been the same absent the error does not fundamentally undermine the purposes of the jury trial guarantee.” Id. at 19, 119 S.Ct. 1827.
Applying Neder to this ease compels the conclusion that the deficient jury instruction was not harmless error because, as the majority correctly points out, “[tjhere was no evidence that Korey shared the goal of cocaine distribution at all, or that his involvement with Kuhn and Erfort was anything other than personal.” Slip op. at 97.
Having concluded that there was no evidence on the omitted “unity of purpose” element, the analysis should be complete. The majority, however, goes on to reason that “[e]ven if we were to determine that this evidence ... is sufficient to find that Korey was part of a drug distribution conspiracy, [the error is not harmless because the evidence] is far from overwhelming.” Slip op. at 97. In my view, this additional step is unnecessary and runs afoul of Ned-er. If the evidence offered at trial was sufficient to demonstrate the unity of purpose element and was undisputed, as the majority states, Neder instructs that the error was harmless. 537 U.S. at 18, 123 S.Ct. 353 (instructing that where there is uncontroverted evidence on the omitted element the error is harmless). For this reason, I cannot join this aspect of the majority’s analysis and consider it dictum.