Court Opinion

ID: 9493410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:07:20.973588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:49.571034
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially:
I concur fully in Judge Canby’s opinion for the court. While in this case the more stringent Neder test for harmless error is satisfied and therefore we do not resolve the question whether a less stringent test is applicable, I write separately to explain the nature and basis of the less stringent standard described in the opinion.
The less stringent standard does not involve a review of the evidence not considered by the jury in order to try to determine what the jury could have concluded. Rather, it requires invalidation of the sentence simply because the verdict reached by the jury does not support the imposition of a sentence greater than five years. There are two alternative rationales that underlie the less stringent standard and its rejection of the Neder approach. The first rationale is that while in Neder the defendant was sentenced for the crime of which the jury convicted him, here the defendant was not convicted of the crime for which he was sentenced. See Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 6, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999). That rationale is based on the premise that for a defendant who grows marijuana to be sentenced to more than five years, he must have been convicted of committing the crime specified by §§ 841(a) and 841(b)(1)(A) collectively — cultivating 1000 or more marijuana plants — and not simply of violating § 841(a) or §§ 841(a) and 841(b)(1)(D) — cultivating a detectable amount of marijuana. See United States v. Anderson, 201 F.3d 1145 (9th Cir.2000).
The second rationale for applying the less stringent standard is that weighing the evidence that the jury did not consider is improper where the missing element is central to the offense. The Neder opinion makes clear that its scope is limited, but does not tell us the nature of the rule’s boundaries. See Neder, 527 U.S. at 17 n. 2, 119 S.Ct. 1827; Id. at 33, 119 S.Ct. 1827 (Scalia, J. dissenting). The premise of the second rationale is that where the element the jury failed to consider is central to the existence of an offense, the omission of the element falls outside of Neder’s scope. The second rationale would be applicable here because, in cases in which, for sentencing purposes, the particular offense depends entirely on the quantity of drugs, quantity is a central element.
*1063Whichever rationale one employs, the less stringent standard would require a court to conclude that the type of error that occurred here, the failure of the jury to determine the quantity of marijuana attributable to the defendant, cannot be harmless regardless of what the record discloses regarding the amount of marijuana for which the defendant could have been found culpable. Because Nordby’s sentence must be reversed whether we apply the more stringent Neder-style harmless error review or the less stringent standard described above, the opinion for the court does not decide which approach we should use in future cases. Nevertheless, in my view, it is important that the nature and basis of the less stringent approach be explained in greater detail than is required for purposes of the court’s opinion.