United States v. Melvin

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

No. 92-1563
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

JAMES E. MELVIN,

Defendant, Appellant.

No. 92-1564

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

MICHAEL C. HABICHT,

Defendant, Appellant.

No. 92-1565

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

PATRICK J. NEE,

Defendant, Appellant.

No. 92-1566

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

ROBERT EMMETT JOYCE,

Defendant, Appellant.

No. 92-1724

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

MICHAEL O. MCNAUGHT,

Defendant, Appellant.

OPINION AND ORDER ON THE
APPELLANTS' MOTION FOR CLARIFICATION

Before

Torruella, Circuit Judge,

Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge,

and Stahl, Circuit Judge.

Martin G. Weinberg, Kimberly Homan, Judith Mizner, Kenneth J.

Fishman, and Anthony M. Cardinale on memoranda for appellants.

Stephen P. Heymann, Assistant United States Attorney, Donald K.

Stern, United States Attorney, and James B. Farmer, Assistant United

States Attorney, on memorandum for appellee.

June 22, 1994

COFFIN, Senior Circuit Judge. The six defendants in this

case were convicted on various charges arising from an attempted

robbery of an armored truck. In an earlier opinion, we reversed

their convictions based on the improper admission of evidence

concerning prior firearms-related convictions. See United States

v. Melvin, et al., Nos. 92-1563-67, 92-1642-46, 92-1724-25, slip

op. (1st Cir. April 22, 1994). Five of the defendants did not

appeal their convictions on Count 14 of the indictment, however,

which charged that defendants used and carried a firearm in

connection with a crime of violence. See 18 U.S.C. 924(c).1

Because our decision made no specific reference to Count 14, the

defendants filed a Motion for Clarification asking that we amend

our opinion to state explicitly that their convictions on that

count remain intact. The government opposed the motion, arguing

that the defendants were seeking inappropriately to foreclose a

higher sentence on Count 14 upon retrial. We conclude that the

defendants' motion should be granted, and therefore also address

below the government's appeal of the sentence imposed on that

charge.

I. Motion for Clarification

We think it apparent that defendants decided not to appeal

Count 14 because of an error at trial that may have worked to

their benefit. All parties concede that the jury mistakenly was

1 Although the defendants originally included Count 14 as
part of their appeal, all but Murphy later filed a motion, which
we granted, seeking to withdraw the appeals of their convictions
on that count.

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not asked to identify which of the six firearms at issue in this

case -- ranging from machine guns to handguns -- underlay its

guilty verdict on Count 14. The district court recognized the

error at sentencing and, as a consequence, refused to impose the

30-year prison term mandated under 924(c) for use of machine

guns, instead imposing only the five-year term set for less

serious firearms.2

By removing Count 14 from their appeal, the defendants took

a calculated risk. If they had challenged that charge

successfully, a new trial would have been required and they might

have been acquitted. On the other hand, they might have been

convicted again, without error, based on a jury finding that they

had used a machine gun or other serious weapon in attempting the

robbery. A 30-year sentence necessarily would follow. Five of

the six defendants evidently felt that, all things considered,

the chance of acquittal was outweighed by the risk of the longer

2 Section 924(c) provides, in relevant part:

(c)(1) Whoever, during and in relation to any crime of
violence or drug trafficking crime . . . uses or
carries a firearm, shall, in addition to the punishment
provided for such crime of violence or drug trafficking
crime, be sentenced to imprisonment for five years, and
if the firearm is a short-barreled rifle, short-
barreled shotgun to imprisonment for ten years, and if
the firearm is a machinegun, or a destructive device,
or is equipped with a firearm silencer or firearm
muffler, to imprisonment for thirty years. . . .

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sentence.3 The Motion for Clarification asks that we recognize,

and permit, this choice.

The government's response to the clarification motion is

two-fold. First, it points out that if we grant defendants'

motion and leave the Count 14 conviction undisturbed, we must

address the government's sentencing challenge and should find

that defendants are subject to the 30-year sentence. Second, the

government vehemently asserts that we should deny the motion,

arguing that the Count 14 conviction may not stand in the face of

our decision that serious, reversible error occurred at trial.4

The government contends that such an inconsistency disserves the

interests of justice, that the defendants should not be permitted

to control sentencing options in such a manner, and that we have

the authority to reverse the 924(c) convictions notwithstanding

the defendants' decisions against appealing.

After considering the various possible outcomes, and the

policies at stake, we have concluded that it would be at least

inappropriate, and probably a violation of double jeopardy

principles, for us to vacate defendants' unappealed convictions

on Count 14 and order that they be retried on that charge. The

3 To make matters even more complicated, the defendants also
needed to consider that the government had appealed the five-year
sentence imposed on Count 14, arguing that the record required a
finding that they had used automatic weapons and thus were
subject to the 30-year term.

4 In a petition for rehearing on our original decision in
this case, the government argued that we should not have reversed
the convictions on all counts based on the improper admission of
evidence concerning the defendants' prior firearms-related felony
convictions. We have denied that petition in a separate order.

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government cites no case in which a court has taken the

extraordinary step of reaching beyond the charges before it on

appeal toinvalidate a convictionthat neither partyhas challenged.

The government relies instead on what we believe is wholly

inapposite caselaw on sentencing. This precedent establishes

that an appellate ruling invalidating a sentence, or reversing on

some, but not all, counts of an indictment may implicate the

trial judge's comprehensive, interdependent imposition of a

penalty and thus require resentencing on all counts. See United

States v. Pimienta-Redondo, 874 F.2d 9, 16 (1st Cir. 1989) (en

banc). The case before us presents a vastly different question.

Rather than seeking re-evaluation of a defendant's punishment in

light of changed circumstances, the government asks that we put

the issue of defendants' guilt on Count 14 to another jury. The

government presumably makes this request because it wants another

chance to elicit a specific finding that defendants used or

carried automatic weapons, which in turn would require a longer

sentence. The government's unilateral pursuit of a retrial

strikes us as directly at odds with the double jeopardy

prohibition "against a second prosecution for the same offense

after conviction," Jones v. Thomas, 491 U.S. 376, 381 (1989).

Neither the inconsistency of excluding Count 14 from a

retrial nor the defendants' "controlling" their sentence on that

count by ensuring that it will be determined finally in the

course of this appeal is particularly troubling. Our system of

justice is not a precise and mechanical operation and, indeed,

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that is one of its virtues. We permit inconsistent verdicts in

certain circumstances, see, e.g., United States v. Powell, 469

U.S. 57 (1984), and the fact that defendants may have fared

better than perhaps they would have in an error-free trial does

not seem reason enough to compel retrial against their will,

compromising the principle of finality embodied in the double

jeopardy clause. See Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 165 (1977);

United States v. Wilson, 420 U.S. 332, 343 (1975).

We therefore conclude that defendants' Motion for

Clarification should be granted, and that Count 14 may not be

retried.5 Consequently, we must consider the government's

challenge to the sentence imposed on that charge. As we discuss

below, our review of the record and caselaw persuades us that the

district court acted properly and that the five-year terms must

be affirmed.

II. Factual Background

We confine ourselves to a review of those facts particularly

relevant to the sentencing issue. The six defendants were

arrested near a Bank of New England branch in Abington,

Massachusetts, shortly before the scheduled delivery of funds to

the bank by an armored truck. Three defendants -- Joyce,

5 We leave to the district court in the first instance
consideration of the collateral estoppel consequences, if any, of
appellants' convictions on Count 14. Compare United States v.

Pelullo, 14 F.3d 881, 890-96 (3d Cir. 1994) (collateral estoppel

may not be applied against defendant in criminal case) with

United States v. Colacurcio, 514 F.2d 1, 4-6 (9th Cir. 1975)

(collateral estoppel in criminal case not limited to such matters
as defendant's status).

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McNaught and Nee -- were arrested about a block from the bank in

a van whose back seats had been removed. McNaught was in the

front passenger seat. Nee was crouched, or kneeling, immediately

behind the driver's seat. Joyce was similarly crouched, or

kneeling, behind Nee. Melvin, who had been observed driving the

van that morning, was arrested on foot a short distance away.

The driver's seat was empty.

Six guns, all loaded, were found in the van. On the floor

between the driver's and passenger's seats was a .357 magnum

pistol. An Uzi machine gun was on the floor behind the driver's

seat, near Nee. To the rear of the Uzi, near Joyce, were two

weapons: a semi-automatic rifle (with sawed-off stock and sawed-

off barrel), and a second machine gun equipped with a silencer.

Two other firearms were found in a nylon bag directly behind the

driver's seat: a second .357 magnum pistol and a 9 mm. semi-

automatic pistol.

Defendants Habicht and Murphy were arrested a short distance

away in another stolen car, whose back seat also had been

removed. The car contained various items ostensibly for use in

the robbery,6 but no firearms.

Count 14 of the indictment charged the defendants with a

violation of section 924(c) for the use and carrying of each of

the six weapons and silencer found in the van. At trial, the

defendants attempted to establish that they had no intention to

6 The car contained, inter alia, materials presumably to be

used in torching the vehicle following the robbery, a ski mask, a
walkie-talkie and a radio scanner set to police frequencies.

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commit an armed robbery, the "crime of violence" on which the

924(c) charge was based. Joyce and McNaught, the only defendants

to testify, both claimed that the Abington theft was to have been

an "inside" job requiring no weapons or force. Joyce asserted

that the arsenal of weapons found in the van had been discovered

only moments before the arrests when he opened a bag that he

believed contained car theft tools and which had been given to

him two days earlier by the government's cooperating witness,

Ryan. Joyce and McNaught both testified that the defendants were

shocked and angered at the unexpected presence of the weapons,

and immediately called off the robbery.

At the close of the evidence, the defendants requested that

a "special verdict" be given for Count 14, requiring the jury to

specify which weapon or weapons, if any, it found the defendants

to have knowingly used or carried. The government objected, and

the district court denied the motion. In its charge on Count 14,

the court instructed the jury that it need find knowing use or

possession of only one firearm to support a guilty verdict:

I am now going to talk about . . . Count Fourteen.
These are the firearms charges, that the defendant
knowingly used or carried firearms. The indictment may
say "and," and wherever the indictment says "and," it
means "or, and/or." It is in the conjunctive. It can
mean in the disjunctive. What that means is that the

government must prove that each defendant used or

carried any one firearm . . . .

With respect to Count . . . Fourteen of the
indictment, note that while the indictment is written
in the conjunctive, in that it uses "and" as a
connector, the government is required to proof [sic]
only that the charged defendants knowingly used or
carried a firearm. Similarly, the indictment charges
in Count . . . Fourteen that the listed defendants used
or carried a number of firearms during and in relation

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to several specified crimes. The government must prove

that each defendant used or carried any one firearm,

but not necessarily all of them, during and in relation

to any one, but not necessarily each, of those
specified crimes. You must agree unanimously as to
which firearm or firearms were used or carried during
and in relation to which specified crime or crimes.

Tr. 25:111 (emphasis added). The jurors thus were told that they

must agree on the firearm or firearms used by each defendant, but

were not asked to report these findings in their verdicts.

At sentencing, the government sought the imposition of the

mandatory thirty-year term prescribed by 924(c) when the

firearm at issue is a machine gun or silencer. The trial court,

however, concluded that it had erred in not asking the jury to

find specifically which of the firearms the defendants had

possessed, or whether one or more of the weapons in the van was,

in fact, a machine gun. It therefore refused to impose more than

the lowest possibly applicable sentence -- the five-year term

prescribed for handguns.7

On appeal, the government claims that the court erred in so

limiting the defendants' punishment. It contends that the law

permits, and the facts require, imposition of 924's most severe

sanction, the mandatory thirty-year term prescribed for the use

or carrying of machine guns or a silencer.

III. The Jury's Verdict

7 Recognizing the possibility of an appeal on this issue,
the court also set forth its own factual findings in the event a
jury determination on the specific firearms used subsequently was
ruled to be unnecessary. The court found, by a preponderance of
the evidence, that all six defendants knowingly used and carried
two machine guns, a silencer and a short-barreled rifle in
connection with a crime of violence, in violation of 924(c).

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The government acknowledges that a defendant found guilty of

violating 924(c) may be sentenced to a thirty-year term only if

the jury specifically identifies a machine gun or silencer as the

firearm supporting the conviction. See United States v.

Martinez, 7 F.3d 146, 148 & n.1 (9th Cir. 1993); United States v.

Sims, 975 F.2d 1225, 1235 (6th Cir. 1992). It also is undisputed

that the jury in this case mistakenly was not asked to specify

the weapon or weapons underlying its verdict. The government

claims that the thirty-year term nevertheless applies because, in

the unique factual circumstances of this case, a finding that

defendants used machine guns is "implicit and inescapable" from

the jury's general verdict.

The government's thesis goes like this: because all of the

weapons were found in the same place -- the van -- and because

neither the prosecution nor defense offered the jury a theory for

distinguishing among the firearms, there was no rational basis

upon which the jury could conclude that any particular defendant

used or carried some of the firearms but not others. The

government emphasizes that the jury's guilty verdict on Count 14

demonstrates its rejection of the defense, sounded again and

again throughout the trial and closing arguments, that the would-

be robbers intended a wholly nonviolent takeover of the armored

truck. Evidently having disbelieved Joyce and McNaught's

testimony that Ryan was responsible for the weapons, the jury

must have concluded instead that they were knowingly brought

along by the defendants. The defendants made an all-or-nothing

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argument about the firearms, the government points out, and so

the jury must have reached an all-or-nothing verdict.

This is certainly one plausible interpretation of the jury's

decisionmaking. Our task in these circumstances, however, is not

to determine whether the evidence and argument could support the

government's interpretation of the jury's verdict, but whether it

inevitably must lead to such a construction. This standard was

well articulated by the Eleventh Circuit in United States v.

Dennis, 786 F.2d 1029 (11th Cir. 1986), a drug conspiracy case in

which the indictment charged involvement with several different

drugs, carrying different penalties, and the jury returned a

general verdict that did not specify the drug supporting its

decision:

[T]he reviewing court in such a situation may not
examine the evidence presented at trial to determine
whether the jury, if properly instructed could have or

even should have found a heroin/cocaine conspiracy and

returned a verdict indicating as much; rather, the
court's inquiry is confined to determining beyond any
reasonable doubt whether the jury did find such a

conspiracy and whether it intended the verdict it
returned to reflect that determination. Only in that
manner may we avoid invading the special province of
the jury in a criminal case both to find the facts and
apply the law as it sees fit.

Id. at 1041 (emphasis in original). See also United States v.

Pace, 981 F.2d 1123, 1129-30 (10th Cir. 1992); United States v.

Quicksey, 525 F.2d 337, 340-41 (4th Cir. 1975).

We have concluded that we may not exclude beyond a

reasonable doubt the possibility that the jury rendered a guilty

verdict on Count 14 based on a determination that the defendants

possessed only a handgun -- the weapon found in the front of the

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van. Although it is true, as the government argues, that both

prosecution and defense repeatedly dealt with the six weapons as

an undifferentiated collection, the evidence and jury charge

provided an obvious opportunity for the jury to distinguish among

them.

The evidence permitted the jury to find that the handgun

found on the floor between the two front seats had been placed

there deliberately and carefully. It was, at least to some

extent, separated from the five weapons found in the back of the

van, all of which were inside, or very close to, the bag that the

defendants claimed Ryan had provided. Certainly, the jury

reasonably could have focused on the handgun and concluded that,

whatever the defendants' relationship to the automatic weapons,

that one firearm had been brought along purposefully.

Indeed, the court's instruction explicitly permitted the

jury to avoid deciding the source of the weapons found in the

rear of the van, by emphasizing that Count 14 required a finding

of only a single firearm. See supra at 8. Thus, the jurors

might have suspended their deliberations on the use of firearms

once they concluded that these experienced criminals must have

carried at least a single gun -- the handgun in the front seat --

for use as a show of force or to discourage heroic efforts

against them.

The fact that neither the government nor defense urged such

an approach to the evidence does not preclude the possibility

that the jury reached its result in that way. In our view,

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focusing on the handgun was a fairly obvious choice for the

jurors, particularly if there were any disagreement among them

about Ryan's role in providing the weapons.8

We therefore conclude that the jury's verdict fails to

establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the jurors found that

the defendants violated 924(c) through use of weapons subject

to a term of imprisonment greater than five years. Consequently,

we affirm the district court's 60-month sentence on Count 14.9

IV.

Some further comment is necessary. The problem in this case

resulted, at least in part, from the government's understanding

of our precedent on special verdicts in criminal cases. United

States v. Spock, 416 F.2d 165 (1st Cir. 1969), remains a leading

authority against the use of special verdicts based on their

8 In all likelihood, the defendants deliberately avoided
distinguishing among the weapons in the hope that the jury would
be persuaded that no weapons at all were intended to be used. In
other words, it was not in their interest to highlight the front-
seat weapon. This strategic decision does not, however,
foreclose them from arguing, nor us from concluding, that the
jurors reasonably could have drawn such a distinction themselves
based on the evidence and instructions.

9 The defendants argued that, even if we found that the
jury's verdict unambiguously reflected a finding that all of the
weapons found in the van were used by all of the defendants, the
30-year sentence could not be imposed because the jury had not
been asked to decide whether those firearms were, in fact,
automatic weapons and whether the defendants knew the nature of
the weapons. The government contended that it was the court's
role to determine the appropriate label for the firearms, and
that it was unnecessary to prove knowing use of automatic
weapons. Our conclusion that the jury's verdict was ambiguous
makes it unnecessary to consider these other questions.

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potential for leading the jury to the prosecution's desired

conclusion. Id. at 180-83.

Even in Spock, however, we recognized that there may be

circumstances in which eliciting particularized information from

the jury will be permissible. See 416 F.2d at 182-83 & n.41.

See also Heald v. Mullaney, 505 F.2d 1241, 1245-46 (1st Cir.

1974) (some usages of special interrogatories may be exempt from

the dangers described in Spock). We believe this is such a

context. Where, as here, a statute proscribes more than one type

of conduct, with penalties that vary depending upon the acts

committed, some method of ascertaining the jury's specific

finding is necessary.

At least two circuits have held expressly that the ambiguous

verdict problem in a 924(c) case may be handled either through

use of special interrogatories or by submitting separate counts

to the jury for each firearm allegedly used and, should there be

more than one conviction, merging those convictions after the

trial. See Martinez, 7 F.3d at 148 n.1; Sims, 975 F.2d at 1235.

In either approach, if the jurors find that the defendant used or

carried firearms falling within several categories of weapons,

the sentence imposed will be for the most dangerous weapon; i.e.,

the defendant will receive the highest of the varying applicable

terms. See Martinez, 7 F.3d at 148-49; Sims, 975 F.2d at 1236.

We agree that either of these two procedures would be

acceptable, and we are joined in this conclusion by the

government. Although contending that the result in this case is

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self-evident, the government acknowledges that determining a

jury's precise verdict in a 924(c) case involving multiple

firearms usually will require resort to one or the other of these

techniques. It bears repeating that allowing these techniques,

in this context, is not inconsistent with Spock; these are

precisely the circumstances in which we recognized that an

exception to the rule against special interrogatories might be

necessary. See 416 F.2d at 182 & n.41. Accord United States v.

North, 910 F.2d 843, 910-11 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (recognizing that

special verdicts may be employed in certain contexts, including

"as a means of more precisely determining an appropriate and fair

punishment").10 See also United States v. Bounds, 985 F.2d

188, 194-95 (5th Cir. 1993) (multiple drug conspiracy case);

United States v. Owens, 904 F.2d 411, 414-15 (8th Cir. 1990)

(same); Newman v. United States, 817 F.2d 635, 637 & n.3 (10th

Cir. 1987) (same); Dennis, 786 F.2d at 1041 (same); United States

v. Orozco-Prada, 732 F.2d 1076, 1083-84 (2d Cir. 1984) (same).

The Motion for Clarification is granted, and our original

decision is modified to exclude remand for retrial of Count 14

for defendants Melvin, Joyce, Habicht, Nee and McNaught. We

affirm the five-year sentence imposed on that charge.

10 Although the court in North noted that special

interrogatories for sentencing reasons have been deemed
appropriate when the defendant has requested or accepted them, a

court presumably must have the discretion to adopt the procedure
even if the defendant has not explicitly approved in order to
avoid ambiguous verdicts such as the one at issue here.

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