The jury is losing importance in our society. Fewer trials go to juries, fewer people want to serve on juries, and, yesterday, the D.C. Circuit said that in some cases when juries find a person not guilty of conduct he can still go to prison for it.
Yesterday, the D.C. Circuit has reaffirmed it's prior holdings that a person who is acquitted of conduct at trial can be sentenced based on that very same conduct.
The court's ruling, in essence, is that if a person has four counts against him, and wins on all but one, the judge can sentence him as though he'd been found guilty on all four counts, provided the final sentence doesn't go above the statutory maximum sentence for that one count. Click here for coverage from the Legal Times Blog.
This rule is unfortunate for two reasons. First, it's bad for people accused of crimes and their lawyers. Second, it's bad for people who serve on juries.
A juror who is excited about civic service wants his or her decision to matter. The juror wants to contribute, and to be respected. What this ruling says is that the system knows better than the jurors who participate in it. Even if a juror gave up weeks of his or her life for a trial, a probation officer who wasn't even in the courtroom can argue that the jury was wrong, and a judge can ignore the jury's decision to jack up a person's sentence.
What does this mean for the average person accused of a crime in federal court?
It means that in some cases, if you're going to shoot the king, make sure you kill the king. A decision whether to take a plea from the government or go to trial can be a complicated one for any client and any lawyer. But the D.C. Circuit has reminded us that even if you win most of your case, indeed, even if you win an aquittal on every count but one, the judge can still act as though you were found guilty of everything for all practical purposes.
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The Federal Criminal Appeals Blog is published by The Kaiser Law Firm PLLC in Washington, DC. The Kaiser Law Firm represents people who have been charged with federal crimes, are under federal investigation, or have a federal criminal appeal.If you'd like to speak with us, please call (202) 640-2850. Odds are we'd love to talk to you.
Yes, this will probably seem bizarre to most laypeople, but it is (a) slightly less bizarre than you'd think and (b) would require fundamental changes in sentencing to fix.
Juries are supposed to only convict you of charges that they are convinced you are guilty of beyond a reasonable doubt. They may very well think that more likely or not you are guilty of the other ones too, but have to render a "not guilty" verdict.
In sentencing the judge is supposed to look at the facts as they most likely are. That may include concluding that you are guilty of the other charges as well, but that the jury just wasn't convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. In fact, if you are not at least likely guilty of any charge, you shouldn't even have been indicted.
Perhaps, judges in sentencing should only assume facts that are certain beyond a reasonable doubt too. Then they would have to assume that you are innocent of all charges the jury found you not guilty of. But that would be a large change in legal standards and raises a whole new bunch of questions: For example, should judges be required to ignore all ameliorating factors which likely exists, but which have not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt?
Carl,
Thanks for your comment! I can see where you're coming from. The trouble with that perspective, which, perhaps, is the trouble with modern federal sentencing, is that it does great violence to the work of a jury. Jurors are supposed to serve as checks on government power; sentencing based on acquitted conduct removes that check.
The problem is perhaps suggested by one of your comments - you said "if you are not at least likely guilty of any charge, you shouldn't even have been indicted." Some premise like that is required, I think, to justify sentencing based on acquitted conduct. Yet that principle itself is simply not constitutional. As a matter of law, you are presumed not to have committed the conduct unless and until a jury finds you guilty of it.
Except, of course, when you're being sentenced in federal court in D.C.