Bravo-Fernandez v. United States

Decision Date29 November 2016
Docket NumberNo. 15–537.,15–537.
Parties Juan BRAVO–FERNANDEZ and Hector Martínez–Maldonado, Petitioners v. UNITED STATES.
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Lisa S. Blatt, Washington, DC, for Petitioners.

Elizabeth B. Prelogar, Washington, DC, for Respondent.

Abbe David Lowell, Christopher D. Man, Chadbourne & Parke, LLP, Washington, DC, Lisa S. Blatt, Anthony J. Franze, R. Stanton Jones, Elisabeth S. Theodore, Arnold & Porter LLP, Washington, DC, for Petitioners.

Ian Heath Gershengorn, Acting Solicitor General, Leslie R. Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General, Michael R. Dreeben, Deputy Solicitor General, Elizabeth B. Prelogar, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Vijay Shanker, Attorney, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondent.

Justice GINSBURG

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case concerns the issue-preclusion component of the Double Jeopardy Clause.1 In criminal prosecutions, as in civil litigation, the issue-preclusion principle means that “when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit.” Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 443, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970)

.

Does issue preclusion apply when a jury returns inconsistent verdicts, convicting on one count and acquitting on another count, where both counts turn on the very same issue of ultimate fact? In such a case, this Court has held, both verdicts stand. The Government is barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause from challenging the acquittal, see Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 188, 78 S.Ct. 221, 2 L.Ed.2d 199 (1957)

, but because the verdicts are rationally irreconcilable, the acquittal gains no preclusive effect, United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 68, 105 S.Ct. 471, 83 L.Ed.2d 461 (1984).

Does issue preclusion attend a jury's acquittal verdict if the same jury in the same proceeding fails to reach a verdict on a different count turning on the same critical issue? This Court has answered yes, in those circumstances, the acquittal has preclusive force. Yeager v. United States, 557 U.S. 110, 121–122, 129 S.Ct. 2360, 174 L.Ed.2d 78 (2009)

. As “there is no way to decipher what a hung count represents,” we reasoned, a jury's failure to decide “has no place in the issue-preclusion analysis.” Ibid. ; see id., at 125, 129 S.Ct. 2360 ([T]he fact that a jury hangs is evidence of nothing—other than, of course, that it has failed to decide anything.”).

In the case before us, the jury returned irreconcilably inconsistent verdicts of conviction and acquittal. Without more, Powell would control. There could be no retrial of charges that yielded acquittals but, in view of the inconsistent verdicts, the acquittals would have no issue-preclusive effect on charges that yielded convictions. In this case, however, unlike Powell, the guilty verdicts were vacated on appeal because of error in the judge's instructions unrelated to the verdicts' inconsistency. Petitioners urge that, just as a jury's failure to decide has no place in issue-preclusion analysis, so vacated guilty verdicts should not figure in that analysis.

We hold otherwise. One cannot know from the jury's report why it returned no verdict. “A host of reasons” could account for a jury's failure to decide—“sharp disagreement, confusion about the issues, exhaustion after a long trial, to name but a few.” Yeager, 557 U.S., at 121, 129 S.Ct. 2360

. But actual inconsistency in a jury's verdicts is a reality; vacatur of a conviction for unrelated legal error does not reconcile the jury's inconsistent returns. We therefore bracket this case with Powell, not Yeager, and affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals, which held that issue preclusion does not apply when verdict inconsistency renders unanswerable “what the jury necessarily decided.” 790 F.3d 41, 47 (C.A.1 2015).

I
A

The doctrine of claim preclusion instructs that a final judgment on the merits “foreclos[es] successive litigation of the very same claim.” New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U.S. 742, 748, 121 S.Ct. 1808, 149 L.Ed.2d 968 (2001)

; see Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 19, p. 161 (1980) (hereinafter Restatement). So instructing, the doctrine serves to “avoid multiple suits on identical entitlements or obligations between the same parties.” 18 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4402, p. 9 (2d ed. 2002) (hereinafter Wright & Miller). Long operative in civil litigation, Restatement, at 2, claim preclusion is also essential to the Constitution's prohibition against successive criminal prosecutions. No person, the Double Jeopardy Clause states, shall be “subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” Amdt. 5. The Clause “protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction”; as well, [i]t protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal.” North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 717, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969). [A] verdict of acquittal [in our justice system] is final,” the last word on a criminal charge, and therefore operates as “a bar to a subsequent prosecution for the same offense.” Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 188, 78 S.Ct. 221, 2 L.Ed.2d 199 (1957)

.

The allied doctrine of issue preclusion ordinarily bars relitigation of an issue of fact or law raised and necessarily resolved by a prior judgment. See Restatement §§ 17, 27, at 148

, 250 ; Wright & Miller § 4416, at 386. It applies in both civil and criminal proceedings, with an important distinction. In civil litigation, where issue preclusion and its ramifications first developed, the availability of appellate review is a key factor. Restatement § 28, Comment a, at 274; see id., § 28, Reporter's Note, at 284 (noting “the pervasive importance of reviewability in the application of preclusion doctrine”). In significant part, preclusion doctrine is premised on “an underlying confidence that the result achieved in the initial litigation was substantially correct.” Standefer v. United States, 447 U.S. 10, 23, n. 18, 100 S.Ct. 1999, 64 L.Ed.2d 689 (1980) ; see Restatement § 29, Comment f, at 295. “In the absence of appellate review,” we have observed, “such confidence is often unwarranted.” Standefer, 447 U.S., at 23, n. 18, 100 S.Ct. 1999.

In civil suits, inability to obtain review is exceptional; it occurs typically when the controversy has become moot. In criminal cases, however, only one side (the defendant) has recourse to an appeal from an adverse judgment on the merits. The Government “cannot secure appellate review” of an acquittal, id., at 22 100 S.Ct. 1999

, even one “based upon an egregiously erroneous foundation,” Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 503, 98 S.Ct. 824, 54 L.Ed.2d 717 (1978). Juries enjoy an unreviewable power ... to return a verdict of not guilty for impermissible reasons,” for “the Government is precluded from appealing or otherwise upsetting such an acquittal by the Constitution's Double Jeopardy Clause.” United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 63, 65, 105 S.Ct. 471, 83 L.Ed.2d 461 (1984). The absence of appellate review of acquittals, we have cautioned, calls for guarded application of preclusion doctrine in criminal cases. See Standefer, 447 U.S., at 22–23, and n. 18, 100 S.Ct. 1999. Particularly where it appears that a jury's verdict is the result of compromise, compassion, lenity, or misunderstanding of the governing law, the Government's inability to gain review “strongly militates against giving an acquittal [issue] preclusive effect.” Id., at 23, 100 S.Ct. 1999. See also Restatement § 29, Comment g, at 295 (Where circumstances suggest that an issue was resolved on erroneous considerations, “taking the prior determination at face value for purposes of the second action would [impermissibly] extend the ... imperfections in the adjudicative process.”); id., § 28, Comment j, at 283 (Issue preclusion may be denied where it is “evident from the jury's verdict that the verdict was the result of compromise.”); Wright & Miller § 4423, at 617 (same).

B

This case requires us to determine whether an appellate court's vacatur of a conviction alters issue-preclusion analysis under the Double Jeopardy Clause. Three prior decisions guide our disposition.

This Court first interpreted the Double Jeopardy Clause to incorporate the principle of issue preclusion in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970)

.2

Ashe involved a robbery of six poker players by a group of masked men. Ashe was charged with robbing one of the players, but a jury acquitted him “due to insufficient evidence.” Id., at 439, 90 S.Ct. 1189

. The State then tried Ashe again, this time for robbing another of the poker players. Aided by “substantially stronger” testimony from “witnesses [who] were for the most part the same,” id., at 439–440, 90 S.Ct. 1189 the State secured a conviction. We held that the second prosecution violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. Because the sole issue in dispute in the first trial was whether Ashe had been one of the robbers, the jury's acquittal verdict precluded the State from trying to convince a different jury of that very same fact in a second trial. Id., at 445, 90 S.Ct. 1189.

Our decision in Ashe explained that issue preclusion in criminal cases must be applied with “realism and rationality.” Id., at 444, 90 S.Ct. 1189

. To identify what a jury in a previous trial necessarily decided, we instructed, a court must “examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter.” Ibid. (quoting Mayers & Yarbrough, Bis Vexari : New Trials and Successive Prosecutions, 74 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 38 (1960) ). This inquiry, we explained, “must be set in a practical frame and viewed with an eye to all the circumstances of the proceedings.” 397 U.S., at 444, 90 S.Ct. 1189 (quoting Sealfon v. United States, 332...

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