United States v. Gonzalez, No. 13-50348 (9th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed his conviction and sentence for, inter alia, committing a violent crime in aid of a racketeering enterprise (“VICAR”): conspiracy to murder rival gang members (Count Two). The court assumed, without deciding, that a specific unanimity instruction was required for Count Two because the breadth of the indictment, in conjunction with the nature of the evidence, raised the specter of different jurors concluding that defendant participated in different conspiracies to murder different rival gang members.The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion where the effect of the district court’s additional unanimity instruction was to ensure juror unanimity on all of the elements of the violent crime underlying Count Two and to prevent different jurors from finding defendant guilty based on different conspiracies to murder different gang members. The court joined its sister circuits and held that, so long as jurors in a federal criminal trial unanimously agree that the Government has proven each element of a conspiracy, they need not unanimously agree on the particular overt act that was committed in furtherance of the agreed-upon conspiracy. In this case, even though the additional unanimity instruction in this case did not require unanimous agreement on a particular overt act, defendant’s right to a unanimous jury verdict was not violated. Further, the vast majority of the evidence on Count Two provided the jury with discrete groups of potential intended victims on which it could unanimously agree.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed a conviction on a count charging the defendant with committing a violent crime in aid of a racketeering enterprise—conspiracy to murder rival gang members—in a case in which the defendant argued that the district court’s jury instructions violated his right to a unanimous jury verdict. The panel assumed, without deciding, that a specific unanimity instruction was required because the breadth of the indictment, in conjunction with the nature of the evidence, raised the specter of different jurors concluding that the defendant participated in different conspiracies to murder different rival gang members. The panel discerned no abuse of discretion, where the effect of the district court’s additional instruction was to ensure juror unanimity on all of the elements of conspiracy to murder rival gang members and to prevent different jurors from finding the defendant guilty based on different conspiracies to murder different gang members. Joining sister circuits, the panel held that so long as jurors unanimously agree that the Government has proven each element of a conspiracy, they need not unanimously agree on the particular overt act that was committed in furtherance of the agreed-upon conspiracy. UNITED STATES V. GONZALEZ 3
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.