USA V. SPROAT, No. 22-10249 (9th Cir. 2023)
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In this case, Robert Sproat was convicted on ten counts of securities fraud. On appeal, Sproat argued that the district court improperly coerced the jurors into reaching a unanimous guilty verdict by instructing them to return the next day after they had reported an impasse in their deliberations.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the conviction, rejecting Sproat's argument. The court held that merely instructing a jury that reported an impasse to return the next day is not unconstitutionally coercive. The court found that the district court's instruction to return did not amount to an Allen charge, an instruction encouraging jurors to reach a unanimous verdict. The court explained that no such encouragement was explicit or implicit in the district court's instruction.
The court also observed that the district court had not asked the jury to identify the nature of its impasse or the vote count before excusing them for the evening, and that any theoretical risk of coercion was cured by the partial Allen instruction the district court gave the following day, emphasizing the jurors' freedom to maintain their honest beliefs and their ability to be excused if they could not overcome their impasse. The court concluded that the district court's instruction to return the next day and the partial Allen instruction the following day did not coerce the jurors into reaching a unanimous guilty verdict.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed Robert Sproat’s securities fraud conviction in a case in which Sproat argued that the district court improperly coerced the jurors into reaching a unanimous guilty verdict by sending them home at 4:30 p.m.
with the instruction to return the next day.
The panel was not persuaded by Sproat’s argument that the instruction to return was the equivalent of an Allen charge. The panel wrote that simply excusing the jurors for an evening recess did not equal an instruction to them to strive for a unanimous verdict. And even if the jury had been firmly deadlocked, instructing them to return the next day— without more—would not have been the equivalent of an Allen charge. The panel noted that the late-afternoon instruction did not convey that the jurors were required to continue to deliberate the next day; the district court did not ask the jury to identify the nature of its impasse or the vote count before excusing the jurors for the evening; and any theoretical risk of coercion was cured by the partial Allen instruction that the district court gave the following day, an instruction that Sproat endorsed.
The panel rejected Sproat’s other arguments in a separate memorandum disposition.
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