UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Saul RAMIREZ-CASTILLO, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 13-4158.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued: March 18, 2014. Decided: April 30, 2014.
748 F.3d 205
ARGUED: Cameron Jane Blazer, Savage Law Firm, Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellant. Robert Nicholas Bianchi, Office of the United States Attorney, Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: William N. Nettles, United States Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Before GREGORY, WYNN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge THACKER wrote the opinion, in which Judge GREGORY and Judge WYNN joined.
In this appeal, we review the propriety of a prison sentence imposed subsequent to a jury trial in which the jury made two specific factual findings but never returned a guilty verdict. Saul Ramirez-Castillo (“Appellant“) challenges his conviction and sentence for possession of a prohibited object by a federal inmate. On December 14, 2011, Appellant was charged in a single-count indictment with “knowingly possess[ing] prohibited objects, that is, two homemade weapons,” while an inmate at a Federal Correctional Institute in Estill, South Carolina (“FCI Estill“), in violation of
Because we conclude the district court violated Appellant‘s right to have a jury determine his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, we vacate Appellant‘s conviction and sentence, and we remand the case to the district court.
I.
A.
On November 5, 2011, while Appellant was serving a 66-month sentence for illegal re-entry after deportation at FCI Estill, prison officials conducted two searches that gave rise to the charges in this case. The first search was a pat-down of Appellant‘s person, during which a prison official found an object, described as “[a] homemade shank, approximately five inches long, with a sharp point,” J.A. 33 (“Exhibit 1“),1 inside of Appellant‘s pocket. After discovering Exhibit 1, prison officials conducted a search of Appellant‘s jail cell and locker. Inside Appellant‘s locker, prison officials found a nine-and-a-half-inch piece of metal, sharpened to a point on one end (“Exhibit 2“). Appellant‘s locker also contained four pairs of shoes, as well as several of Appellant‘s personal items.
Appellant did not waive his right to a trial by jury, and trial commenced on September 25, 2012. Testifying in his own defense, Appellant admitted to making and possessing Exhibit 1, claiming that he used it as a tool to alter or fix ill-fitting shoes. Further, Appellant identified several pairs of shoes that were recovered from his locker and stated that he had either sewn patches or attached new soles to those shoes. Appellant also testified that he never used Exhibit 1 as a weapon and that he never planned to use it as a weapon. On cross-examination, however, Appellant acknowledged that if he were attacked and his life was in danger, he would use Exhibit 1 to defend himself against such an attack. With respect to Exhibit 2, Appellant acknowledged that, based on its appearance, Exhibit 2 could seriously hurt someone. However, Appellant testified that he had never seen Exhibit 2 before the search nor had he used it for any reason. On cross-examination, Appellant also stated that his locker had a combination lock on it, that no one else had the combination, and that he was the only one who had access to the locker.
B.
Several times during the trial, Appellant‘s counsel and Government counsel discussed possible jury instructions and verdict forms with the district court. Just before the close of the Government‘s case, Appellant‘s counsel summarized for the district court the issues that she believed were contested: “As to the first thing [Exhibit 1], the issue is whether the thing is a weapon. As to the second thing [Exhibit 2], the issue is whether the thing was possessed.” J.A. 73. Thus, Appellant‘s counsel stated, “it may behoove us, notwithstanding the fact that they were indicted in a single count together, to prepare a special verdict form that allows the jury to walk through [the Exhibits] item by item.” Id. Government counsel suggested preparing a verdict form that separately listed Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2 and asked the jury to find Appellant “guilty” or “not guilty” as to each Exhibit. Id. at 74. The district court, however, indicated that it did not “know that that‘s any different
During a subsequent discussion about the verdict form, the following exchange occurred:
THE COURT: Ms. Blazer [Appellant‘s Counsel], as I understand that from [Appellant]‘s, really [Appellant]‘s own testimony, in so far as possession to Exhibit 1, he admits that?
MS. BLAZER: Yes.
THE COURT: And so far as the Exhibit 2, [Appellant] admits that that satisfies as a weapon?
MS. BLAZER: That ... is a reasonable conclusion for the jury to draw, yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Do I—I was thinking about charging the jury as to [Exhibit] 1 that they had to determine whether it was a weapon—
MS. BLAZER: Yes.
THE COURT: —and nothing else.
MS. BLAZER: As to Exhibit 1, yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: And as to [Exhibit] 2, they have to determine whether he possessed it.
MS. BLAZER: Yes, Your Honor, I agree completely.
THE COURT: Now, Mr. United States Attorney, you agree with this?
MR. BIANCHI [Government Counsel]: I do, Your Honor. I think it‘s undisputed on Exhibit 2 at this point.
J.A. 114-15. Appellant‘s counsel also noted, “just out of an abundance of caution,” that “implicit in number 1 and number 2 on this verdict form is that if the answer to either number 1 or number 2 is yes, then the jury would be finding [Appellant] guilty,” but that “[i]f the answer to both is no, the jury must find him not guilty.” Id. at 115. The district court agreed that if the jury answered “no” to both questions, the court would find, “as a matter of law,” that Appellant was not guilty. See id. at 115-16. Appellant‘s counsel agreed, describing the verdict form as the jury‘s “verdict as a finding of fact.” Id. at 116. Despite this “implicit” understanding by the district court and the parties, nowhere did the proposed verdict form require the jury to determine whether Appellant was “guilty” or “not guilty.” At the conclusion of this exchange, Government counsel acknowledged that he was satisfied with a verdict form of this nature.
Ultimately, the district court drafted a verdict form that posed only the following two questions:
- Do you, the jury, unanimously find that Government‘s Exhibit One is a weapon?
- Do you, the jury, unanimously find that [Appellant] possessed Government‘s Exhibit Two?
J.A. 136. In its oral jury instructions, the district court explained that for Appellant to be found guilty, the jury was required to find the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
First, that [Appellant] was an inmate of the federal correctional facility.
Two, that [Appellant] possessed the prohibited object, specifically a weapon.
Three, that he did so without the knowledge and consent of the warden or superintendent of the facility.
And four, that he did so knowingly and willfully.
Id. at 122-23.
The district court then proceeded to explain the verdict form to the jury. The
Later that day, the jury reached a decision regarding the two questions asked of it, which was read in open court. As to the first question on the verdict form, the jury answered “yes,” unanimously finding that Exhibit 1 was a weapon. As to the second question, the jury also answered “yes,” unanimously finding that Appellant possessed Exhibit 2. The district court then thanked the jury for its service, and the jury was excused without making any other findings.
C.
Appellant‘s Presentence Report calculated his total offense level at 13, pursuant to
II.
Appellant raises a number of challenges to his conviction and sentence. Because it will be dispositive of this appeal, we address only the propriety of Appellant‘s prison sentence imposed by the district court after a jury simply made two factual findings but did not return a general verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty.”
Before proceeding to the merits of this issue, however, we must determine the applicable standard of review. Appellant acknowledges that his trial counsel did not raise an objection to the special verdict form as drafted by the district court and, therefore, asserts that our review should be for plain error. The Government, however, contends that if the district court‘s use of the special verdict form was erroneous, any error was invited by Appellant and is thus unreviewable on appeal.
Pursuant to the “invited error” doctrine, “a court can not be asked by counsel to take a step in a case and later be convicted of error, because it has complied with such request.” United States v. Herrera, 23 F.3d 74, 75 (4th Cir.1994) (quoting Shields v. United States, 273 U.S. 583, 586 (1927)). However, where an appellant simply fails to raise an objection on a particular issue that is before the district court, our review is for “plain error.” See
Based on our review of the record, we conclude that Appellant did not invite any alleged error below. While it is true that Appellant‘s counsel first proposed utilizing a special verdict form in this case, it was the district court that rejected Government counsel‘s additional suggestion that the verdict form should ask the jury for a “guilty” or “not guilty” finding as to Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2. The district court drafted the questions that eventually went to the jury, and both parties accepted those questions without objection. Therefore, this is a case in which an unpreserved error is being raised for the first time on appeal, and we review the issue for plain error.
III.
Our authority to review errors not brought to the attention of the district court is derived from
Accordingly, we will correct an unpreserved error if (1) an error was made; (2) the error is plain; (3) the error affects substantial rights; and (4) the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. See Henderson, 133 S.Ct. at 1126-27. With this standard in mind, we turn to the instant case.
A.
We begin our plain error analysis by considering whether the district court erred when it failed to require the jury in Appellant‘s trial to return a general verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty” and instead presented the jury with a special verdict form that merely asked for two factual findings.
The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the jury trial guarantee of the Sixth Amendment “require criminal convictions to rest upon a jury determination that the defendant is guilty of every element of the crime with which he is charged, beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 509-10 (1995). The right to a trial by jury “includes, of course, as its most important element, the right to have the jury, rather than the judge, reach the requisite finding of ‘guilty.‘” Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 277 (1993) (citing Sparf v. United States, 156 U.S. 51, 105-06 (1895)); see also United States v. Muse, 83 F.3d 672, 679 (4th Cir.1996) (ex-
As the Supreme Court has noted, “[t]he right to have a jury make the ultimate determination of guilt has an impressive pedigree.” Gaudin, 515 U.S. at 510. The jury trial guarantee embodied in the Sixth Amendment “reflect[s] a fundamental decision about the exercise of official power—a reluctance to entrust plenary powers over the life and liberty of the citizen to one judge or to a group of judges.” Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 156 (1868). In addition to the jury trial‘s historical underpinnings, “[t]he more modern authorities ... also confirm[] that the jury‘s constitutional responsibility is not merely to determine the facts, but to apply the law to those facts and draw the ultimate conclusion of guilt or innocence.” Gaudin, 515 U.S. at 514 (internal citations omitted).
The case law in this circuit is consistent with these authorities. As we have recognized, after a trial judge has instructed the jury on the applicable law, “the next two steps are strictly for the jury: (1) determining the facts as to each element of the crime, and (2) applying the law as instructed by the judge to those facts.” United States v. Johnson, 71 F.3d 139, 142 (4th Cir.1995). It is, therefore, an “error of constitutional magnitude” for the trial judge to “instruct[] the jury as a matter of law that a fact essential to conviction has been established by the evidence, thus depriving the jury of the opportunity to make this finding.” Id. (internal quotations omitted); see also United States v. Jinwright, 683 F.3d 471, 479 (4th Cir.2012) (explaining that “[a] court runs afoul of [the Fifth and Sixth Amendments‘] protection when it issues an instruction that relieves the government of its burden of proof with respect to an element of a charged offense“).
In the instant case, we do not hesitate to conclude that Appellant‘s right to have a jury determine his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was violated. Appellant was charged pursuant to
Instead of asking the jury to determine whether Appellant was guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, of each element of the charged offense, the district court instructed the members of the jury that they need not concern themselves with certain elements of the crime. With respect to Exhibit 1, the court instructed the jury that the parties had agreed that Appellant possessed the object in question, so “the issue as to Exhibit Number 1 is whether it‘s a weapon as I‘ve defined a weapon.” J.A.
What is even more troubling is that the jury never actually returned a guilty verdict. In fact, it was never given the opportunity to do so. To be sure, the district court presented the jury with a special verdict form containing only the following questions: “(1) Do you, the jury, unanimously find that Government‘s Exhibit One is a weapon?“; and “(2) Do you, the jury, unanimously find that [Appellant] possessed Government‘s Exhibit Two?” J.A. 136. The jury simply answered “yes” to each question, thereby making two discrete factual determinations. Appellant‘s counsel even referred to the verdict form as the jury‘s “verdict as a finding of fact.” Id. at 116.4 The jury neither determined whether the remaining facts essential to conviction were established beyond a reasonable doubt, nor did it find Appellant guilty of the charged offense.5
As we have explained, “the jury‘s constitutional responsibility is not merely to determine the facts, but to apply the law to those facts and draw the ultimate conclusion of guilt or innocence.” Gaudin, 515 U.S. at 514 (internal citations omitted) (emphasis supplied). Here, the district court erred when it treated the jury as a mere fact finder with respect to the elements the court considered to be in dispute, and thereby prevented the jury from making the ultimate, indispensable conclusion of whether Appellant was guilty or not guilty.6 The district
B.
Having determined that the district court erred, we must decide whether the error is plain. To be “plain,” an error must be “clear” or “obvious,” Olano, 507 U.S. at 734, “at the time of appellate consideration,” Henderson, 133 S.Ct. at 1130 (internal quotation marks omitted). An error is clear or obvious “if the settled law of the Supreme Court or this circuit establishes that an error has occurred.” Carthorne, 726 F.3d at 516 (internal quotation marks omitted). In light of the well-settled Supreme Court decisions described above, including Sullivan and Gaudin, which unequivocally prohibit a court from directing a verdict against a defendant and instead require a jury to make the requisite finding of “guilty” beyond a reasonable doubt, we conclude the error in this case is plain.
C.
Because the district court committed “error” and that error is “plain,” we must next consider whether the error affected Appellant‘s substantial rights. As the Supreme Court in Olano explained, the phrase “affects substantial rights” “in most cases ... means that the error must have been prejudicial“—that is, “[i]t must have affected the outcome of the district court proceedings.” Olano, 507 U.S. at 734. However, the Court went on to note, “[t]here may be a special category of forfeited errors that can be corrected regardless of their effect on the outcome.” Id. at 735. This language refers to “structural errors.” See United States v. Marcus, 560 U.S. 258, 263 (2010); United States v. White, 405 F.3d 208, 221 (4th Cir.2005). Although the Supreme Court has expressly reserved the question of whether structural errors automatically satisfy the third prong of Olano, see Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 140-41 (2009), we have held that such errors necessarily affect substantial rights, satisfying Olano‘s third prong, see United States v. David, 83 F.3d 638, 647 (4th Cir.1996). Therefore, if the error in the instant case is structural, the third prong of Olano is satisfied.7
A structural error is a “defect affecting the framework within which the trial proceeds, rather than simply an error in the trial process itself.” Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 310 (1991). Because structural errors are “defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism,” they “defy analysis by ‘harmless-error’ standards.” Id. at 309. Indeed, such errors “deprive defendants of ‘basic protections’ without which ‘a criminal trial cannot reliably serve its function as a vehicle for determination of guilt or innocence ... and no criminal punishment may be
In the instant case, the district court in effect directed a guilty verdict for the Government. We conclude that this deprivation of Appellant‘s right to have a jury make the requisite finding of “guilty” or “not guilty” is structural error. Indeed, the Supreme Court has indicated that such action by a trial court would amount to structural error:
[H]armless-error analysis presumably would not apply if a court directed a verdict for the prosecution in a criminal trial by jury. We have stated that a trial judge is prohibited from entering a judgment of conviction or directing the jury to come forward with such a verdict ... regardless of how overwhelmingly the evidence may point in that direction. This rule stems from the Sixth Amendment‘s clear command to afford jury trials in serious criminal cases. Where that right is altogether denied, the State cannot contend that the deprivation was harmless because the evidence established the defendant‘s guilt; the error in such a case is that the wrong entity judged the defendant guilty.
Rose, 478 U.S. at 578 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted) (emphases supplied); see also United States v. Kerley, 838 F.2d 932, 937 (7th Cir.1988) (citing Rose and explaining that “not only does the harmless-error doctrine not apply when the error consists in directing a verdict against a criminal defendant, it also does not apply when the judge directs a partial verdict against the defendant by telling the jury that one element of the crime ... has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, so the jury needn‘t worry its collective head over that one” (internal citations omitted)).
Appellant was deprived of the right to a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This right is a “basic protectio[n] whose precise effects are unmeasurable, but without which a criminal trial cannot reliably serve its function.” Sullivan, 508 U.S. at 281. “The deprivation of that right, with consequences that are necessarily unquantifiable and indeterminate, unquestionably qualifies as ‘structural error.‘” Id. at 281-82. Accordingly, the district court‘s error affected Appellant‘s substantial rights.
D.
Even though Olano‘s three requirements have been satisfied, we retain discretion as to whether to notice the er-
In the instant case, we will exercise our discretion to notice the plain error because failure to do so would seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judiciary. The Sixth Amendment‘s jury trial guarantee, which includes, “as its most important element, the right to have the jury, rather than the judge, reach the requisite finding of ‘guilty,‘” is fundamental. Sullivan, 508 U.S. at 277. Here, Appellant did not waive his fundamental right to a trial by jury, yet no jury has declared Appellant guilty, and he has been sentenced to 33 months’ incarceration based upon a judge‘s determination of guilt. Regardless of the evidence presented against Appellant at trial—which we acknowledge was substantial—we cannot condone this practice. See Cedelle, 89 F.3d at 186 n. 4 (recognizing that “circumstances may exist where the proceedings contain an error that seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judiciary even though the record demonstrates that the defendant is guilty“). To do so would undermine the integrity and public reputation of the judiciary. Therefore, we exercise our discretion to notice the error.
IV.
In this case, we refuse to “hypothesize a guilty verdict that was never in fact rendered.” Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 279 (1993). To do so would mean “that the wrong entity [will have] judged [Appellant] guilty” for the second time. Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570, 578 (1986). Accordingly, we vacate Appellant‘s conviction and sentence, and we remand the case to the district court.
VACATED AND REMANDED.