Term: 2016
Docket: 15-537
Bravo-fernandez v. United States
- Pro
15-537 BRAVO-FERNANDEZ V. UNITED STATES DECISION BELOW: 790 F.3d 41 GRANTED LIMITED TO QUESTION 1 PRESENTED BY THE PETITION. CERT. GRANTED 3/28/2016 QUESTION PRESENTED: In Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436 (1970), this Court held that the collateral estoppel aspect of the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a prosecution that depends on a fact necessarily decided in the defendant's favor by an earlier acquittal. Here, a jury acquitted petitioners of conspiring and traveling to violate 18 U.S.C. § 666, but convicted petitioners of violating § 666. The convictions were vacated on appeal because they rested on incorrect jury instructions, and it is undisputed that the acquittals depended on the jury’s finding that petitioners did not violate § 666. The government nonetheless sought to retry petitioners on the § 666 charges. Widening an acknowledged split, the First Circuit held that the acquittals have no preclusive effect under Ashe because they were inconsistent with the vacated, unlawful convictions. The First Circuit distinguished Yeager v. United States, 557 U.S. 110 (2009), which held that an acquittal retains its preclusive effect even when it is inconsistent with a hung count, on the theory that juries "speak" through vacated convictions, but not through hung counts. The questions presented are: 1. Whether, under Ashe and Yeager, a vacated, unconstitutional conviction can cancel out the preclusive effect of an acquittal under the collateral estoppel prong of the Double Jeopardy Clause. 2. Whether, under Evans v. Michigan, 133 S. Ct. 1069 (2013), the Double Jeopardy Clause permits a district court to retract its ''judgment of acquittal" entered on remand as an interpretation of the Court of Appeals mandate. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 14-1089, 14-1091
In the case of Bravo-Fernandez v. United States (2016), the Supreme Court ruled that a jury's inconsistent verdict does not prevent retrial of defendants when their initial convictions have been vacated due to trial error. The case involved Juan Bravo Fernandez and Hector Martinez Maldonado, who were convicted on bribery charges but acquitted on related conspiracy and travel act offenses. Their convictions were later overturned because of an unrelated issue with jury instructions, leading them to argue they could not be retried under double jeopardy principles as the acquittals demonstrated jury "issue preclusion". However, in a unanimous decision written by Justice Ginsburg, the court held that where there is inconsistency in a verdict it cannot be determined what legal or factual issues were decided by the previous jury - thus issue preclusion did not apply.
In the dissenting opinion for Bravo-Fernandez v. United States, Justice Thomas argued that the majority's decision was inconsistent with the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. He contended that a jury’s inconsistent verdicts should not prevent application of issue preclusion (a principle which prevents an issue from being relitigated once it has been resolved) in subsequent proceedings. According to him, if a jury acquits on one count and convicts on another, this does not necessarily mean they found different facts; rather it could simply indicate confusion or mistake. Therefore, he believed that when there is an acquittal indicating a fact was found in favor of defendant, then even if there are other convictions returned by same jury at same time - those convictions should not be used to undermine conclusion that jury made factual finding in favor of defendant during its deliberations leading up to acquittal.
