collateral estoppel

Bravo-Fernandez v. United States

Issues

Should a vacated conviction based on an improper jury instruction be given preclusive effect under the collateral estoppel prong of the Double Jeopardy clause?

Juan Bravo-Fernandez and Hector Martínez-Maldonado were involved in a federal program bribery scheme in which Bravo allegedly paid for Martinez’s trip to Las Vegas to attend a boxing match in exchange for Martínez pushing through beneficial legislation for Bravo’s private security company. A jury convicted both defendants of committing federal bribery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 666 but acquitted them of other bribery-related charges.  The convictions were later vacated due to a jury instruction error, and Bravo and Martínez were acquitted on remand.  Bravo and Martínez argue that the jury acquittals retain preclusive effect under the Double Jeopardy Clause despite the fact that jury had originally returned inconsistent verdicts. The government counters that because the jury’s inconsistent verdicts do not allow Bravo and Martínez to show that the jury had decided in their favor, collateral estoppel does not apply. The outcome of this case could potentially affect prosecutorial theories and could disadvantage criminal defendants who face various predicate and conspiracy charges. 

Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties

Under Ashe v. Swenson and Yeager v. United States, can a vacated, unconstitutional conviction cancel out the preclusive effect of an acquittal under the collateral estoppel prong of the Double Jeopardy Clause?

Petitioner Juan Bravo-Fernandez traveled from Puerto Rico to Las Vegas, NV with petitioner Hector Martínez-Maldonado in May of 2005 to attend a boxing match. United States v. Bravo-Fernandez, 790 F.3d 41, 43 (1st Cir. 2015). Bravo was the president of a private security firm in Puerto Rico and Martínez was a member of the Puerto Rico Senate.

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McElrath v. Georgia

Issues

Does the Double Jeopardy Clause allow the retrial of an acquittal where the jury’s inconsistent verdicts on related offenses are deemed invalid under state law?

This case asks the Supreme Court to decide whether the Double Jeopardy Clause prevents a defendant from being retried on a count where he was acquitted by a jury’s verdict. Petitioner McElrath argues that the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits defendants from being retried once they are acquitted. Petitioner also contends that the Georgia Supreme Court’s “repugnancy rule,” a rule that voids a jury’s verdicts if its findings on the record are extremely inconsistent, conflicts with the purpose and history of the Double Jeopardy Clause. In response, Respondent Georgia contends that state law, not the Double Jeopardy Clause, defines when a verdict is valid. It further asserts that Georgia’s “repugnancy rule” is consistent with the Constitution because repugnant verdicts and inconsistent verdicts are different, and the Supreme Court has never ruled on contradictory jury findings. The outcome of this case will affect the balance between judicial and jury power, as well as how far a federal court’s power can go in reversing a state court’s decision.

Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties

Whether the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits a second prosecution for a crime of which a defendant was previously acquitted.

On July 16, 2012, 18-year-old Damian McElrath stabbed his adoptive mother, Diane, more than 50 times in a single attack. McElrath v. State (“McElrath I”) at 575. The attack started in the upstairs bedroom of their shared house and eventually ended at the front door, where Diane died. Id. McElrath then cleaned himself and wrote a note claiming that Diane told him that she was poisoning him.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Professor John H. Blume for his guidance and insights into this case.

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Smith v. Bayer Corp.

Issues

Whether the Anti-Injunction Act’s relitigation exception allows a federal court to enjoin parties seeking a class certification in state court under state procedural rules when the federal court previously denied certification of a similar class with similar issues under federal procedural rules.

 

Bayer Corporation manufactured and distributed Baycol, a prescription cholesterol medication that was linked to thirty-one deaths. After removing Baycol from the market, Bayer was sued by thousands of individuals. These individual claims, including the claim of an individual seeking economic damages under the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act, were consolidated for pre-trial motions in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. Two other individuals separately sued Bayer under the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act in West Virginia state court. The federal district court denied class certification of the West Virginia economic damages claim, determining that such claims required individual damages. Bayer moved to enjoin certification of the economic damages claim in West Virginia state court based on the district court's decision. The district court granted the injunction and the Eighth Circuit affirmed, concluding that the claim fit the “relitigation exception” to the Anti-Injunction Act because the decision met the requirements of collateral estoppel. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether the relitigation exception applies when the parties and issues involved in two actions are not entirely identical and whether a court can have jurisdiction over an absent class member or a nonparty if a class does not actually exist because the court denied certification. This decision may affect the ability of individuals to bring class actions in state court or, alternatively, the ability of defendants in federal class actions to efficiently preclude similar state court claims.

Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties

1. Among the elements for the doctrine of collateral estoppel to be used in support of the relitigation exception to the Anti-Injunction Act are requirements that the state parties sought to be estopped are the same parties or in privity with parties to the prior federal litigation and that issues necessary to the resolution of the proceedings are also identical. In determining whether issues are identical, courts have also recognized that state courts should have discretion to apply their own procedural rules in a manner different from their federal counterparts. Can the district court's injunction be affirmed when neither the parties sought to be estopped nor the issues presented are identical? ??

2. It is axiomatic that everyone should have his own day in court and that one is not bound by a judgment in personam in a litigation in which he has not been made a party by designation or service of process. One exception to this rule are absent members of a class in a properly conducted class action because of the due-process protections accorded such absent members once class certification has been granted. Does a district court have personal jurisdiction over absent members of a class for purposes of enjoining them from seeking class certification in state court when a properly conducted class action had never existed before the district court because it had denied class certification and due-process protections had never been afforded the absent members?

From 1997 to 2001, Bayer Corporation ("Bayer") manufactured and distributed Baycol, a prescription medicine designed to lower cholesterol. See Smith v. Bayer, 593 F.3d 716, 719 (8th Cir.

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· Forbes, Daniel Fisher: Class-Action Foes Have Trifecta Before Supreme Court (Dec. 20, 2010)

· Mass Tort Litigation Blog, Elizabeth Burch: Supreme Court to Hear Case on the Anti-Injunction Act's Relitigation Exception(Oct. 7, 2010)

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Yeager v. United States

Issues

Does collateral estoppel prevent a prosecutor from retrying a defendant on charges where the jury in a previous trial failed to reach a unanimous verdict, if that jury acquitted the defendant on other counts that share essential factual elements with the hung charges?

 

The doctrine of collateral estoppel prevents two parties from re-litigating an issue of fact determined in a prior proceeding. In criminal law, this doctrine is incorporated into the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the government from prosecuting an individual twice for substantially the same crime. In 2004, the United States charged three senior executives of Enron Corporation with multiple counts of money laundering, securities fraud, wire fraud, and insider trading. At trial, the jury acquitted the defendants on several charges, but could not agree on a verdict for the rest. The United States then recharged the defendants with several of the crimes on which the jury in the previous trial failed to reach a verdict. The defendants moved to dismiss the charges, arguing that collateral estoppel prevented the government from retrying them. The defendants based their motion on the fact that the jury acquitted the defendants on counts that shared common factual elements with the charges the jury failed to reach a verdict on. The district court denied the defendants’ motion, and the Fifth Circuit upheld the district court’s decision. In this case, the Supreme Court of the United States will decide whether, under the Double Jeopardy Clause, the government may retry defendants acquitted of some charges on factually related counts on which the jury failed to reach a verdict on at a preceding trial. 

Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties

The courts of appeals are deeply divided as to whether, when conducting the Fifth Amendment collateral estoppel analysis set out by this court in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436 (1970), a court should consider the jury’s failure to reach a verdict on some counts. The issue presented here is:

1. Whether, when a jury acquits a defendant on multiple counts but fails to reach a verdict on other counts that share a common element, and, after a complete review of the record, the court of appeals determines that the only rational basis for the acquittals is that an essential element of the hung counts was determined in the defendant’s favor, collateral estoppel bars a retrial on the hung counts.

In November 2004, the government indicted F. Scott Yeager, Joseph Hirko, and Rex Shelby (“defendants”) on numerous counts of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud, insider trading, and money laundering. See United States v. Scott Yeager, 521 F.3d 367, 369 (5th Cir.

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