Yeager v. United States
557 U.S. 110 (2009)
Premium Feature
Subscribe to Lexplug to listen to the Case Podcast.
Rule of Law:
Under the issue-preclusion component of the Double Jeopardy Clause, a jury's verdict of acquittal on some counts is a final judgment that must be analyzed on its own terms. A jury’s inability to reach a verdict on other counts (a hung jury) is a legal 'nonevent' that has no bearing on and cannot be used to undermine the preclusive effect of the acquittals.
Facts:
- F. Scott Yeager was a Senior Vice President at Enron Broadband Services (EBS), a subsidiary of Enron Corporation.
- In 1999 and 2000, Enron and EBS executives, including Yeager, allegedly made false and misleading public statements about a new fiber-optic network called the Enron Intelligent Network (EIN) to inflate Enron's stock price.
- Following an analyst conference on January 20, 2000, where allegedly false statements were made, Enron's stock price rose dramatically.
- In the days and months following the conference, Yeager sold over 700,000 shares of Enron stock, generating over $54 million in proceeds.
- The EIN project was ultimately revealed to be technologically troubled and its value illusory, and Enron later filed for bankruptcy.
Procedural Posture:
- A grand jury returned an indictment charging F. Scott Yeager with numerous counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading, and money laundering.
- Following a 13-week trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the jury acquitted Yeager on the fraud counts but failed to reach a verdict on the insider trading and money laundering counts.
- The district court entered a judgment of acquittal on the fraud counts and declared a mistrial on the 'hung' counts.
- The Government obtained a new indictment to retry Yeager on the insider trading counts.
- Yeager filed a motion to dismiss the new indictment, arguing that retrial was barred by the issue-preclusion component of the Double Jeopardy Clause.
- The District Court denied the motion to dismiss.
- On interlocutory appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the denial, holding that the hung counts created uncertainty about what the jury necessarily decided, thus barring the application of issue preclusion.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a circuit split on the issue.
Premium Content
Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief
You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture
Issue:
Does a jury's failure to reach a verdict on some counts negate the issue-preclusive effect of an acquittal on other, factually related counts for the purpose of a retrial under the Double Jeopardy Clause?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Stevens
No. A jury's failure to reach a verdict on some counts does not negate the issue-preclusive effect of an acquittal on other counts. The issue-preclusion analysis under Ashe v. Swenson requires a court to decide what a jury necessarily determined in its verdict of acquittal, and a hung count is not a relevant part of the record for this inquiry. A hung count is a nonevent because there is no way to decipher what it represents; it could be the result of disagreement, confusion, or exhaustion, and to ascribe meaning to it is mere guesswork. The finality of an acquittal is unassailable, and courts must scrutinize a jury's decisions, not its failures to decide, to determine what issues of ultimate fact were resolved in the defendant's favor.
Concurring - Justice Kennedy
No. While the majority is correct that hung counts are irrelevant to the issue-preclusion analysis, the Court of Appeals should be required, not merely permitted, to reexamine on remand whether the acquittals in this case actually met the demanding standard for issue preclusion. There is a serious question as to whether a rational jury must have necessarily decided the 'insider information' issue in Yeager's favor, as it could have acquitted on the fraud counts on the separate basis that Yeager did not cause the misleading statements to be made. The Ashe inquiry must be applied rigorously to determine if the factual predicate for preclusion exists.
Dissenting - Justice Scalia
Yes. The Court's holding improperly extends Ashe v. Swenson to apply issue preclusion within a single, ongoing prosecution. Under the 'continuing jeopardy' principle, a retrial on hung counts is not a new proceeding but a continuation of the original one, which has not yet terminated. Therefore, the Double Jeopardy Clause and its issue-preclusion component are not triggered until the proceedings against the accused have run their full course. Just as an inconsistent conviction and acquittal from the same jury are allowed to stand, a perceived inconsistency between an acquittal and a hung count should not bar the government from completing its one full and fair opportunity to convict on the hung charges.
Dissenting - Justice Alito
Yes. The Double Jeopardy Clause does not preclude retrial on the hung counts. However, even accepting the majority's new rule, it is imperative that the demanding standard from Ashe v. Swenson be applied with rigor. A second trial is precluded only if it would have been irrational for the jury to acquit on the first charge without finding in the defendant's favor on a factual issue essential to the second charge. In this case, it is far from apparent that the jury's acquittal on the fraud counts rationally required a finding that Yeager lacked insider information, as the jury could have simply found he did not 'cause' the fraudulent statements, an element not required for the insider trading counts.
Analysis:
This case clarifies the scope of the issue-preclusion doctrine under the Double Jeopardy Clause in the context of mixed jury outcomes. By deeming hung counts a 'nonevent,' the Court insulates acquittals from being undermined by speculation about jury irrationality or compromise, strengthening the finality of a not-guilty verdict. This decision provides a clear directive to lower courts: analyze the preclusive effect of an acquittal based solely on the record related to that verdict, without considering the jury's failure to decide other counts. It prevents prosecutors from using the ambiguity of a hung jury to relitigate issues that a defendant has already won.
