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Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46 (1991)
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General SummaryThis case is from a collection containing the full text of over 16,000 Supreme Court cases from 1793 to the present. The body of Supreme Court decisions are, effectively, the final interpretation of the Constitution. Only an amendment to the Constitution can permanently overturn an interpretation and this has happened only four times in American history.
Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46 (1991)
Griffin v. United States No. 90-6352 Argued Oct. 7, 1991 Decided Dec. 3, 1991 502 U.S. 46
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
Syllabus
Petitioner Griffin and others were charged in a multiple-object conspiracy. The evidence introduced at trial implicated Griffin in the first object of the conspiracy, but not the second. The District Court nevertheless instructed the jury in a manner that would permit it to return a verdict against Griffin if it found her to have participated in either one of the two objects. The jury returned a general verdict of guilty. The Court of Appeals upheld Griffin’s conviction, rejecting the argument that the verdict could not stand because it left in doubt whether the jury had convicted her as to the first or the second object.
Held: Neither the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment nor this Court’s precedents require, in a federal prosecution, that a general guilty verdict on a multiple-object conspiracy be set aside if the evidence is inadequate to support conviction as to one of the objects. Pp. 49-60.
(a) The historical practice fails to support Griffin’s due process claim, since the rule of criminal procedure applied by the Court of Appeals was a settled feature of the common law. Pp. 49-51.
(b) The precedent governing this case is not Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298, which invalidated a general verdict when one of the possible bases of conviction was legally inadequate, but Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 420, which upheld a general verdict when one of the possible bases of conviction was supported by inadequate evidence. The line between Yates and Turner makes good sense: jurors are not generally equipped to determine whether a particular theory of conviction is contrary to law, but are well equipped to determine whether the theory is supported by the facts. Although it would generally be preferable to give an instruction removing from the jury’s consideration an alternative basis of liability that does not have adequate evidentiary support, the refusal to do so does not provide an independent basis for reversing an otherwise valid conviction. Pp. 51-60.
913 F.2d 337 (CA7 1990), affirmed.
SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and WHITE, STEVENS, O’CONNOR, KENNEDY, and SOUTER, JJ., joined. BLACKMUN, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 60. THOMAS, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
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Chicago: U.S. Supreme Court, "Syllabus," Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46 (1991) in 502 U.S. 46 502 U.S. 47. Original Sources, accessed November 25, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=VLVX52APWVI6HBP.
MLA: U.S. Supreme Court. "Syllabus." Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46 (1991), in 502 U.S. 46, page 502 U.S. 47. Original Sources. 25 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=VLVX52APWVI6HBP.
Harvard: U.S. Supreme Court, 'Syllabus' in Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46 (1991). cited in 1991, 502 U.S. 46, pp.502 U.S. 47. Original Sources, retrieved 25 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=VLVX52APWVI6HBP.
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