Seventh Circuit Criminal Case of the Week: What If the Defendant Thought He Was Breaking the Wrong Law?

seventh-circuit2When Doli Pulungan attempted to export 100 military-grade riflescopes to Indonesia in 2007, he knew he was breaking the law.  He was just wrong about which law.  His clients told him there was a ban on military exports to Indonesia, but the ban actually expired in 2005.  Instead, Pulungan violated a different law that requires a license in order to export “defense articles.”  Thus, his elaborate ruse of shipping through Saudi Arabia in order to evade the nonexistent Indonesia embargo did him no good.  A jury ultimately convicted him of “willfully” attempting to violate the export license law, and a judge sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment.

But was his violation truly “willful”?  On appeal, the government conceded that “willfully” means “with knowledge that a license is required,” but argued that the evidence established Pulungan had this knowledge.  The government relied chiefly on Pulungan’s dishonesty with business associates about what he intended to do with the riflescopes and his intent to violate the nonexistent embargo.  But Pulungan’s dishonesty is readily explained by his belief that he was violating the wrong law.  Thus, as the Seventh Circuit saw it in United States v. Pulungan (No. 08-3000), the government was really invoking the doctrine of transferred intent: “As the prosecutor sees things, an intent to violate one law is as good as the intent to violate any other.”  The court, per Chief Judge Easterbrook, was unmoved by this use of the transferred intent doctrine and overturned Pulungan’s conviction. 

Continue ReadingSeventh Circuit Criminal Case of the Week: What If the Defendant Thought He Was Breaking the Wrong Law?

Why We Fight

united_we_win31I often wonder why it is that some people disagree with my political views.  My logic is unassailable, the breadth of my historical knowledge is unmatched, my moral foundation cannot be questioned, and I am far more charming and better looking than my opponents.  Why don’t they agree with me?

My summer project was to seek an answer to this mystery.  I chose three books to read that I thought would provide some insight into the ideological fault lines that seem to run through every facet of our daily lives (and indeed seem to run through this very blog).  What follows are the lessons that I have learned.  I suppose other readers might draw different lessons.  My recommendation is that you read these books for yourself.

My first goal was to understand why the “big government” charge persistently leveled by Republicans against the Obama Administration seems to resonate with some people, but not with others.  Some clues are provided by Gary Wills in A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government.  Writing some ten years ago, Wills documents the origin and growth of the arguments against “big government” and in favor of individualism and local control over the course of our nation’s history.  Over time, he argues, these disparate strands of thought have coalesced into a more general anti-government creed.  The specifics of this creed – the belief that amateur, local and voluntary conduct creates greater public well being than professional, centralized, and mandatory regulation — resembles the political philosophy currently espoused by many of President Obama’s critics.

Continue ReadingWhy We Fight

Thoughts on Yeager: Role of Appellate Judges, Special Verdict Forms, and the Significance of a Hung Jury

enronLast week, in Yeager v. United States, the Supreme Court resolved a longstanding tension between two aspects of Double Jeopardy law: the collateral estoppel doctrine, which precludes relitigation of issues previously found in the defendant’s favor, and the hung jury rule, which permits relitigation of charges as to which a jury cannot reach agreement.

Yeager, an Enron employee, was charged with multiple counts of fraud and insider trading.  The counts were factually linked: Yeager’s alleged fraud was that he knowingly participated in making false statements to investors regarding the performance of a new Enron project, while his alleged insider information was his knowledge that the project was not actually going so well.  At trial, the jury acquitted Yeager of fraud, but hung on insider trading.  A long line of Supreme Court cases permits retrial when the jury hangs, and the government indeed sought to take advantage of this Double Jeopardy exception by recharging Yeager with insider trading.

Yeager nonetheless presented a Double Jeopardy defense, invoking the collateral estoppel rule of Ashe v. Swenson.  In Yeager’s view, the first jury necessarily determined that the government failed to prove he knew the falsity of the statements made to investors.  If he did not know about the gap between what investors were told and the actual state of affairs, then the government’s insider trading theory would collapse.  In the government’s view, however, the first jury might have acquitted instead based on doubt about whether Yeager actually participated in making the false statements; uncertainty about what the jury actually decided in its acquittal would preclude application of Ashe.  The district court agreed with the government’s view, but the Fifth Circuit reversed.  The Supreme Court then affirmed, holding that application of the collateral estoppel doctrine was not affected by the seeming inconsistency in the jury’s treatment of the fraud and insider trading counts.

Besides its holding, three aspects of Yeager strike me as worthy of note. 

Continue ReadingThoughts on Yeager: Role of Appellate Judges, Special Verdict Forms, and the Significance of a Hung Jury