No. of Recommendations: 8
With that in mind, it seems how can a jury not be required to reach consensus on "the" crime or crimes which resulted in the prosecution in the first place.
I'll give you an example:
Bob breaks into his ex-girlfriend's apartment one night. She's home, and scares him off with a loaded gun. Bob is charged with burglary, which is defined as the "unlawful breaking and entering into the dwelling place of another at night with intent to commit a crime therein." Bob was observed earlier in a bar saying he was going to break into his girlfriend's apartment and either steal all her stuff or maybe rough her up a bit - he'll see what he felt like.
We get to trial, and the defense tries to claim that the prosecution needs to prove - and get unanimity on - which of those two felonies Bob intended to commit. There's no dispute that he intended to commit a crime - but does the prosecution need to get the jurors to agree which of those two crimes was the one he intended to commit? The answer is no. As long as they're unanimous in finding that he intended to commit a crime, it doesn't matter that some of them thought the intended crime was robbery and the others thought it was aggravated assault.
This is apparently not all that uncommon, and happens a lot with conspiracy cases, apparently, where there's no doubt that a defendant entered into agreements with various people to commit crimes, but it's not entirely clear whether he agreed to join the criminal gang in a conversation with A or B or C or whomever, or which specific crimes he agreed to commit. The jury just needs to unanimously conclude that the agreement was reached, but not necessarily on the details of which specific other member of the conspiracy he actually said 'yes' to or which of the gang's crimes he agreed (or did not agree) to participate in.
They only need agree that an element of the crime was proven, not unanimity on how that element was met. If Bob threatens his ex-girlfriend with a weapon, and the jury is not certain whether what he threatened her with was a knife or a gun, it doesn't matter - they have unanimously agreed that he threatened her with a deadly weapon, so it's aggravated rather than simple assault. The same is true here.
I recall you said this "no-need-for-consensus feature" of NY Law has been upheld on appeal, but has this issue ever been upheld by SCOTUS?
I don't believe so. If there was a Supreme Court case on point, one of the parties certainly would have cited to it, and Marchan certainly would have followed it.
