In United States v. Sproat, --- F.4th ---, No. 22-10249 (9th Cir 2023), the Court affirmed Robert Sproat’s securities fraud conviction in a case in which Sproat argued that the district court improperly coerced the jurors into reaching a unanimous guilty verdict by sending them home at 4:30 p.m. with the instruction to return the next day.
When a defendant “offer[s] facts that fairly support an inference that jurors who did not agree with the majority felt pressure from the court to give up their conscientiously held beliefs in order to secure a verdict,” the court “must proceed to the Allen charge analysis.” Defendant has not offered such facts here. Telling the jurors to return the next day neither explicitly nor implicitly encouraged them to reach a unanimous verdict.
