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En Banc Court to Revisit Construction of Federal Conspiracy Statute

By Candace Hom, Melinda Ghilardi, Nancy Rimmer, Sarah Gannett, Renee Pietropaolo and Tieffa Harper

On the government?s request, the Circuit has ordered en banc review of the decision in US v. Rigas, No. 08-3218 (Oct. 21, 2009) (original Third Circuit Blog post here). The order granting review, filed January 13, directs that the sole issue is "whether the two clauses in 18 U.S.C. § 371 ? the ?offense? clause and the ?defraud? clause ? constitute separate offenses under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution." (More fully, the statute begins: "If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States....")The issue split the original panel. In an opinion by Judge Fuentes, the majority held that the conspiracy statute creates a single statutory offense, while Judge Rendell, in dissent, construed the statute to create distinct ones...continue to full post

Full post as published by Third Circuit Blog on January 14, 2010 (boomark / email).