William C. Canby, Jr.

“ He says, “I run everything past the moms.” And they don't get any bigger than Mom [Croft] and Mom [Hagan] .
Croft and Hagan, however, failed to object to this argument. In addition, the district court attempted to confine the government witnesses' bad act testimony to their own actions. There was no testimony directly attributing the disputed bad acts to Croft or Hagan. The district court also instructed the jury after each witness and in final instructions that it could not consider the crimes confessed by the government's witnesses in determining Croft's and Hagan's guilt. ”

“ The prosecution attempted without success to extradite her to face charges on the Turner conspiracy.
Croft and Hagan wanted Stork to testify on their behalf, but she refused to come to the United States unless she was granted transactional immunity for her testimony. The government would grant no such immunity. Croft and Hagan moved the court to compel the government to grant such immunity (or, alternatively, to dismiss the indictment) on the ground that the denial of immunity distorted the fact-finding process. ”

“ Croft and Hagan argue that the district court should have dismissed the indictment because it alleged objects of the conspiracy that did not constitute federal offenses. Count I of the indictment alleged a conspiracy to murder a federal official and was entitled “Conspiracy to Murder the United States Attorney.” Paragraph 14 of that Count, however, stated that “ [a] mong the enemies of the commune targeted to be murdered were Mr. Turner and Swami Devaraj ... Bhagwan's personal physician.” Devaraj is not a federal official; conspiring to kill him, therefore, is not a federal offense. ”

“ Croft was second-in-command of the community and the head of its financial department. Hagan was in charge of construction, heavy equipment, and the community's security force. Four of the five government witnesses-all of whom were indicted or unindicted co-conspirators-also held important positions in the community: David Knapp was the community's mayor; Richard Langford was the security force's weapons expert; Ava Avalos managed Rajneesh's correspondence and assisted Croft; and Alma Peralta was Sheela's aide-de-camp. ”

“ Croft and Hagan asked the district court to instruct the jury that, to be guilty of conspiracy, they had specifically to intend to kill Turner with both premeditation and malice aforethought. The district court rejected their proposed instruction, and instructed the jury on intent as follows:
[T] he United States Code provides in pertinent part that murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought ... ”

“ Late in its first day of deliberations, the jury submitted a note to the district court stating that “ [a] t this point we are divided and worn out with discussion.” The district court declined to comment. Shortly after 2:00 p.m. the next day, the jury submitted a note stating that it had reached a verdict as to one defendant but was deadlocked as to the other. The district court then read to the jury the following instruction:
[I] t is your duty as jurors to consult with one another and to deliberate with the view of reaching an agreement.... ”

“ Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 43 F.3d 1311, 1315 (9th Cir.) , cert. denied, 516 U.S. 869, 116 S.Ct. 189, 133 L.Ed.2d 126 (1995) .↑ We have recently held that the Supreme Court's decision in Daubert did overrule Brown's per se prohibition against unstipulated polygraph evidence. United States v. ”