United States v. Williams-Clark

Williams (see below) presents the issue of whether the findings were ambiguous or if there is a general verdict that can be confirmed. The military judge convicted Williams of one rape (V1), one sexual assault without consent (V-2), but not of guilty of one sexual assault due to incapacity (V-2).

ACCA finds that the sexual assault on V-2 is fatally ambiguous.

We have two competing doctrines.
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The General Verdict Rule lets an appeals court uphold a conviction even when the factfinder could have reached guilt via multiple routes, as long as the evidence supports at least one of those routes beyond a reasonable doubt. The factfinder doesn't need to explain its reasoning — "guilty is guilty."

The Fatally Ambiguous Verdict Rule says the opposite: when the court convicts on one theory but acquits on another, and both theories arise from the same facts, the appeals court cannot safely affirm.

Why the Ambiguity?

The court identifies multiple scenarios the military judge could have had in mind — and cannot rule any of them out:

1. She convicted based on the first sexual act (victim awake and objecting) and acquitted on the second because the victim was asleep — a theory the CAAF later validated in Mendoza,
2. She convicted based on the second sexual act and acquitted on the first,
3. She treated both acts as a single continuing transaction and entered a general guilty finding, acquitting on the parallel specification to avoid a multiplicity problem — inadvertently creating a double jeopardy problem instead;
4. She was satisfied either act sufficed and entered what she believed was a general verdict.

Because ACCA cannot know, it cannot conduct the factual sufficiency review required by Article 66, UCMJ. Affirming the conviction risks endorsing a finding of guilt for the very act the military judge found Williams-Clark not guilty of committing.

"Underpinning this ambiguity is the fact that the government itself has vacillated on its theory of the case." Slip op. at 8.

At trial, the prosecution charged two distinct sexual acts but then argued both formed a single continuing transaction, urging the court to consider both specifications together. That argument was questionable on its face: both parties left the room, pursued other activities, and returned separately — a clear break in time and intent.

On appeal, the government pivoted.

Then, at oral argument, the government reversed again.

The government deliberately charged two instances of sexual assault and deliberately presented evidence of two distinct sexual acts, but the trial counsel argued that both sexual acts amounted to a single, continuing transaction, notwithstanding that both participants got up, left the room, and pursued other activities before separately returning to the room.12 On appeal, the government initially argued both that they were charged in the alternative and that only one sexual act -the first one -was legally sufficient to sustain the conviction under Mendoza. Then the government changed course again at oral argument, arguing that either sexual act could now be sufficient under both Mendoza and Moore, relying on the general verdict rule to sustain the conviction. Appellant has a constitutional right "to know what offense and under what legal theory he will be tried and convicted." Mendoza, 85 M.J. at 220 (quoting United States v. Riggins, 75 M.J. 78, 83 (C.A.A.F. 2016)). Even acknowledging the shifting appellate landscape in the time since appellant's trial, if the government cannot consistently maintain the theory under which it seeks to convict appellant, we question how the appellant possibly could know.

Basically, the court holds that Walters and Wilson — not Brown and Nicola — control here. The critical distinction is that this case involves not just multiple acts but also a parallel acquittal on a specification arising from the same facts.

Brown and Nicola were involved in multiple possible means of committing a single charged offense. Here, the government charged two separate offenses, presented evidence of two distinct acts, and the military judge returned both a guilty and a not guilty finding. That mirrors Walters and Wilson precisely. The court sees no meaningful difference between excepting "divers occasions" language (as in Walters) and acquitting on a parallel specification covering the same factual ground.

Because the one finding is dismissed, two years of the Appellant's seven-year sentence is set aside on sentence reassessment.

Another example of confusion arising when capacity or incapacity to consent is at issue under the current Article 120.

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