Maurice McLain v. United States
FifthAmendment DueProcess Privacy
Whether the Double Jeopardy Clause and plea agreement were violated by a second prosecution,whether the verdict conflicts with physical evidence and relies on uncorroborated testimony,whether the jury verdict form failed to require unanimous agreement on racketeering acts
QUESTIONS PRESENTED L Whether the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ opinion conflicts with this Court’s decisions in Rutledge v. United States, 517 U.S. 292 (1996), Currier v. Virginia, 585 U.S.___ (2018), and Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 262 (1971), because the court of appeals ruled that petitioner Maurice McLain could be prosecuted a second time in this federal RICO case for a nonfatal shooting for which he was already serving a ten-year federal imprisonment sentence, in violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause and his plea agreement with the United States. I. Whether the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ opinion conflicts with this Court’s decision in Tibbs v. Florida, 457 U.S. 31, 42-43 (1982), and, inferentially, with Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488-489 (1962), because the court of appeals upheld a jury verdict that conflicts with the physical and forensic evidence in this case and that was substantially predicated upon a single cooperator’s testimony whose sentence was greatly reduced by the government and the district court in consideration of his testimony. If a defendant’s uncorroborated confession is insufficient to sustain a conviction, how much less sustainable is a conviction based on a single cooperator’s “testimony” that conflicts with the undisputed physical and forensic evidence? Il. Whether the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ opinion overlooks and inferentially conflicts with this Court’s decision in Richardson v. United States, 526 U.S. 838 (1999), because the opinion sustains the RICO conviction here where the i verdict form failed to require the jury to agree unanimously regarding the acts of racketeering activity to which petitioner Maurice McLain consented. ii