Partial Verdict¶
A federal criminal jury's unanimous return for agreed defendants or counts while other defendants or counts remain unresolved.
Core Idea¶
In a federal criminal jury trial, the jury may return a verdict for a defendant it has agreed on while deliberating about other defendants. If it cannot agree on all counts for a defendant, it may return verdicts on the counts it has agreed on. Either is a partial verdict because a distinct defendant or count remains unresolved. The returned verdict must be unanimous and given to the judge in open court.[^ref-cb5f9915e6b3]
An unresolved count may be mistried and retried under Rule 31(b)(3). A poll can expose a lack of unanimity in a purported verdict; the court may then direct further deliberation or declare a mistrial instead of accepting that result.[^ref-cb5f9915e6b3]
Use Within the Domain¶
Rule 31(b)(1) separates defendants. In United States v. Geffrard, the court received not-guilty verdicts for two of four defendants and the jury continued deliberating on the other two.[^ref-d700166670e0] Rule 31(b)(2) separates counts. In the Holy Land Foundation first trial, the court accepted El-Mezain's acquittals on counts other than count 1 after a poll confirmed unanimity and mistried count 1. Earlier reported acquittals for two other defendants failed the poll and were not accepted.[^ref-651e57016cac]
This entry is limited to the federal criminal jury rule. A civil trial may have a different partial-result procedure, but Rule 31 does not establish it.[^ref-cb5f9915e6b3]
Clarity¶
Ask which defendant or count has actually been returned as a unanimous verdict, and which remains open. A jury-room note or an initial announced result is not automatically an accepted verdict. Polling in the Holy Land Foundation case shows why the difference matters.[ref-cb5f9915e6b3][ref-651e57016cac]
Manages Complexity¶
A trial with several defendants and counts need not be recorded as one all-or-nothing jury result. The rule lets a court distinguish agreed, returned units from units still under deliberation or mistrial. That distinction does not make an invalid or nonunanimous announcement valid.[ref-cb5f9915e6b3][ref-651e57016cac]
Abstract Reasoning¶
First identify the unit: a whole defendant under Rule 31(b)(1), or a count under Rule 31(b)(2). Then check unanimity and open-court return, and name the unresolved remainder. If every unit has been decided, the verdict is complete. If no unit has been agreed on, there is no partial verdict to return.[^ref-cb5f9915e6b3]
Timing is a separate check. In United States v. Moore, the appellate court vacated an affected conviction after the trial court solicited a partial verdict before the jury had indicated impasse. That case illustrates a risk from premature court intervention; it does not say every partial verdict is improper.[^ref-c19bf748d19c]
Knowledge Transfer¶
The same tracing method works for defendant-level and count-level returns: mark the agreed unit, the valid return, and the unresolved remainder. Their legal units and Rule 31 subsections differ. The method does not transfer this federal criminal rule into civil procedure or settle every case's later consequences.[^ref-cb5f9915e6b3]
Example¶
In Geffrard, a four-defendant jury reported that it had reached verdicts for two defendants. The judge received their acquittals and discharged them; deliberation continued for Geffrard and Landry. Here, the two acquitted defendants are the returned units, and the two others are the unresolved remainder. The judge's receipt under Rule 31(b) makes this a defendant-level partial verdict.[^ref-d700166670e0]
Relationships to Other Abstractions¶
Current abstraction Partial Verdict Domain-specific
Parents (1) — more general patterns this builds on
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Partial Verdict presupposes Legal Procedure Domain-specific
A Rule 31 partial verdict presupposes an authorized legal procedure for jury deliberation, verdict return and validity checks.
Hierarchy path (1) — routes to 1 parentless root
- Partial Verdict → Legal Procedure
Neighborhood in Abstraction Space¶
Partial Verdict sits in a sparse region of the domain-specific corpus (99th percentile for distinctiveness): few abstractions share its structure, so a faithful description tends to retrieve it precisely.
Family — Unclustered & Miscellaneous (2721 abstractions)
Nearest neighbors
- Non Bis in Idem — 0.76
- Harmless Error — 0.75
- Totality Principle — 0.75
- Trial penalty — 0.74
- Principle of legality in criminal law — 0.74
Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-10-17
Not to Be Confused With¶
- Complete verdict: all stated defendants and counts have been resolved.[^ref-cb5f9915e6b3]
- Tentative or nonunanimous announcement: it may fail the return or polling requirements.[ref-cb5f9915e6b3][ref-651e57016cac]
- Automatic judicial solicitation: permission to return a partial verdict does not make every early request proper.[^ref-c19bf748d19c]
- Civil partial judgment: a separate legal procedure, outside Federal Criminal Rule 31.
References¶
[^ref-cb5f9915e6b3]: U.S. Courts, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, amended through December 1, 2025, Rule 31(a), (b)(1)–(3), (d), PDF p. 59, printed p. 41. Full official text inspected. This rule supports federal criminal jury returns, count/defendant separation, mistrial/retrial of undecided counts, and polling; it does not establish civil procedure or blanket finality consequences.
[^ref-d700166670e0]: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, United States v. Geffrard, 87 F.3d 448 (1996), “The Jury Issue,” paragraph 8. Full original opinion text inspected in a third-party archival reproduction, not an official-hosted PDF. It records the accepted acquittals for two defendants and continued deliberation on the other two.
[^ref-651e57016cac]: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, United States v. El-Mezain et al. (Holy Land Foundation), No. 09-10560 and consolidated appeals, revised January 13, 2012, PDF pp. 135–136. Full original official opinion inspected. The second poll confirmed El-Mezain acquittals except count 1; earlier reported acquittals for Abdulqader and Odeh were not accepted after disagreement appeared.
[^ref-c19bf748d19c]: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, United States v. Moore, No. 13-2905 (August 19, 2014), PDF pp. 19–23 and 26. Full original official opinion inspected. It recognizes Rule 31(b)(2) while holding that premature judicial solicitation before indicated impasse required vacatur of the affected Count Two conviction; the unaffected Count Three remained in place.