## Facts

- Powell was indicted on federal narcotics charges, including conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute and possession with intent to distribute.
- She was also charged with three “compound” offenses for using a telephone to commit, cause, and facilitate the alleged drug felonies, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 843(b).
- The prosecution relied in part on intercepted telephone conversations suggesting involvement in drug distribution and collection of drug proceeds.
- The jury returned mixed verdicts: it acquitted Powell of the conspiracy and possession counts, but convicted her on three § 843(b) telephone-facilitation counts tied to those same predicate offenses.
- Powell’s convictions thus rested on a jury finding that she facilitated drug felonies for which the jury simultaneously acquitted her.

## Issues

1. Whether a conviction for a compound offense under 21 U.S.C. § 843(b) must be vacated as a matter of law when the jury acquits the defendant of the predicate drug felony.
2. Whether inconsistent jury verdicts are reviewable at the defendant’s request to set aside the conviction.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the court of appeals and reinstated Powell’s § 843(b) convictions.
- The Court held that a defendant may not obtain reversal of a conviction solely because it is inconsistent with an acquittal on another count, including an acquittal on the predicate offense for a compound offense.
- The Court rejected a special exception for § 843(b) facilitation counts based on acquittals on the alleged underlying felonies.
- The Court stated that protection against irrational convictions comes from ordinary sufficiency-of-the-evidence review, not from judicial examination of verdict consistency.
- Applying the usual sufficiency standard, the Court concluded the evidence supported the § 843(b) convictions.

## Legal Principles

- Inconsistent verdicts do not provide a basis to set aside a conviction at the defendant’s request, even when the conviction is for a compound offense and the acquittal is for the predicate offense.
- An acquittal does not necessarily reflect a jury finding of evidentiary insufficiency; it may result from mistake, compromise, or lenity, and courts should not speculate about the jury’s reasoning.
- Because the government generally cannot appeal an acquittal, allowing defendants to overturn convictions based on inconsistency would create an asymmetric and destabilizing form of review.
- The proper judicial check on a conviction is independent review for sufficiency of the evidence supporting the conviction, assessed without treating an inconsistent acquittal as controlling.

## Conclusion

The Court held that logically inconsistent verdicts—such as acquitting a defendant of a predicate drug felony while convicting on related telephone-facilitation counts—do not require reversal; courts instead evaluate whether the conviction is supported by sufficient evidence under the ordinary standard.


United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57 (1984)