Yeager v. United States

Yeager (defendant), a former Enron executive, was charged with 126 counts spanning fraud and insider-trading offenses after making allegedly misleading statements that inflated Enron stock, which he then sold for millions in profit before the underlying business proved to be a sham. The jury acquitted him on the fraud counts but hung on the insider-trading counts; the court entered judgment on the acquittals and declared a mistrial on the hung counts. The government then recharged him on some insider-trading counts, and Yeager moved to dismiss, arguing the fraud acquittals — which necessarily required the jury to find he lacked inside information — precluded retrying him on counts sharing that same element. The court of appeals considered the hung counts alongside the acquittals and concluded it couldn't tell with certainty what the jury had actually decided.

Whether a jury's hung counts have any place in issue-preclusion analysis.