Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/107701/brogan-vs-united-states
Timestamp: 2020-06-03 13:38:37
Document Index: 108275490

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 13', '§ 1001', '§ 142', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 35', '§ 35', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 1001', '§ 100', '§ 2', '§ 1001', '§ 1001']

Brogan Vs United States - Citation 107701 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Brogan Vs. United States - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/107701
Decided On Dec-02-1997
Case Number 522 U.S. 398
Appellant Brogan
brogan v. united states - 522 u.s. 398 (1997) october term, 1997 syllabus brogan v. united states certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the second circuit no. 96-1579. argued december 2, 1997-decided january 26,1998 petitioner falsely answered "no" when federal agents asked him whether he had received any cash or gifts from a company whose employees were represented by the union in which he was an officer. he was indicted on federal bribery charges and for making a false statement within the jurisdiction of a federal agency in violation of 18 u. s. c. § 1001. a jury in the district court found him guilty. the second circuit affirmed, categorically rejecting his request to adopt the socalled "exculpatory no" doctrine, which excludes from.....
Brogan v. United States - 522 U.S. 398 (1997)
Held: There is no exception to § 1001 criminal liability for a false statement consisting merely of an "exculpatory no." Although many Court of Appeals decisions have embraced the "exculpatory no" doctrine, it is not supported by § 1001's plain language. By its terms, § 1001 covers "any" false statement-that is, a false statement "of whatever kind," United States v. Gonzales, 520 U. S. 1 , 5-including the use of the word "no" in response to a question. Petitioner's argument that § 1001 does not criminalize simple denials of guilt proceeds from two mistaken premises: that the statute criminalizes only those statements that "pervert governmental functions," and that simple denials of guilt do not do so. United States v. Gilliland, 312 U. S. 86 , 93, distinguished. His argument that a literal reading of § 1001 violates the "spirit" of the Fifth Amendment is rejected because the Fifth Amendment does not confer a privilege to lie. E. g., United States v. Apfelbaum, 445 U. S. 115 , 117. His final argument that the "exculpatory no" doctrine is necessary to eliminate the grave risk that § 1001 will be abused by overzealous prosecutors seeking to "pile on" offenses is not supported by the evidence and should, in any event, be addressed to Congress. Pp. 400-406.
96 F.3d 35 , affirmed.
By its terms, 18 U. S. C. § 1001 covers "any" false statement-that is, a false statement "of whatever kind," United States v. Gonzales, 520 U. S. 1 , 5 (1997) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The word "no" in response to a question assuredly makes a "statement," see, e. g., Webster's New International Dictionary 2461 (2d ed. 1950) (def.
Petitioner asks us, however, to depart from the literal text that Congress has enacted, and to approve the doctrine adopted by many Circuits which excludes from the scope of § 1001 the "exculpatory no." The central feature of this doctrine is that a simple denial of guilt does not come within the statute. See, e. g., Moser v. United States, 18 F.3d 469 , 473-474 (CA7 1994); United States v. Taylor, 907 F.2d 801 , 805 (CA8 1990); United States v. Equihua-Juarez, 851 F.2d 1222 , 1224 (CA9 1988); United States v. Cogdell, 844 F.2d 179 , 183 (CA4 1988); United States v. Tabor, 788 F.2d 714 , 717-719 (CAll 1986); United States v. Fitzgibbon, 619 F.2d 874 ,880-881 (CAlO 1980); United States v. Chevoor, 526 F.2d 178 , 183-184 (CA1 1975), cert. denied, 425 U. S. 935 (1976). There is considerable variation among the Circuits concerning, among other things, what degree of elaborated taletelling carries a statement beyond simple denial. See generally Annot., 102 A. L. R. Fed. 742 (1991). In the present case, however, the Second Circuit agreed with petitioner that his statement would constitute a "true 'exculpatory n[o]' as recognized in other circuits," 96 F. 3d, at 37, but aligned itself with the Fifth Circuit (one of whose panels had been the very first to embrace the "exculpatory no," see Paternostro v. United States, 311 F.2d 298 (CA5 1962)) in categorically rejecting the doctrine, see United States v. Rodriguez-Rios, 14 F.3d 1040 (CA5 1994) (en bane).
1 "The government need not show that because of the perjured testimony, the grand jury threw in the towel. ... Grand jurors ... are free to disbelieve a witness and persevere in an investigation without immunizing a perjurer." United States v. Abrams, 568 F.2d 411 , 421 (CA5), cert. denied, 437 U. S 903 (1978). See generally 70 C. J. S. Perjury § 13, pp. 260-261 (1987).
2 "Under the principle of ejusdem generis, when a general term follows a specific one, the general term should be understood as a reference to subjects akin to the one with specific enumeration." Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Train Dispatchers, 499 U. S. 117 , 129 (1991).
The second line of defense that petitioner invokes for the "exculpatory no" doctrine is inspired by the Fifth Amendment. He argues that a literal reading of § 1001 violates the "spirit" of the Fifth Amendment because it places a "cornered suspect" in the "cruel trilemma" of admitting guilt, remaining silent, or falsely denying guilt. Brief for Petitioner 11. This "trilemma" is wholly of the guilty suspect's own making, of course. An innocent person will not find himself in a similar quandary (as one commentator has put it, the innocent person lacks even a "lemma," Allen, The Simpson Affair, Reform of the Criminal Justice Process, and Magic Bullets, 67 U. Colo. L. Rev. 989, 1016 (1996)). And even the honest and contrite guilty person will not regard the third prong of the "trilemma" (the blatant lie) as an available option. The bon mot "cruel trilemma" first appeared in Justice Goldberg's opinion for the Court in Mur phy v. Waterfront Comm'n of N. Y. Harbor, 378 U. S. 52 (1964), where it was used to explain the importance of a suspect's Fifth Amendment right to remain silent when subpoenaed to testify in an official inquiry. Without that right, the opinion said, he would be exposed "to the cruel trilemma of self-accusation, perjury or contempt." Id., at 55. In order to validate the "exculpatory no," the elements of this "cruel trilemma" have now been altered-ratcheted up, as it were, so that the right to remain silent, which was the liberation from the original trilemma, is now itself a cruelty. We are not disposed to write into our law this species of compassion inflation.
felbaum, 445 U. S. 115 , 117 (1980). See also United States v. Wong, 431 U. S. 174 , 180 (1977); Bryson v. United States, 396 U. S. 64 , 72 (1969). Petitioner contends that silence is an "illusory" option because a suspect may fear that his silence will be used against him later, or may not even know that silence is an available option. Brief for Petitioner 1213. As to the former: It is well established that the fact that a person's silence can be used against him-either as substantive evidence of guilt or to impeach him if he takes the stand-does not exert a form of pressure that exonerates an otherwise unlawful lie. See United States v. Knox, 396 U. S. 77, 81-82 (1969). And as for the possibility that the person under investigation may be unaware of his right to remain silent: In the modern age of frequently dramatized "Miranda" warnings, that is implausible. Indeed, we found it implausible (or irrelevant) 30 years ago, unless the suspect was "in custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way," Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 , 445 (1966).
A brief word in response to the dissent's assertion that the Court may interpret a criminal statute more narrowly than it is written: Some of the cases it cites for that proposition represent instances in which the Court did not purport to be departing from a reasonable reading of the text, United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64 , 77-78 (1994); Williams v. United States, 458 U. S. 279 , 286-287 (1982). In the others, the Court applied what it thought to be a background interpretive principle of general application. Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600 , 619 (1994) (construing statute to contain common-law requirement of mens rea); Sorrells v. United States, 287 U. S. 435 , 446 (1932) (construing statute not to cover violations produced by entrapment); United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 610, 631 (1818) (construing statute not to apply extraterritorially to noncitizens). Also into this last category falls the dissent's correct assertion that the present statute does not "mak[e] it a crime for an undercover narcotics agent to make a false statement to a drug peddler." Post, at 419 (opinion of STEVENS, J.). Criminal prohibitions do not generally apply to reasonable enforcement actions by officers of the law. See, e. g., 2 P. Robinson, Criminal Law Defenses § 142(a), p. 121 (1984) ("Every American jurisdiction recognizes some form of law enforcement authority justification").
To be sure, some of this uncertainty would be eliminated, at our stage of judging, if we wrenched out of its context the principle quoted by the dissent from Sir Edward Coke, that "communis opinio is of good authoritie in law,"3 and if we applied that principle consistently to a consensus in the judgments of the courts of appeals. (Of course the courts of appeals themselves, and the district courts, would still be entirely at sea, until such time as a consensus would have developed.) But the dissent does not propose, and its author has not practiced, consistent application of the principle, see, e. g., Hubbard v. United States, 514 U. S. 695 , 713 (1995) (opinion of STEVENS, J.) ("We think the text of § 1001 forecloses any argument that we should simply ratify the body of cases adopting the judicial function exception"); Chapman v. United States, 500 U. S. 453 , 468 (1991) (STEVENS, J., dissenting) (disagreeing with the unanimous conclusions of the Courts of Appeals that interpreted the criminal statute at
3 Coke said this in reference not to statutory law but to the lex commu nis, which most of his illustrious treatise dealt with. 1 E. Coke, Institutes 186a (15th ed. 1794). As applied to that, of course, the statement is not only true but almost an iteration; it amounts to saying that the common law is the common law.
2 See, e. g., United States v. Stoffey, 279 F.2d 924 , 927 (CA7 1960) (defendant prosecuted for falsely denying, while effectively detained by agents, that he participated in illegal gambling; court concluded that "purpose of the agents was not to investigate or to obtain information, but to obtain admissions," and that "they were not thereafter diverted from their course by alleged false statements of defendant"); United States v. Dempsey, 740 F. Supp. 1299, 1306 (ND Ill. 1990) (after determining what charges would be brought against defendants, agents visited them "with the purpose of obtaining incriminating statements"; when the agents "received denials from certain defendants rather than admissions," Government brought § 1001 charges); see also United States v. Goldfine, 538 F.2d 815 , 820 (CA9 1976) (agents asked defendant had he made any out-of-state purchases, investigators already knew he had, he stated he had not; based on that false statement, defendant was prosecuted for violating § 1001).
3 Cf. United States v. Bush, 503 F.2d 813 , 815-819 (CA5 1974) (after statute of limitations ran on § 1001 charge for defendant Bush's first affidavit containing a false denial, IRS agents elicited a new affidavit, in which Bush made a new false denial; court held that "Bush cannot be prosecuted for making a statement to Internal Revenue Service agents when those agents aggressively sought such statement, when Bush's answer was essentially an exculpatory 'no' as to possible criminal activity, and when there is a high likelihood that Bush was under suspicion himself at the time the statement was taken and yet was in no way warned of this possibility").
It is doubtful Congress intended § 1001 to cast so large a net. First enacted in 1863 as part of the prohibition against filing fraudulent claims with the Government, the false statement statute was originally limited to statements that related to such filings. See Act of Mar. 2, 1863, ch. 67, 12 Stat. 696-697. In 1918, Congress broadened the prohibition to cover other false statements made "for the purpose and with the intent of cheating and swindling or defrauding the Government of the United States." Act of Oct. 23, 1918, ch. 194, § 35, 40 Stat. 1015-1016. But the statute, we held, remained limited to "cheating the Government out of property or money." United States v. Cohn, 270 U. S. 339 , 346 (1926).
"The restricted scope of the 1918 Act [as construed in Cohn] became a serious problem with the advent of the New Deal programs in the 1930's." United States v. Yermian, 468 U. S. 63 , 80 (1984) (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting). The new regulatory agencies relied heavily on self-reporting to assure compliance; if regulated entities could file false reports with impunity, significant Government interests would be subverted even though the Government would not be deprived of any property or money. See generally United States v. Gilliland, 312 U. S. 86 , 93-95 (1941). The Secretary of the Interior, in particular, expressed concern that "there were at present no statutes outlawing, for example, the presentation of false documents and statements to the Department of the Interior in connection with the shipment of 'hot oil,' or to the Public Works Administration in connection with the transaction of business with that agency." United States v. Yermian, 468 U. S., at 80 (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting).
In response to the Secretary's request, Congress amended the statute in 1934 to include the language that formed the basis for Brogan's prosecution. See Hubbard v. United States, 514 U. S. 695 , 707 (1995) ("We have repeatedly recognized that the 1934 Act was passed at the behest of 'the Secretary of the Interior to aid the enforcement of laws relating to the functions of the Department of the Interior.''') (quoting United States v. Gilliland, 312 U. S., at 93-94). Since 1934, the statute, the relevant part of which remains the same today,4 has prohibited the making of "any false or fraudulent statements or representations ... in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or of any corporation in which the United States of America is a stockholder." Act of June 18, 1934, ch. 587, § 35, 48 Stat. 996.
As the lower courts that developed the "exculpatory no" doctrine concluded, the foregoing history demonstrates that § 1001's "purpose was to protect the Government from the affirmative, aggressive and voluntary actions of persons who take the initiative; and to protect the Government from being the victim of some positive statement which has the tendency and effect of perverting normal and proper governmental activities and functions." Paternostro v. United States, 311 F.2d 298 , 302 (CA5 1962); accord, United States v. Stark, 131 F. Supp. 190, 205 (Md. 1955). True, "the 1934 amendment, which added the current statutory language, was not limited by any specific set of circumstances that may have precipitated its passage." United States v. Rodgers, 466 U. S. 475 , 480 (1984). Yet it is noteworthy that Congress enacted that amendment to address concerns quite far removed from suspects' false denials of criminal misconduct, in the course of informal interviews initiated by Government
Even if the encompassing language of § 1001 precludes judicial declaration of an "exculpatory no" defense, the core concern persists: "The function of law enforcement is the prevention of crime and the apprehension of criminals. Manifestly, that function does not include the manufacturing of crime." Sherman v. United States, 356 U. S. 369 , 372 (1958).5 The Government has not been blind to this concern. Notwithstanding the prosecution in this case and the others cited supra, at 410-411, and n. 2, the Department of Justice has long noted its reluctance to approve § 1001 indictments for simple false denials made to investigators. Indeed, the Government once asserted before this Court that the arguments supporting the "exculpatory no" doctrine "are forceful even if not necessarily dispositive." Memorandum for United States in Nunley v. United States, O. T. 1977, No. 77-5069, p. 7; see also id., at 7-8 (explaining that "[t]he legislative history affords no express indication that Congress meant Section 1001 to prohibit simple false denials of guilt to government officials having no regulatory responsibilities other than the discovery and deterrence of crime").
The Court's opinion does not instruct lower courts automatically to sanction prosecution or conviction under § 1001 in all instances of false denials made to criminal investigators. The Second Circuit, whose judgment the Court affirms, noted some reservations. That court left open the question whether "to violate Section 1001, a person must know that it is unlawful to make such a false statement." United States v. Wiener, 96 F.3d 35 , 40 (1996). And nothing that court or this Court said suggests that "the mere denial of criminal responsibility would be sufficient to prove such [knowledge]." Ibid. Moreover, "a trier of fact might acquit on the ground that a denial of guilt in circumstances indicating surprise or other lack of reflection was not the product of the requisite criminal intent," ibid., and a jury could be instructed that it would be permissible to draw such an inference. Finally, under the statute currently in force, a false statement must be "materia[l]" to violate § 100l. See False Statements Accountability Act of 1996, Pub. L. 104-292, § 2, 110 Stat. 3459.
The matter received initial congressional consideration some years ago. Legislation to revise and recodify the federal criminal laws, reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1981 but never enacted, would have established a "defense to a prosecution for an oral false statement to a law enforcement officer" if "the statement was made 'during the course of an investigation of an offense or a possible offense and the statement consisted of a denial, unaccompanied by any other false statement, that the declarant committed or participated in the commission of such offense.'" S. Rep. No. 97-307, p. 407 (1981). In common with the "exculpatory no" doctrine as it developed in the lower courts, this 1981 proposal would have made the defense "available only when the false statement consists solely of a denial of involvement in a crime." Ibid. It would not have protected a denial "if accompanied by any other false statement (e. g., the assertion of an alibi)." Ibid. s
8See, e. g., United States v. Moore, 27 F.3d 969 , 979 (CA4 1994) ("exculpatory no" doctrine covers simple denials of criminal acts, but "does not extend to misleading exculpatory stories or affirmative statements ... that divert the government in its investigation of criminal activity").
The mere fact that a false denial fits within the unqualified language of 18 U. S. C. § 1001 is not, in my opinion, a sufficient reason for rejecting a well-settled interpretation of that statute. It is not at all unusual for this Court to conclude that the literal text of a criminal statute is broader than the coverage intended by Congress. See, e. g., Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600 , 605, 619 (1994); United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64 , 68-69 (1994) (departing from "most natural grammatical reading" of statute because of "anomalies which result from this construction," and presumptions with respect to scienter in criminal statutes and avoiding constitutional questions); id., at 81 (SCALIA, J., dissenting) (stating that lower court interpretation of statute rejected by the Court was "quite obviously the only grammatical reading"); Williams v. United States, 458 U. S. 279 , 286 (1982) (holding that statute prohibiting the making of false statements to a bank was inapplicable to depositing of a "bad check" because "the Government's interpretation ... would make a surprisingly broad range of unremarkable conduct a violation of federal law"); Sorrells v. United States, 287 U. S. 435 , 448 (1932) ("We are unable to conclude that it was the intention of the Congress in enacting [a Prohibition Act] statute that its processes of detection and enforcement should be abused by the instigation by government officials of an act on the part of persons otherwise innocent in order to lure them to its commission and to punish them"); United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 610, 631 (1818) (opinion of Marshall, C. J.) (holding that although "words 'any person or persons,' [in maritime robbery statute] are broad enough to comprehend every human being[,] ... general words must not only be limited to cases within the jurisdiction of the state, but also to those objects to which the legislature intended to apply them"). Although the text of § 1001, read literally, makes it a crime for an undercover narcotics agent to make a false statement to a drug peddler, I am confident
Even if that were not clear, I believe the Court should show greater respect for the virtually uniform understanding of the bench and the bar that persisted for decades with, as JUSTICE GINSBURG notes, ante, at 414-415, the approval of this Court as well as the Department of Justice.2 See Central Bank of Denver, N. A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. A., 511 U. S. 164 , 192-198 (1994) (STEVENS, J., dissenting); McNally v. United States, 483 U. S. 350 , 362-364, 376 (1987) (STEVENS, J., dissenting).3 Or, as Sir Edward Coke phrased it, "it is the common opinion, and communis