Opinion ID: 201790
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Validity of Government's Theories of Conviction

Text: 40 The statute under which Richardson was convicted, 18 U.S.C. § 1623(a), prohibits a grand jury witness from knowingly mak[ing] any false material declaration under oath during the colloquy. Richardson does not dispute that she testified under oath before the grand jury, nor that her allegedly false statements were material to the grand jury investigation. Rather, she argues that the government's theories of perjury are contrary to law because her statements are either literally true or were made in response to fundamentally ambiguous questions. In either case, Richardson argues, she could not have made statements with the knowledge that they were false. 41 In general, [t]he determination as to the defendant's state of mind — [her] belief in the untruthfulness of [her] statement — is one which a jury is best equipped to perform. United States v. Reveron Martinez, 836 F.2d 684, 689 (1st Cir.1988) (internal quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, because the falsity of a statement in many circumstances depends on the meaning of the question to which it responds, a jury may be required to examine the question and answer . . . in the context of the investigation as a whole and the state of the defendant's knowledge. United States v. DeZarn, 157 F.3d 1042, 1048 (6th Cir.1998). Richardson nevertheless maintains that her challenges go beyond assailing the sufficiency of the evidence before the jury because several of the government's alternate theories of conviction are contrary to the strict requirements imposed by the law of perjury.
42 In Bronston v. United States, 409 U.S. 352, 93 S.Ct. 595, 34 L.Ed.2d 568 (1973), the Supreme Court set exacting standards for maintaining a perjury prosecution. 16 The Court recognized that [u]nder the pressures and tensions of interrogation, it is not uncommon for the most earnest witnesses to give answers that are not entirely responsive. Sometimes the witness does not understand the question, or may in an excess of caution or apprehension read too much or too little into it. Id. at 358, 93 S.Ct. 595. Given this practical reality, [t]he burden is on the questioner to pin the witness down to the specific object of the questioner's inquiry. Id. at 360, 93 S.Ct. 595. Accordingly, [p]recise questioning is imperative as a predicate for the offense of perjury. Id. at 362, 93 S.Ct. 595. 43 Despite these general pronouncements, the Bronston Court's holding was narrow. The Court decided only that a jury could not be allowed to consider a perjury charge where the allegedly false statement was literally true but not responsive to the question asked and arguably misleading by negative implication. Id. at 353, 93 S.Ct. 595. The Court reasoned that [a] jury should not be permitted to engage in conjecture whether an unresponsive answer, true and complete on its face, was intended to mislead or divert the examiner; the state of mind of the witness is relevant only to the extent that it bears on whether `he does not believe [his answer] to be true.' Id. at 359, 93 S.Ct. 595 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 1621; alteration in original). Bronston thus requires dismissal of an indictment where . . . the government hinges its charge on the false implications of a statement that is not alleged to be false in itself. United States v. Finucan, 708 F.2d 838, 848 (1st Cir.1983). 44 Richardson, relying on Bronston, argues that several of the perjury charges against her are contrary to law because they allege the falsity of statements that are literally true. Bronston, however, is inapplicable to any of the false statements charged against Richardson. The government does not allege that any of Richardson's statements are facially true but arguably misleading by negative implication, Bronston, 409 U.S. at 353, 93 S.Ct. 595, thereby evincing only her intent to mislead or divert the examiner, id. at 359, 93 S.Ct. 595. Rather, the government alleges that Richardson knowingly made statements that are in direct conflict with facts the government alleges to be true, by denying that she committed acts the government maintains she in fact committed. See Glantz, 847 F.2d at 6 ( Bronston's literal truth defense inapplicable where no claim is made that [defendant's] statement . . . was true but unresponsive to the question asked before the grand jury). Whether or not the government's evidence was sufficient to prove the falsity of Richardson's statements, as well as that she knew her statements to be false when she made them, its theory of perjury is not contrary to law.
45 Richardson also argues that several of the false statements alleged in Count One of the indictment advance theories of conviction that are contrary to the law of perjury because they were made in response to fundamentally ambiguous questions. A question that is truly ambiguous or which affirmatively misleads the testifier can never provide a basis for a finding of perjury, as it could never be said that one intended to answer such a question untruthfully. DeZarn, 157 F.3d at 1049; see also United States v. Manapat, 928 F.2d 1097, 1101 (11th Cir.1991) (When the question that led to the allegedly false response is fundamentally ambiguous, we cannot allow juries to criminally convict a defendant based on their guess as to what the defendant was thinking at the time the response was made.). 46 By contrast, where a question is only arguably ambiguous, it is for the jury to decide whether the defendant has committed perjury. In such a case there is an actual possibility that the defendant intended to and did in fact give a response that was literally false. Finucan, 708 F.2d at 848 (citations omitted). In determining whether a statement made in response to an ambiguous question could be said to be false, the context of the question and answer becomes critically important. United States v. Farmer, 137 F.3d 1265, 1269 (10th Cir.1998); see also DeZarn, 157 F.3d at 1049 (jury must be allowed to consider evidence of the context of the questioning which would establish that the [d]efendant — despite the false premise of the question — knew exactly what the questions meant and exactly what they were referring to). 17 47 Because the meaning of a response to an ambiguous question may be highly context-specific, [w]here a question . . . is only arguably ambiguous, courts reviewing perjury convictions have viewed the defense of ambiguity as an attack upon the sufficiency of the evidence. Farmer, 137 F.3d at 1269; see also Glantz, 847 F.2d at 6 (noting that perjury convictions are barred for arguably untrue answers to vague or ambiguous questions when there is insufficient evidence of how they were understood by the witness). Richardson maintains that a perjury conviction based on a response to a fundamentally ambiguous question not only rests on insufficient contextual evidence of the intended falsity of the response, but also advances a theory of conviction that is contrary to law. Even assuming this to be true, none of the questions Richardson identifies rises to the level of being fundamentally, rather than arguably, ambiguous. 48 [T]o precisely define the point at which a question becomes fundamentally ambiguous, and thus not amenable to jury interpretation, is impossible. Farmer, 137 F.3d at 1269. Courts have nevertheless recognized that: 49 A question is fundamentally ambiguous when it is not a phrase with a meaning about which men of ordinary intellect could agree, nor one which could be used with mutual understanding by a questioner and answerer unless it were defined at the time it were sought and offered as testimony. 50