Opinion ID: 418126
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: 37 Although we find it necessary to reverse the judgment of the district court because of the procedural deficiencies already described, we think it advisable to address Kitchen's remaining points on appeal since the government may again seek to hold him in contempt. As we pointed out in Weiss, supra, at 662-667, a witness who testifies falsely is ordinarily subject to prosecution for a criminal offense, e.g., perjury, but not to sanctions for civil contempt. In re Michael, 326 U.S. 224, 66 S.Ct. 78, 90 L.Ed. 30 (1945); Ex parte Hudgings, 249 U.S. 378, 39 S.Ct. 337, 63 L.Ed. 656 (1919). But the courts have fashioned a narrow exception to avoid being put off by transparent sham .... United States v. Appel, 211 F. 495 (S.D.N.Y.1913). It is by now clearly established in this circuit that Sec. 1826(a) can be used to impose civil contempt sanctions on witnesses who give obviously false evasive and equivocal answers in an effort to avoid providing information. Weiss, supra, at 667. See also Bongiorno, supra. In other words, a claim of inability to remember will be treated as the equivalent of an outright refusal to testify if it is both obviously false and intentionally evasive and obstructive. Weiss, at 662. The government must prove these elements by clear and convincing evidence. Weiss, at 667. The evidence establishing the falsity of the claim of inability to remember may be extrinsic, as in Bongiorno, supra, where photographs of the witness with the target of the grand jury investigation intensified the impression that his answers were intended to be evasive, 694 F.2d at 922. Such evidence may also be intrinsic: even in the absence of extrinsic proof, the court may determine from the pattern and substance of the testimony that it is inherently incredible. Weiss, supra, at 667; Bongiorno, 694 F.2d at 922. 38 Kitchen asserts that the government has proven neither the falsity nor the intentional evasiveness of his testimony by clear and convincing evidence. The government has presented extrinsic evidence consisting of C's testimony about his interview with Kitchen in October 1977, C's notes of the interview, and Kitchen's amended questionnaire. In addition, the government argues that Kitchen's claim of memory failure is inherently incredible because the mere passage of time would not eradicate memories of events he admits he found shocking, and because the pattern of the testimony shows that Kitchen forgets only information that would implicate his superiors and therefore jeopardize his position at the corporation. 39 In our view, this simply does not add up to clear and convincing evidence that Kitchen's testimony is a transparent sham. The government identifies three events about which it contends Kitchen has been false and evasive: the February meeting, the conversation with A and the interview with C. On the critical issue of whether a bribe was discussed at the meeting, Kitchen's answer has been an unequivocal no. This is not contempt, although it may be perjury. See Weiss, at 665-666. Even if Kitchen's testimony on this issue can be regarded as evasive because he sometimes used the phrase I don't recall, and because it seems to be contradicted by the amended questionnaire, it is not necessarily untrue. It is quite possible that a bribe was discussed at the meeting in cryptic terms so that Kitchen did not understand what was meant until B told him afterwards. Thus, Kitchen would be unable to remember any actual discussion of a bribe at the meeting. His amended questionnaire would be, as he testified, incomplete in not explaining that his interpretation of the discussion at the meeting was based on the information supplied by B after the fact. This theory is supported by the government's own extrinsic evidence, for C testified before the grand jury that Kitchen 40 didn't hear specifically anything mentioned [at the meeting] that someone was going to be paid off because I tried to get that information from him. 41 As to the other details of the February meeting, as well as the conversations with A and C, the extrinsic evidence proves nothing about the truth or falsity of Kitchen's testimony. Kitchen does not deny that these events took place or that C's version of what occurred is accurate. He simply says that he cannot now remember any of the details, even when prompted by the evidence of what he told C in October 1977. It is not incredible that Kitchen might not remember now or in early 1982, five years after the events in question, what he did remember in October 1977, only nine months thereafter. We note that even by the time of the interview with C, Kitchen had forgotten the date of the February meeting. Even when the claimed loss of memory is compounded by an apparent pattern of selectivity and a motive to lie, the government's case on this record amounts only to a plausible theory that Kitchen might be refusing to supply information that he actually remembers. But on this record, which includes five appearances by appellant before the grand jury and nine informal discussions with the government in some 15 months, it is not inherently incredible that appellant is cooperating and simply does not remember. 42 This case is precisely the opposite of Weiss in this regard. Weiss' memory loss was inherently incredible if, in fact, there was anything for her to remember. 3 The government failed to prove the latter part of the proposition--the premise that Weiss had actually worked at the job the details of which she claimed to have forgotten. Kitchen, on the other hand, does not dispute that the three discrete events about which he is being questioned actually occurred, but claims that he does not remember the details of what happened on these three occasions. This claim may well expose him to a criminal prosecution, e.g., for perjury, but it is not so inherently incredible as to fall within the narrow exception justifying use of the awesome civil contempt power. 43 In sum, on this record, the government has not proven by clear and convincing evidence that Kitchen's testimony before the grand jury is false and evasive. Thus, the judgment of contempt cannot stand. 4