Opinion ID: 751398
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sufficiency of the District Court's Findings

Text: 9 Garcia next argues that the district court's findings were insufficient to support the upward adjustment even under a preponderance of the evidence standard. In United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 113 S.Ct. 1111, 122 L.Ed.2d 445 (1993), the Supreme Court stated: 10 [I]f a defendant objects to a sentence enhancement resulting from her trial testimony, a district court must review the evidence and make independent findings necessary to establish a willful impediment to or obstruction of justice, or an attempt to do the same, under the perjury definition we have set out. When doing so, it is preferable for a district court to address each element of the alleged perjury in a separate and clear finding. The district court's determination that enhancement is required is sufficient, however, if, as was the case here, the court makes a finding of an obstruction of, or impediment to, justice that encompasses all of the factual predicates for a finding of perjury. 11 Id. at 95, 113 S.Ct. at 1117. Dunnigan upheld the lower court's upward adjustment where the lower court's findings were as follows: 12 The court finds that the defendant was untruthful at trial with respect to material matters in this case. [B]y virtue of her failure to give truthful testimony on material matters that were designed to substantially affect the outcome of the case, the court concludes that the false testimony at trial warrants an upward adjustment by two levels. 13 Id. 14 Prior to Dunnigan, we held in United States v. Barbosa, 906 F.2d 1366, 1369-70 (9th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 961, 111 S.Ct. 394, 112 L.Ed.2d 403 (1990), that the district court was not required to make specific findings as to specific portions of a defendant's testimony it believed to be false. In United States v. Arias-Villanueva, 998 F.2d 1491 (9th Cir.1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 937, 114 S.Ct. 359, 126 L.Ed.2d 322 (1993), a post-Dunnigan opinion, we rejected the contention that Dunnigan effectively overruled Barbosa, and reaffirmed our holding in that case. 15 So long as the district court finds that a defendant's trial testimony satisfies the elements for perjury as set forth in Dunnigan, an enhancement for obstruction of justice is proper. 16 Id. at 1512. 17 In the present case, the district court found that Reyes committed perjury and that Garcia suborned that perjury. As to Reyes's perjury, Ms. Nunez testified at trial that the tax documents that Reyes authenticated were falsified. 2 Because Ms. Nunez, as a representative from the Hacienda, was qualified to testify as to the genuineness of documents filed with the Hacienda, the district court's finding that Reyes committed perjury was not clearly erroneous. 18 At the sentencing hearing, the prosecution argued that Reyes would not have, on his own initiative, taken it upon himself to perjure himself and to falsify and manufacture documents. The prosecution further argued that because the documents were purportedly Garcia's, he would have known that he had not filed them, and that the tax returns and the bank records were false. The district court agreed with the prosecution: 19 As to paragraph [35 of the pre-sentence report], there's not much question that the documents were phony, and I have a hard time--I think I have to agree with Mr. Fink [the prosecutor], even though it goes against my grain to sentence when somebody's under indictment. It just seems to me that--feel that that man [Reyes] did that out of whole [cloth] all by himself is straining credulity. So I find that paragraph 35, the evidence does support the probation officer's position. 20 Garcia argues that because Reyes had not yet been convicted of perjury at the time of the sentencing hearing, the district court erred in finding that Garcia suborned perjury. However, the district court was required only to find by a preponderance that Reyes perjured himself, whereas a perjury conviction would require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Given Ms. Nunez's testimony at trial, the district court's finding that Reyes committed perjury was not clearly erroneous. 21 Garcia further argues that there was no evidence that he suborned Reyes's perjury. Garcia is correct that there is no direct evidence of subornation. The district court, however, based on the circumstantial evidence and the prosecution's arguments at the hearing, found that it was more likely than not that Garcia suborned Reyes's perjury. See United States v. Duranseau, 26 F.3d 804, 810 (8th Cir.1994) (holding that the government can sustain its burden for obstruction of justice through circumstantial or direct evidence); United States v. Hang, 75 F.3d 1275, 1285 (8th Cir.1996) (affirming upward adjustment for obstruction of justice based on circumstantial evidence). Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous. Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 574, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511-12, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985). Based on the evidence before the district court, the court's findings were sufficient and were not clearly erroneous. In light of those findings, the district court did not abuse its discretion by increasing Garcia's offense level by two levels for obstruction of justice. 22 AFFIRMED.