Opinion ID: 201790
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fundamentally Ambiguous Questions

Text: 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