Opinion ID: 628688
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Walser's Perjury and Aiding and Abetting Conviction

Text: 37 Count I of the indictment charged that Walser 38 knowingly and willfully assisted and caused Richmond Morrow, a witness under oath ... to use and present a written document, knowing the same to contain a false material declaration; that is, VIRGINIA NELL WALSER caused to be introduced into evidence, through the witness Morrow, a document which she knew to have been falsely made and back-dated, to-wit: Form SCI-013 entitled Southern Crop Insurance Agency, Inc., Statement of Facts, relating to 300 acres of soybeans, dated July 14, 1986; All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1623 and Section 2. 39 Section 1623 of Title 18 of the United States Code makes it a crime for any person under oath 40 in any proceeding before or ancillary to any court or grand jury of the United States [to] knowingly make[ ] any false material declaration or make[ ] or use[ ] any other information, including any book, paper, document, record, recording, or other material, knowing the same to contain any false material declaration.... 41 The government does not contend that Walser knowingly used false information under oath. Rather, it argues that Walser aided and abetted the commission of perjury, and thus, via operation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2(b), is liable as a principal. Walser argues that her conviction under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1623 cannot be based upon application of the aiding and abetting provision of Sec. 2(b) because she was never placed under oath in regard to the offenses alleged in Count I of the indictment. Thus, she claims, she had no legal capacity to commit the crime of perjury. Alternatively, she argues that the district court erred by denying her motions for a judgment of acquittal under Count I. As a legal question, we review Walser's conviction under Secs. 1623 and 2 de novo. See United States v. Power, 881 F.2d 733, 738 (9th Cir.1989); United States v. Smith, 832 F.2d 1167, 1169 (9th Cir.1987). In reviewing the denial of a motion for a judgment of acquittal based on the sufficiency of the evidence, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government and must affirm the conviction if any reasonable construction of the evidence allowed the jury to find the appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. McKinley, 995 F.2d 1020, 1025 (11th Cir.1993). 42 Section 2(b) of the aiding and abetting statute provides that(b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal. 43 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2(b). 44 The standard test for determining guilt by aiding and abetting is to determine whether a substantive offense was committed by someone, whether there was an act by the defendant which contributed to and furthered the offense, and whether the defendant intended to aid its commission. United States v. Jones, 913 F.2d 1552, 1558 (11th Cir.1990); United States v. Kelly, 888 F.2d 732, 742 (11th Cir.1989). Title 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2, however, does not establish a separate crime. United States v. Pearson, 667 F.2d 12, 13 (5th Cir.1982). Rather, it merely permits one who aids and abets the commission of a crime to be punished as a principal. United States v. Sellers, 871 F.2d 1019, 1022 (11th Cir.1989). An individual, therefore, may be indicted as a principal for the commission of a substantive crime and convicted upon evidence that he or she aided and abetted only. United States v. Cook, 745 F.2d 1311, 1315 (10th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1220, 105 S.Ct. 1205, 84 L.Ed.2d 347 (1985). 45 Further, an individual is criminally culpable for causing an intermediary to commit a criminal act even though the intermediary has no criminal intent and is innocent of the substantive crime. Id.; Pereira v. United States, 202 F.2d 830, 837 (5th Cir.1953), aff'd, 347 U.S. 1, 74 S.Ct. 358, 98 L.Ed. 435 (1954). In United States v. Tobon-Builes, 706 F.2d 1092 (11th Cir.1983), the defendant, Oscar de J. Tobon-Builes (Tobon-Builes), knowingly caused several banks not to file Currency Transaction Reports for transactions exceeding $10,000 as required by law. Tobon-Builes was indicted for the substantive offense of willfully concealing and causing to be concealed, by trick, scheme, or device, material facts within the jurisdiction of the Department of Treasury of the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001. He was also charged with aiding and abetting in violation of Sec. 2. A jury convicted him. On appeal, Tobon-Builes argued that his conviction was improper because, unlike a bank, he had no legal duty to report currency transactions above $10,000. Thus, he argued, his legal incapacity to commit the crime of concealment--based on his lack of a duty to report currency transactions exceeding $10,000--freed him from culpability. 46 We affirmed his conviction, noting that courts have interpreted Sec. 2(b) to find that a person 47 who is incapable of committing a substantive criminal offense if he acted alone may nevertheless be liable as a principal where he willfully causes the prohibited conduct ... to be committed by intermediaries ... who have the capacity to commit the substantive criminal offense but who lack the criminal intent to be guilty of that offense. 48 Id. at 1100. 49 We reject Walser's contention that Sec. 2(b) may not be applied to perjury claims arising under Sec. 1623. Section 2(b) applies generally to all federal criminal statutes and prohibits one from causing another to do any act that would be illegal if one did it personally. United States v. Lennon, 751 F.2d 737, 741 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1100, 105 S.Ct. 2324, 85 L.Ed.2d 842 (1985). The purpose of Sec. 2 is to permit a person operating from behind the scenes to be convicted even though that person is not expressly prohibited by the substantive statute from engaging in the acts made criminal by Congress. Tobon-Builes, 706 F.2d at 1100-01; see also S.Rep. No. 1020, 82nd Cong., 1st Sess. (1951), reprinted in 1951 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.Service 2578, 2583 (noting that Sec. 2(b) was intended to clarify and make certain the intent to punish aiders and abettors regardless of the fact that they may be incapable of committing the specific violation which they are charged to have aided and abetted....). As noted by the Sixth Circuit and cited by the Tobon-Builes court: 50 It is but to quote the hornbook to say that in every crime there must exist a union or joint operation of act, or failure to act, and intent. However, this is far from suggesting that the essential element of criminal intent must always reside in the person who does the forbidden act. Indeed, the latter may act without any criminal intent whatever, while the mens rea--willfulness --may reside in a person wholly incapable of committing the forbidden act. When such is the case, as at bar, the joint operation of act and intent prerequisite to commission of the crime is provided by the person who willfully causes the innocent actor to commit the illegal act. And in such a case, of course, only the person who willfully causes the forbidden act to be done is guilty of the crime. 51 Id. at 1101 (quoting United States v. Lester, 363 F.2d 68 (6th Cir.1966), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 1002, 87 S.Ct. 705, 17 L.Ed.2d 542 (1967)). 52 Walser knew the document she sent to Morrow was false and back-dated. Indeed, the SCI-013 form she used had not even been printed or delivered by the date she purportedly wrote it. By falsifying and back-dating the SCI-013, then introducing it at trial through the innocent testimony of Morrow, Walser knowingly caused a fraudulent document to be entered into evidence during a court proceeding. Morrow lacked the criminal intent to commit perjury. As a witness under oath, he merely had the capacity to commit perjury. Section 2, however, operates to unite Morrow's capacity to commit perjury with Walser's intent that perjury be committed. Walser, as the crime's instigator and malefactor, adopted Morrow's capacity to commit perjury, including his status as a witness under oath. She is thus liable as a principal. In causing an innocent intermediary to commit a criminal act, the causer adopts not only the intermediary's act but [also] his capacity [to commit the crime]. United States v. Ruffin, 613 F.2d 408, 416 (2d Cir.1979). We note further that Walser's contention that insufficient evidence existed to convict her of perjury, regardless of whether Sec. 2(b) applies to Sec. 1623, is meritless. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm Walser's perjury conviction.