Opinion ID: 201790
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Literally True Statements

Text: 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.