Opinion ID: 566004
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Submission of False Statements--18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001

Text: 16 The government prosecuted Masterpol for violating 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001 on the grounds that he use[d] a false writing as to material facts within the jurisdiction of a department of the United States, ... the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. The offense allegedly occurred when Masterpol asked his attorney to submit Cooper's false letter of recommendation to Judge Munson for consideration during sentencing. Masterpol claims that this conduct does not violate 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001. While acknowledging that section 1001 may reach false statements made to federal courts, he contends that the statute does not cover statements made by a defendant to a court acting in its judicial capacity. In his view, section 1001 only proscribes false statements made to a court acting in its administrative capacity. We agree. Section 1001 provides: 17 Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. 18 Section 6 of Title 18 defines department as one of the executive departments ... unless the context shows that such term was intended to describe the executive, legislative, or judicial branches of the government. The language of section 6 would suggest that section 1001 only targets false statements made within the jurisdiction of executive agencies. However, in 1955, the Supreme Court held that department, as used in the context of section 1001, encompasses the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the Government. United States v. Bramblett, 348 U.S. 503, 509, 75 S.Ct. 504, 508, 99 L.Ed. 594 (1955) (concerning false statements made by a congressman to Disbursing Office of the House of Representatives). 19 After Bramblett, lower courts had at least two feasible options in construing section 1001 with respect to false statements issued within the jurisdiction of the judicial branch. On one hand, Bramblett's dictum, that department includes the judicial branch, taken together with the broad language of section 1001, to wit, any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States, could be said to render section 1001 applicable to any misrepresentation within a federal court. On the other hand, the Court's interpretation of section 1001 could be construed to extend no further in the judicial branch than Bramblett carried section 1001 in the legislative branch. That is, because Bramblett only applied to a misrepresentation within the legislative branch's administrative province--a Representative's false statement to the Disbursing Office--section 1001's coverage of false statements within the judicial branch arguably should apply only to misrepresentations affecting a federal court's administrative duties. To date no lower court has adopted the broad construction of section 1001 that could be inferred from Bramblett. The lower courts instead have adopted the latter, narrower construction. 20 What came to be called the adjudicative function exception to Bramblett's apparently all-inclusive interpretation of section 1001 originated in Morgan v. United States, 309 F.2d 234 (D.C.Cir.1962), cert. denied, 373 U.S. 917, 83 S.Ct. 1306, 10 L.Ed.2d 416 (1963). In Morgan the D.C. Circuit upheld a section 1001 conviction of a defendant who falsely claimed before a district court that he was a member of the local bar. In doing so, the court drew a distinction between the administrative or housekeeping functions of a court and its judicial or adjudicative functions. Morgan emphasized that the defendant's false statements affected only the district court's administrative functions. Limiting the application of the holding to similar types of prosecutions, Judge Bazelon wrote: 21 We are certain that neither Congress nor the Supreme Court intended the statute to include traditional trial tactics within the statutory terms conceals or covers up. We hold only, on the authority of the Supreme Court construction, that the statute does apply to the type of action with which appellant was charged, action which essentially involved the administrative or housekeeping functions, not the judicial machinery of the court. 22 Morgan, 309 F.2d at 237. Several other circuits have adopted this exception and applied it to false statements made during a criminal proceeding. See United States v. Holmes, 840 F.2d 246, 248 (4th Cir.) (adopting exception but finding defendant's falsification of standardized consent forms within the administrative function of court), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 831, 109 S.Ct. 87, 102 L.Ed.2d 63 (1988); United States v. Mayer, 775 F.2d 1387, 1390-92 (9th Cir.1985) (per curiam) (adopting exception and finding submission of false letters of recommendation to sentencing judge within court's adjudicative function); United States v. Abrahams, 604 F.2d 386, 393 (5th Cir.1979) (adopting exception and finding defendant's false statements before a magistrate during a removal proceeding within the court's adjudicative function); United States v. Erhardt, 381 F.2d 173, 175 (6th Cir.1967) (per curiam) (adopting exception and finding defendant's submission of false receipt as evidence during criminal proceeding within the court's adjudicative function). Cf. United States v. Lawson, 809 F.2d 1514, 1519 (11th Cir.1987) (recognizing the exception but finding it inapplicable to false statements made during a state court civil action involving a local housing authority to which the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development contributed funds). But see United States v. Barber, 881 F.2d 345, 349-50 (7th Cir.1989) (questioning the expansion of the exception but finding it unnecessary to confront it squarely because defendant submitted false letters to sentencing judge on behalf of another defendant), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 1956, 109 L.Ed.2d 318 (1990). 23 This Circuit has yet to consider directly the adjudicative function exception. In United States v. D'Amato, 507 F.2d 26 (2d Cir.1974), however, we faced an analogous question--whether section 1001 covered false statements made in the course of a civil suit. There the defendant was prosecuted under section 1001 for submitting a false affidavit during a private civil action. We observed that section 1001 required a fraud upon the Government or a deception upon an investigative or regulatory agency. Id. at 28. Because the government was not a party to the suit and because the false statement was not intended to further a fraudulent scheme against the government, we reversed the conviction. We rejected the argument that a fraudulent statement in a court is ergo a 'fraud upon the Government.'  Id. 24 D'Amato briefly discussed the adjudicative function exception, as applied in Morgan and Erhardt, but found it unnecessary to adopt the exception to sustain its holding. Id. at 28-29. We noted: Our case is stronger than Erhardt, for in a criminal case where the Government is a party, it could at least be argued that the Government is defrauded by the false statement proffered; ours, however, relates to a civil case in which the Government is in no way involved. Id. at 29. D'Amato bears on this case in two ways. First, to the extent section 1001 is available at all to criminalize a false statement made during a judicial proceeding, D'Amato indicates that the section only proscribes statements issued during a court proceeding that defraud the government as a party, not the government as a court. Second, it does not specifically endorse or reject the applicability of the judicial function exception in the criminal context; this, the Court left for another day. 25 D'Amato, though a civil case, provides one rationale for reversing Masterpol's section 1001 conviction. The indictment charged Masterpol as follows: 26 [T]he defendant did willfully and knowingly cause to be made and did willfully and knowingly use a false writing as to material facts within the jurisdiction of a department of the United States, that is the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, in that he submitted to the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York at the time of his sentencing ... a copy of a letter signed by Royal Cooper, knowing the same to contain false statements. 27 The theory of prosecution, then, was that Masterpol defrauded the government as court (the Northern District), not the government as prosecutor. As we have shown, D'Amato specifically rejected the argument that the submission of a false affidavit during a judicial proceeding before a federal court thereby becomes a fraud within the jurisdiction of a department of the United States. D'Amato, 507 F.2d at 28. The government offers no reason why that holding should not apply with equal force to a federal court hearing a criminal matter; nor can we envision any. 28 Our reversal of Masterpol's section 1001 conviction does not rest on D'Amato alone, however. We agree with the Courts of Appeals that have adopted the adjudicative function exception. 29 No court, to our knowledge, whether due to its acceptance of the exception or to prosecutorial reticence, has ever sustained a section 1001 conviction for false statements made by a defendant to a court acting in its judicial capacity. The exception was first articulated nearly thirty years ago and there has been no response on the part of Congress either repudiating the limitation or refining it. It therefore seems too late in the day to hold that no exception exists. Mayer, 775 F.2d at 1390. Moreover, this is not an instance in which a glaring gap in statutory coverage needs to be filled. Cf. Bramblett, 348 U.S. at 509, 75 S.Ct. at 508 (Congress could not have intended to leave frauds such as this without penalty.). As we have indicated, the government apparently could have invoked 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1512 to punish Masterpol's conduct. In fact, a well delineated statutory scheme already covers the general area of false statements made during judicial proceedings. Were we to construe section 1001 broadly, we would invite the pyramiding of prosecutions for false representation, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001, perjury, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1621, subornation of perjury, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1622, false declarations before a grand jury or court, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1623, obstruction of justice, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1501 et seq., and contempt, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 401. A rejection of the adjudicative function exception, in other words, could interfere with, if not swallow up, the pre-existing statutory scheme. Finally, even the Supreme Court's liberal reading of section 1001 in Bramblett and United States v. Rodgers, 466 U.S. 475, 104 S.Ct. 1942, 80 L.Ed.2d 492 (1984), is not offended by an adjudicative function exception. The government's prosecution in Bramblett only reached what clearly was an administrative function of the legislative branch, disbursement. Bramblett thus only beckons us to apply section 1001 to false statements affecting the administrative function of the judicial branch. Rodgers, moreover, merely found section 1001 applicable to false statements made to the FBI and Secret Service, both of which surely qualify as 'department[s] or agenc[ies] of the United States.'  466 U.S. at 479, 104 S.Ct. at 1946 (quoting section 1001). Our decision, that section 1001 only reaches false statements made to a federal court acting in its administrative capacity, does not conflict with these holdings. 30 Having determined that section 1001 does not apply to statements made to a court acting in its judicial capacity, we must address one additional question. Does Masterpol's submission of Cooper's false letter of recommendation fall within the exception? Put another way, are a court's sentencing responsibilities adjudicative or administrative in nature? In our view the answer is clear. A sentencing hearing is clearly an adjudicative function. The Ninth Circuit's holding in Mayer supports this view. In applying the exception to a defendant who, like Masterpol, had submitted spurious letters of recommendation, Mayer stated: The judge's role in sentencing is not a housekeeping or administrative duty, but is an extension of the defendant's trial itself. Therefore, misrepresentations made during the sentencing hearing would not be covered by section 1001. Mayer, 775 F.2d at 1391-92. We agree and hold that Masterpol's submission of a false letter of recommendation falls within the adjudicative function exception. 31 Since we reverse Masterpol's convictions under section 1001 and section 1503, we need not consider his final argument dealing with his sentencing under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3147.