Opinion ID: 3010701
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Recantation Under 18 U.S.C. S 1623(d)

Text: Under 18 U.S.C. S 1623(d) the defense of recantation is available: 1) if, at the time the admission is made, the declaration has not substantially affected the proceeding; or 2) it has not become manifest that such falsity has been or will be exposed. Here, the district court concluded that Sherman could have asserted the defense as his perjury had not substantially affected the proceeding when he recanted. Understandably, the court concluded that it was irrelevant that the perjury had been exposed prior to the recantation because the statute was drafted in the disjunctive so Sherman needed only to satisfy one of the two conditions, not both of them. The court held that the government's reliance upon 18 U.S.C. S 1621 deprived Sherman of the defense Congress wrote into S 1623 and that Sherman's right to due process of the law had therefore been violated. The government contends that the district court erred in reading S 1623(d) in the disjunctive rather than the conjunctive, because both prongs must be met before a recantation defense is available. Since Sherman's perjury was exposed prior to his attempted recantation, the _________________________________________________________________ 6. Sherman also argues that the decision to indict him under 18 U.S.C. S 1621 denied him the equal protection of the law. The district court did not base its dismissal on Equal Protection grounds, and Sherman's resort to the Equal Protection Clause now is meritless, and we reject it without discussion. 14 government argues that his right to due process of the law could not have been denied because he was not entitled to the recantation defense. Thus, our inquiry is focused upon whether Sherman was entitled to the defense of recantation under 18 U.S.C. S 1623(d). Statutory interpretation usually begins, and often ends, with the language of the statute. Adams Fruit Co., Inc. v. Barrett, 494 U.S. 638, 642 (1990). Where . .. the statute's language is plain, `the sole function of the court is to enforce it according to its terms.'  We look to the text of a statute to determine congressional intent, and look to legislative history only if the text is ambiguous. Id. Plain meaning is conclusive, except in the `rare cases [in which] the literal application of a statute will produce a result demonstrably at odds with the intentions of its drafters.'  New Rock Asset Partners, L.P. v. Preferred Entity Advancements, Inc., 101 F.3d 1492, 1498 (3d Cir. 1996). 18 U.S.C. S 1623(d) is deceptive in its apparent clarity. It says or and Sherman argues that Congress intended the statute to mean exactly that. However, reading the statute as Sherman argues we must results in a statute that is both inconsistent with, and frustrating to, Congress' twofold intent in enacting the legislation. If Sherman is correct, one could commit perjury with impunity. A witness could violate his or her oath in the comfort of knowing that no perjury prosecution was possible so long as he or she recanted as soon as it appeared the perjury would be disclosed. A recantation at that point, under Sherman's interpretation, would shield the conduct even if the judicial proceedings had been substantially affected by the false testimony. Similarly, a witness could escape prosecution even after the false nature of it had been disclosed and hope to successfully argue that the proceedings had not been substantially effected because there had been a recantation. In Lardieri we examined the legislative history of S 1623 to determine legislative intent, and we are guided by that analysis. See also Batchelder, 442 U.S. at 120 (That Congress intended to enact two independent gun control statutes . . . is confirmed by the legislative history of the Omnibus Act.). We do not believe that Congress intended 15 to improve truth telling in judicial proceedings, by incorporating a provision into the perjury statute that would be tantamount to granting immunity from prosecution in many, if not all, instances. In Lardieri, the defendant argued that the prosecutor who warned him against perjuring himself had a duty to also advise him of the recantation defense under S 1623(d), and that he could not be prosecuted for perjury absent such a warning. He asserted that a contrary interpretation of 18 U.S.C. S 1623(d) would frustrate the legislative purpose embodied in [the statute] to encourage witnesses to divulge the truth by permitting them . . . to correct their false testimony without . . . perjury convictions. 506 F.2d at 322. In reviewing the legislative history we noted that [t]he recantation provision in section 1623(d) was modeled after Section 210.25 of the New York Penal Law which codified the ruling of the New York Court of Appeals in People v. Ezaugi, id. at 322-23, (citations omitted) and concluded that neither the New York Legislature nor the New York courts have found it necessary or appropriate to impose [a duty to warn] on the prosecutor. Id. at 323. Similarly, we note that, despite the disjunctive phrasing in S 1623(d), the New York statute it was based upon is drafted in the conjunctive. Section 210.25 of the New York Penal Law states: In any prosecution for perjury, it is an affirmative defense that the defendant retracted his false statement in the course of the proceeding in which it was made before such false statement substantially affected the proceeding and before it became manifest that its falsity was or would be exposed. N.Y. Penal Code S 210.25 (McKinney 1965) (emphasis added). See also Lardieri, 506 F.2d at 323 n. 6. Moreover, the wording of the New York statute is consistent with the court decision upon which it is based. In People v. Ezaugi, 2 N.Y. 2d 439 (1957), Ezaugi, a police officer, was convicted of perjury for giving false testimony to a grand jury investigating police corruption. In the grand jury, Ezaugi had been asked about a conversation he had with a drug dealer. Ezaugi had been extorting protection payoffs from the drug dealer, but unbeknownst to Ezaugi, the dealer had 16 gone to authorities and was cooperating with a police internal affairs investigation when Ezaugi spoke to him. In the grand jury, Ezaugi admitted to having a discussion with the drug dealer but lied about its content. The conversation was surreptitiously recorded, and Ezaugi later became concerned that the prosecutor who questioned him before the grand jury may have known the true content of the conversation. Ezaugi then requested another opportunity to testify before the grand jury. When he testified the second time he admitted that his prior testimony had been false, but explained that he had been upset, and had not been certain that he was authorized to divulge confidential police information. The indictment followed, and Ezaugi was convicted of having perjured himself during his first appearance. On appeal he argued that, under New York case law, even if it be assumed that the answers are intentionally false and misleading, the defect is cured when the witness changes his statement and purports to tell the truth. Id. at 442. See People v. Gillette, 111 N.Y.S. 133 (1908) and King v. Carr, 1 Sid. 418 (1669). The Court of Appeals rejected that argument: However useful that rule may be as an aid in arriving at testimonial truth, it does not follow that it should be made a rule of universal application, for to do so might just as surely encourage perjury, especially in those situations where a witness does not recant until he becomes convinced that his perjury no longer deceives. It is fundamental that a witness may not disregard his oath to tell the truth in the first instance. Accordingly, we hold that recantation as a defense is primarily designed to correct knowingly false testimony only if and when it is done promptly before the body conducting the inquiry has been deceived or misled to the harm and prejudice of its investigation, and when no reasonable likelihood exists that the witness has learned that his perjury is known or may become known to the authorities. Id. (emphasis added). Thus, neither the text of the statute upon which S 1623(d) was modeled, nor the court decision that is codified by that statue support Sherman's position. They both require recantation before the perjury prejudices 17 the investigation and before there is a reasonable likelihood that the perjury will be discovered. Inexplicably, though the New York statute professedly was the paragon of Section 1623(d)'s specification on recantation, the latter as drafted set forth the preconditions in the disjunctive. The fact is, however, that the congressional treatment of the recantation provision never deviated from the understanding that the New York version had been basically incorporated. Indeed, during hearings on the legislation proposed, the Department of Justice included in its comments to the House subcommittee an interpretation expressly and precisely paralleling New York's conjunctive articulation of the preconditions.7 At no time did anyone dispute an intended identity between the two statutes in this regard, or reflect a conscious comprehension of a significant difference. Instead, the matter received very little attention, and references on the point invariably passing were woefully inconclusive. United States v. Moore, 613 F.2d at 1042. (some footnotes omitted). We agree. Although there is not a wealth of legislative history available for S 1623, that which does exist reveals that Congress' intent was to encourage truthful testimony by witnesses appearing before federal courts and grand juries by facilitating perjury prosecutions and providing narrowed opportunity for recantation.8 Thus, the Department of _________________________________________________________________ 7. The Department's interpretation was: If a witness recants in the course of the same continuous court or grand jury proceeding, a prosecution for false statements will be barred, provided that the repudiation is made before it has substantially affected the proceeding, and before it is evident that the witness' false testimony will be exposed. This provides an incentive to the witness who testifies falsely upon his first appearance to retract his testimony and avoid prosecution by thereafter testifying truthfully. Organized Crime Control: Hearings on S. 30 and Related Proposals Before Subcomm. No. 5 on the House Comm. of the Judiciary, 91st Cong. 164 (1970). 8. S. Rep. No. 91-617, at 33, 57-59, 109-11, 149-150; reprinted in 1970 U.S.C.C.A.N. 4024; H.R. Rep. No. 91-1549, at 33, 47-48 (1970); Lardieri, 497 F.2d at 321. 18 Justice stated that S 1623 is an additional felony provision designed to supplement, not supplant existing perjury provisions. Senate Report 617. Here, the district court held that United States v. Smith, 35 F.3d 344 (8th Cir. 1994), and United States v. Kahn, 472 F.2d 272 (2nd Cir. 1973) support reading S 1623(d) in the disjunctive as suggested by the language of the statute. See D. Ct. Op. at 3-4. (We will follow the holding of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Smith and apply the plain language of section 1623(d).). However, we are not persuaded by the analysis in either Smith or Kahn.