Opinion ID: 77401
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Gonzalez's Other Convictions

Text: 90 Appellant Gonzalez argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions on Counts Three and Five, which charged him with obstructing justice by giving false and misleading testimony in a civil deposition, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3) (Count Three), and perjury before a federal grand jury, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1623 (Count Five). 26 91 On August 10, 2000, in the civil suit by Wiltshire's estate in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Appellant Gonzalez gave a sworn deposition. Gonzalez's August 10, 2000 deposition concerns the I-395 shootings, and is the subject of his obstruction-of-justice conviction in Count Three. In this deposition, Appellant Gonzalez testified that at the time of the I-395 shootings, he believed Wiltshire was armed and he saw what he believed was a handgun in Wiltshire's right hand, as follows: 92 Question : When you look, if you did look, what did you observe on North Miami Avenue? 93 Answer (Gonzalez): I observed one of the offenders [i.e., Wiltshire] running northbound on a sidewalk on the west side of Miami Avenue. 94 Question : One of the offenders running northbound on Miami Avenue on the west side away from your position? 95 Answer : Correct. 96 Question : Do you see any officers in hot pursuit of that offender? 97 Answer : No, I do not. 98 Question : What do you do next? 99 Answer : I see that, I believe him to be armed. I see what I believe is a handgun. 100 Question : What made you believe the offender was armed? 101 Answer : Well, I saw what I believe is a handgun as he ran down the street. 102 Question : Did he have anything in his or her hands? 103 Answer : Yes. 104 Question : Okay. What? 105 Answer : What I believed was a handgun. 106 Question : And what did you do next? 107 Answer : At that time, I fired twice at the individual. 108 Question : Okay. Now, when you said you saw something in the individual's hand, did you see something in his right hand or left hand or both? 109 Answer : I saw his right hand. 110 March 10, 2004 Trial Tr. at 87-89 (quoting Gonzalez Dep.) (emphasis added). Later, during the same sworn deposition, the following exchange occurred: 111 Question : You say known to be armed. Isn't the most accurate way to say it at least is you felt he was armed? 112 Answer : Right. I felt he was armed, that's correct. 113 Id. at 93. On August 16, 2001, Appellant Gonzalez testified before the federal grand jury, again about the I-395 shootings. Gonzalez's August 16, 2001 sworn testimony is the subject of his perjury conviction in Count Five. Before the grand jury, Appellant Gonzalez testified that he saw a weapon in Wiltshire's right hand and believed that he was armed, as follows: 114 Question : Tell us what happened after you were focused on the person [i.e., Wiltshire] running on Miami Avenue? 115 Answer (Gonzalez): I discharged my weapon twice. It appeared that it had no effect, so I surmised maybe I missed him, and I told [sic] continued running northerly. I felt any other attempt to discharge my weapon again was going to be futile. If there was any likelihood that I was going to strike him, it would be with the first two, so I am not going to get him with the next two. 116 . . . . 117 Question : You stopped after firing twice? 118 Answer : Yes. 119 Question : Subsequent to that, are you hearing gunshots? 120 Answer : Yes, I am still hearing gunshots. 121 Question : Is it 20 yards past the overpass? Is it — at that point did you see what you believed to be a weapon? 122 Answer : I believed that he was armed, yes. 123 Question : Do you recall where you saw the weapon? 124 Answer : As he was running, in his right hand. 125 Question : And you were able to see it as he is running? 126 Answer : Yes. 127 Question : Did you ever see him turn around? 128 Answer : He did not turn around. 129 Question : Did he point the weapon? 130 Answer : No, he did not. 131 Question : You just saw him carrying the weapon as he was running, right? 132 Answer : Right. 133 Id. at 94-96 (emphasis added). Later, during the same grand jury testimony, Appellant Gonzalez testified that although he was not certain, he believed what he saw was a handgun in Wiltshire's hand, as follows: 134 Question : How certain are you that what you saw in his hand was a gun? 135 Answer : I am not certain. I believe it to be a handgun. That is factoring all the circumstances as well. 136 Question : One of the things that led you to believe it was the fact that you heard gunshots? 137 Answer : Certainly, yes. 138 Question : Is that something that affected your perception of whatever it was that you saw in his hand? 139 Answer : Certainly that factored into it, yes. I surmised it was. 140 Id. at 100-01 (emphasis added). Appellant Gonzalez's sufficiency-of-the-evidence argument focuses on his contention that his testimony in both the civil deposition and before the criminal grand jury conveyed only his uncertainty about whether Wiltshire had a gun. 141 Gonzalez's brief states: [w]e readily acknowledge that a witness cannot avoid a perjury charge merely by inserting the words `I believe' in every answer. Gonzalez Br. at 17. Gonzalez is correct, because a witness's false sworn statement about the witness's knowledge and beliefs can support a perjury conviction. 27 What Gonzalez argues instead is that a full reading of the entire transcript demonstrates that is not what we have here. Id. Gonzalez asserts that his testimony, when viewed in context, was not that he believed Wiltshire had a gun but only that he was not sure or certain whether Wiltshire had a gun. In effect, Appellant Gonzalez's position is that his testimony, taken as a whole, was that he was not certain whether Wiltshire had a gun. Id. at 19. 142 We agree with Gonzalez that in perjury cases, district courts should view a witness's testimony as a whole and his statements should not be taken out of context. See Van Liew v. United States, 321 F.2d 674, 678 (5th Cir.1963) 28 (A charge of perjury may not be sustained by the device of lifting a statement of the accused out of its immediate context and thus giving it a meaning wholly different than that which its context clearly shows.) (quotation marks and citation omitted). We disagree, however, with Gonzalez's reading of his testimony as a whole. We have quoted the entire relevant portion of both his deposition and grand jury testimony because it speaks for itself. In his civil deposition, Appellant Gonzalez swore repeatedly that: (1) I believe him to be armed; (2) I see what I believe is a handgun; (3) I saw what I believe is a handgun as he ran down the street. In response to the question, [d]id [Wiltshire] have anything in his or her hands?, Gonzalez replied, [w]hat I believed was a handgun. 143 Appellant Gonzalez's testimony before the grand jury was the same. Before the grand jury, Gonzalez swore that I believed that he was armed. As to where Gonzalez saw the weapon, Gonzalez replied, [a]s he was running, in his right hand. To the question, [w]ere you able to see it as he is running, Gonzalez answered, [y]es. To the question, [y]ou just saw him carrying the weapon as he was running right?, Gonzalez answered, [r]ight. Even when Gonzalez expressed at the end that he was not certain, he still repeated his belief that Wiltshire had a handgun, stating that I am not certain. I believe it to be a handgun. 144 Appellant Gonzalez's testimony that he believed Wiltshire was armed, viewed in context, clearly conveyed not merely the possibility that the suspect was armed, but that he, as an officer on the scene, thought or believed the suspect was armed. 29 The key question, then, is whether there was sufficient evidence for the jury to have concluded that Gonzalez knew in fact that Wiltshire was unarmed and never actually believed that Wiltshire had a gun. As noted at trial, there was overwhelming evidence that Young and Wiltshire were not in fact armed, and that Appellants conspired to plant guns and then lie about whether Young and Wiltshire had been armed. Indeed, Officers Mervolion and Hames testified at trial that at the time of the shooting — even when they fired at the suspects — they never believed that Young or Wiltshire was armed. 30 Likewise, Officer Bell testified that he could see Young and Wiltshire's hands in the air as they dropped from the I-395 overpass — before any shots were fired — and observed that they did not have guns. 145 Especially significant is the substantial evidence of Gonzalez's participation in the conspiracy to mislead investigators about the I-395 shootings. According to the testimony of Officer Mervolion, at a lunch meeting on November 8, 1995, the day after the I-395 shootings, Appellant Gonzalez and the other officers involved in the shootings explicitly conspired to lie about the shootings. The officers agreed upon a cover story, namely to tell investigators that Wiltshire and Young had been armed and had been holding firearms in their right hands. Shortly thereafter, the officers who attended the conspiratorial meeting, including Appellant Gonzalez, each gave nearly identical sworn testimony that mirrored exactly the fabricated story they settled upon at the November 8, 1995, lunch meeting. Notably, in Appellant Gonzalez's sworn statement on November 14, 1995 — seven days after the shooting — Gonzalez declared without reservation (and exactly in concert with the statements of his co-conspirators) that I see that he is armed with a handgun and I recall it was in his right hand. Gonzalez also claimed to have seen that the gun was a semiautomatic and was black or blue steel. 31 146 Gonzalez's false testimony in his initial statement and his participation in a conspiracy to mislead investigators gave the jury ample basis to doubt the veracity of his second and third sworn statements that at the time of the I-395 shootings he believed Wiltshire had a handgun. The jury also understood that Appellant Gonzalez's testimony in Wiltshire's civil suit and before the federal grand jury occurred years after the I-395 shootings themselves, at a point when Gonzalez knew that a federal criminal investigation was pending. In light of the evidence of the shootings themselves and the officers' orchestrated efforts to mislead, the jury reasonably concluded that even Gonzalez's belief testimony of 2000 and 2001 was untrue. 147 Finally, we reject Appellant Gonzalez's claim as to Count Three that there was no possibility that his civil deposition would be communicated to federal authorities. See 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3). At the time of Gonzalez's civil deposition in 2000, the FBI already had opened its extensive civil rights investigation into the shooting incidents and had begun to review all of the post-shooting statements by the officers involved. The deposition was given in a lawsuit brought by Wiltshire's estate for the wrongful death of Wiltshire, one of the victims in the I-395 shootings. Given that the lawsuit and the FBI's investigation were focused on the same shooting and the same victim, the jury could reasonably infer that Gonzalez intended to hinder and obstruct not only Wiltshire's civil rights lawsuit but also the federal investigation into the conduct of the officers arising out of the same incidents at issue in the lawsuit. 32 148 Accordingly, we conclude that sufficient evidence supported Appellant Gonzalez's convictions on Counts Three and Five.