Opinion ID: 499727
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the perjury convictions

Text: 17 Appellant was found guilty of false swearing on several occasions, and challenges two of these verdicts (Counts 26 and 27). He alleges insufficiency of the evidence. We look at each conviction separately, cognizant that we must at this stage assay the evidentiary details in the light most soothing to the prosecution. United States v. Cintolo, 818 F.2d 980, 983 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 259, 98 L.Ed.2d 216 (1987). We will reverse only if the record, so viewed, is inadequate to support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. 18 A. Count 26. In this count, appellant was charged with knowingly mak(ing) a false material declaration before a federal grand jury, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1623. The exchange upon which the accusation was based went as follows: 19 Q. At the scene of the shooting at Cerro Maravilla, when was the halt given? Was it before the persons got out of the publico, or after they got out of the publico? 20 A. Well, as I declared previously, I am in a position which I couldn't see directly when they arrived. I only saw the vehicle pass by me. They went in reverse and parked itself in front of the station gate. It was there when colleague Colon [Berrios] came out and gave the halt. He shouted, Halt, it is the police. 21 The prosecution was premised on the notion that the last two sentences of this excerpt were both material and knowingly false in that Colon Berrios never shouted halt, it is the police at Cerro Maravilla on July 25, 1978. Reveron Martinez argues that the government presented no evidence at trial sufficient to brand his statement as untrue. 22 In order to sustain a perjury charge, evasions are not enough. The government must show more than that the interdicted statement was unresponsive or guarded. At a bare minimum, the remark must have been literally false. Moreno Morales, 815 F.2d at 744; United States v. Finucan, 708 F.2d 838, 847 (1st Cir.1983). In addition, it must have been knowingly false. To constitute perjury, the defendant must have believed when he delivered his testimony that it was apocryphal. The determination as to the defendant's state of mind--his belief in the untruthfulness of his statement--is one which a jury is best equipped to perform. United States v. Lighte, 782 F.2d 367, 372 (2d Cir.1986). 23 The seminal case in the modern law of perjury is Bronston v. United States, 409 U.S. 352, 93 S.Ct. 595, 34 L.Ed.2d 568 (1973). (We note, parenthetically, that although Bronston involved a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1621, its holding has equal applicability in terms of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1623. See, e.g., United States v. Tonelli, 577 F.2d 194, 198 (3d Cir.1978); United States v. Kehoe, 562 F.2d 65, 68 (1st Cir.1977)). In Bronston, the Court held that a witness could not be convicted of perjury for an answer, under oath, that is literally true but not responsive to the question asked and arguably misleading by negative implication. Id. 409 U.S. at 353, 93 S.Ct. at 597. The Court went on to observe: 24 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. 25 Id. at 359, 93 S.Ct. at 600. It is only within the Bronston constraints that a jury is allowed to consider circumstantial evidence, such as proof of a witness's motive to lie, Lighte, 782 F.2d at 373, when evaluating a perjury case. 26 We believe that, in this instance, it was not unreasonable for the jury to find appellant guilty on Count 26. The key phrase in the controverted exchange is the halt (emphasis supplied). The question inquired as to when the halt was given; the perjurious phrase in the reply was that Colon came out and gave the halt. A reasonable inference may be drawn from the use of the article (the) that there was only one command given. On such a reading, appellant's testimony came into direct conflict with that offered by Jose Montanez Ortiz, 7 a policeman who testified at the trial that he was in charge of the officers at Cerro Maravilla and that it was he who yelled halt to the terrorists. If only one halt was given, and if the witness's trial testimony was believed, then the jury could rationally find that appellant lied. 27 The jury's conclusion appears all the more reasonable in view of the circumstantial evidence that appellant was trying to cover up the role that Montanez Ortiz actually played in the events at Cerro Maravilla. As we noted in Moreno Morales, the record contained enough circumstantial evidence to allow a conclusion that the defendants were endeavoring to conceal the presence of Jose Montanez Ortiz at the shootings ... [and to] ... hid[e] the fact that Montanez Ortiz was at Cerro Maravilla and in command.... 815 F.2d at 747. Indeed, that appellant's answer fit hand-in-glove with the proven prevarication of his codefendant, Bruno Gonzalez (who swore that Colon Berrios, not Montanez Ortiz, was in charge of the agents at the tower), 8 was in itself damning. The common substitution of the fictional leader (Colon Berrios) for the actual leader (Montanez Ortiz) was sufficiently uncommon to support a (reasonable) conclusion that a collusive falsification of events was being presented. To view these slips as coincidental stretches common sense well past any acceptable frontier--especially because there was testimony that Montanez Ortiz had informed at least one of the conspirators that he did not want to appear in connection with the affair. Moreno Morales, 815 F.2d at 747 n. 31. 28 We fully agree with the District of Columbia Circuit that: 29 Perjury cases, like all criminal cases, are susceptible to proof by circumstantial evidence, and in fact are peculiarly likely to be proven in this manner because one of the elements of the crime is that the defendant knew his statement was false when he made it. 30 United States v. Chapin, 515 F.2d 1274, 1278 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1015, 96 S.Ct. 449, 46 L.Ed.2d 387 (1975). The case at bar illustrates the point quite well: taking into account the totality of the evidence, direct and circumstantial, and giving due weight to the indirect evidence anent appellant's motive to falsify, the proof was adequate to underbrace a guilty verdict on Count 26. Compare Lighte, 782 F.2d at 373; United States v. Natelli, 527 F.2d 311, 318 (2d Cir.1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 934, 96 S.Ct. 1663, 48 L.Ed.2d 175 (1976). 9 31 B. Count 27. Under this count, appellant was convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1621 by testifying falsely during a deposition taken in connection with the civil action filed in federal district court by the survivors of the slain men. The question asked was: Did you hear a second volley of shots? Appellant replied: After that, the shots stopped and there was not any more shots. This rejoinder, Reveron Martinez urges, was literally true--and therefore, in his view, cannot sustain the weight of a perjury conviction. We agree. 32 The government wishes us to read this answer as if appellant had said that after the first volley, there was no second volley. But, we cannot take such liberties with language. The term that, as used in the response, apparently referred to the object of the question: the second volley. Since the matter was not contemporaneously pursued, the government is saddled with what was said, rather than what might have been meant. It was literally true that, after the second volley of shots sounded, no more shots were fired. No less an authority than the Court has taught that the reach of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1621 does not extend to answers unresponsive on their face but untrue only by 'negative implication' . United States v. Bronston, 409 U.S. at 361, 93 S.Ct. at 601. See also Moreno Morales, 815 F.2d at 744; Finucan, 708 F.2d at 847-48; United States v. Abrams, 568 F.2d 411, 422 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 437 U.S. 903, 98 S.Ct. 3089, 57 L.Ed.2d 1133 (1978). The rule holds even if the answer is intentionally misleading, so long as literal truth inheres. Id. When a witness bobs and weaves, it is the questioner's obligation to get the proper bearings; a federal perjury prosecution is medicine too powerful to be dispensed casually as a quick fix for unresponsiveness. As the Court has taught: 33 If a witness evades, it is the lawyer's responsibility to recognize the evasion and to bring the witness back to the mark, to flush out the whole truth with the tools of adversary examination. 34 Bronston, 409 U.S. at 358-59, 93 S.Ct. at 599-600. 35 These precepts, we think, are controlling here. We have painstakingly studied the government's argument in opposition--its claim that appellant's explanation of the challenged reply is entirely implausible--but we remain unpersuaded. To be sure, a witness cannot twist the meaning of a question in his own mind into some totally unrecognizable shape and then hide behind it. Assuming that the question is reasonably clear, the interpretation given it must have some patina of plausibility. But that rather minimal standard appears to have been achieved in this instance. The rather tenebrous rejoinder made by the defendant can sensibly be interpreted as meaning: Yes, I heard the second volley of shots, but there were none fired thereafter. Taken in that (altogether plausible) sense, the answer would be nonresponsive--but literally true. And the questioner, put to his mettle, failed to pin the matter down. A perjury conviction based upon such shaky underpinnings cannot stand. 10