Opinion ID: 486363
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Failure to Pin Down

Text: 126 Nelson Gonzalez Perez claims that his convictions under Counts 32, 33, 34, and 35 must be reversed. While before the grand jury, Gonzalez Perez stated that he did not remember seeing Jose Montanez Ortiz (Count 32), Luis Reveron Martinez (Count 33), Rafael Moreno Morales (Count 34), or Rosado and Soto Arrivi (Count 35) between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on July 25, 1978. The government, however, produced evidence showing that he was present at Cerro Maravilla at those times and that those individuals were likewise there, permitting the jury to infer, given the enormity of the events and his association with Montanez, Reveron and Moreno, that he was lying when he said he did not remember. 127 Gonzalez now argues that, 128 It is the responsibility of the lawyer to probe.... If a witness evades, it is the lawyer's responsibility to recognize the evation [sic] and to bring the witness back to the mark, to flush out the whole truth with the tools of adversary examination.... [Here,] the prosecutor took his [Gonzalez Perez's] answers and failed to follow them up. 129 Brief at 53. 130 We assume that Gonzalez Perez is arguing that his answers were too vague to support a perjury conviction. We disagree. Gonzalez clearly stated that he did not remember and the jury was entitled to conclude that, under these circumstances, he did remember, and was perjuring himself when he declared otherwise. 32 United States v. Ponticelli, 622 F.2d 985, 989 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1016, 101 S.Ct. 578, 66 L.Ed.2d 476 (1980).