Court Opinion

ID: 9477471
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:24:21.217585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:53.691520
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur with the majority’s reasoning and affirmance of Cogdell’s conviction of making a false claim against the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 287 (West 1969 & Supp.1987). However, I dissent from the reversal of her conviction of making a false statement in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 1001 (West 1976) on the basis of the exculpatory no doctrine.
I.
This court has previously declined to follow the path now chosen by the majority.1 The majority’s decision to now adopt the doctrine, whether it does so under the rubric of defining the reach of section 1001, or of carving out a judicially created exception to the statute, is nevertheless redrafting the statute. Neither the plain language of the statute nor its legislative history provide a legitimate basis for the majority’s conclusion. If Congress had intended this exception, it could have expressly provided for it when the statute was first enacted or by amendment. Congress did not provide such an exception and it is not the duty of the courts to reframe the intent of Congress under the guise of interpretation.
II.
In interpreting legislation we begin with the language as it is written, “[n]ot wishing ‘to give point to the quip that only when legislative history is doubtful do you go to the statute.’ ” United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 339, 92 S.Ct. 515, 518, 30 L.Ed.2d 488 (1971) (quoting Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Stat*186utes, 47 Col.L.Rev. 527, 543 (1947)). The statute in its entirety provides:
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 U.S.C.A. § 1001.
On its face, the plain language of the statute is framed to address the making of “any” false statement or representation, the use of “any” false writing or document knowing it contains “any” false statement or entry, or the concealment or falsification of material facts by “any” trick, scheme, etc., in “any” matter within the jurisdiction of “any” department or agency of the United States. Comprehensive words such as “any”, here used six times by Congress within a single one-sentence statute to describe the conduct it intended to address, should be interpreted within their commonly understood meaning. See United States v. Crisp, 817 F.2d 256, 259 (4th Cir.1987), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 108 S.Ct. 164, 98 L.Ed.2d 118 (1987) (term “all” should be given its comprehensive meaning). In fact, the Supreme Court has concluded “[t]here is no indication in either the committee reports or in the congressional debates that the scope of [section 1001] was to be in any way restricted.” United States v. Bramblett, 348 U.S. 503, 507, 75 S.Ct. 504, 507, 99 L.Ed. 594 (1955) (footnotes omitted); see also United States v. Yermian, 468 U.S. 63, 74-75, 104 S.Ct. 2936, 2942, 82 L.Ed.2d 53 (1984).
In the absence of a clear indication of legislative intent to the contrary, the language of the statute controls. Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Cenance, 452 U.S. 155, 158 n. 3, 101 S.Ct. 2239, 2241 n. 3, 68 L.Ed.2d 744 (1981). Attempts at further interpretation are unnecessary:
Our individual appraisal of the wisdom or unwisdom of a particular course consciously selected by the Congress is to be put aside in the process of interpreting a statute. Once the meaning of an enactment is discerned and its constitutionality determined, the judicial process comes to an end. We do not sit as a committee of review, nor are we vested with the power of veto.
TVA v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 194-95, 98 S.Ct. 2279, 2302, 57 L.Ed.2d 117 (1978).
III.
One rationale offered for the exculpatory no doctrine is that courts are loath to impose a harsher penalty for a false statement under section 1001 than for a false statement under the perjury statute, 18 U.S.C.A. § 1621 (West 1984), absent the materiality requirement and procedural safeguards of the latter offense. United States v. Cole, 622 F.2d at 100. This argument is diminished by actual comparison of the two penalties. Both statutes provide the same maximum term of imprisonment, five years. They differ only as to the maximum authorized fine; section 1001 carries a maximum fine of $10,000 compared with a maximum of $2,000 for perjury-
These “policy arguments in favor of a more limited construction” of section 1001 have been previously addressed by the Court. United States v. Rodgers, 466 U.S. 475, 482, 104 S.Ct. 1942, 1947, 80 L.Ed.2d 492 (1984). The Court stated that “[t]he fact that the maximum possible penalty under § 1001 marginally exceeds that for perjury provides no indication of the particular penalties, within the permitted range, that Congress thought appropriate for each of the myriad violations covered by the statute.” Id. And in United States v. Gilliland, 312 U.S. 86, 61 S.Ct. 518, 85 L.Ed. 598 (1941), confronted with a similar argument comparing the penalty under a predecessor provision of section 1001 with the penalty for a related offense, the Court stated that the relationship of one to the other “has no significance in connection with the construction and application of the *187[statute]. The matter of penalties lay within the discretion of Congress.” 312 U.S. at 95, 61 S.Ct. at 523.
IV.
The majority notes that “[c]ourts also have recognized an additional justification for the doctrine as a safeguard against applications of section 1001 that are ‘uncomfortably close to [violating] the Fifth Amendment.’ ” Maj. op. at 182 (quoting United States v. Lambert, 501 F.2d 943, 946 n. 4 (5th Cir.1974) (en banc)).
Reference to the fifth amendment provides no rationale for limiting the plain language of the statute, for the issue of whether to adopt the exculpatory no doctrine invokes no constitutional question. Cogdell had a constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, but she had no constitutional right to give an untruthful statement. See United States v. Havens, 446 U.S. 620, 626-27, 100 S.Ct. 1912, 1916, 64 L.Ed.2d 559 (1980). Cogdell had two choices — she could give a statement or refuse to do so. The latter choice placed her in no jeopardy and her silence could not have been interpreted as an admission of guilt. But, she elected to give a statement and chose to make a false one.
V.
In recent years courts have unsuccessfully attempted to impose limitations on the provisions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S. C.A. §§ 1961-1968 (West 1984 & Supp. 1987), another statute deemed too broadly drafted by Congress. See Sedima, S.P.R.L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U.S. 479, 498-500, 105 S.Ct. 3275, 3286-87, 87 L.Ed.2d 346 (1985); Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 22-25, 104 S.Ct. 296, 300-01, 78 L.Ed.2d 78 (1983); United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 586-87, 101 S.Ct. 2524, 2530, 69 L.Ed.2d 246 (1981). The message from the Court in these cases has been consistent and it has been simple: “ ‘The short answer is that Congress did not write the statute that way.’ ” Russello, 464 U.S. at 23, 104 S.Ct. at 300 (quoting United States v. Naftalin, 441 U.S. 768, 773-74, 99 S.Ct. 2077, 2081-82, 60 L.Ed.2d 624 (1979)).
While there is an appealing argument that for policy reasons Congress should amend section 1001 by incorporating the exculpatory no doctrine, this is a responsibility of Congress, not the courts.

. In United States v. Cole, 622 F.2d 98 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 956, 101 S.Ct. 363, 66 L.Ed.2d 221 (1980), the court declined to adopt the doctrine, noting ”[w]e express no view as to the merits of the ‘exculpatory ‘no’ doctrine or the correctness of its application in the [voluntary] dismissal of the § 1001 count in this case." Id. at 100 n. 2. More recently, in United States v. Holmes, 840 F.2d 246, 249 (4th Cir.1988), the court again considered this "judicially created exception to section 1001" but concluded it would not apply under the circumstances presented.