Court Opinion

ID: 9470211
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:59:36.238259+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:47.037909
License: Public Domain

*724TATE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. Until now, it has been the law of this (and other) circuits that an accused cannot be guilty of misprision of a felony (an affirmative act of concealment of a felony known to the offender, without communicating this knowledge to authorities as soon as possible), 18 U.S.C. § 4,1 where the conduct concealed constitutes the accused’s commission of the offense itself. United States v. Johnson, 564 F.2d 1225 (5th Cir.1977). Under jurisprudential interpretations to be cited, by reason of the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, an offender may not be guilty of misprision if he does not immediately report his own criminal conduct to law enforcement authorities. When the “factual basis” for a plea of guilty, Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(f),2 does not disclose that “the conduct admitted by the accused constitutes the offense charged in the information,” Johnson, supra, 546 F.2d at 1226, the conviction by such plea must be set aside on appeal, id., 546 F.2d at 1227.
Here, the sordid facts underlying this appeal concern an alleged conspiracy between a lawyer (Kuhn), an intermediary (Huckabee), and the defendant Davila (until then a highly respected police officer) to bribe a witness (Rendon) in a federal criminal trial to provide false material testimony. Davila’s part in the conspiracy was to offer $10,000 to Rendon to change the testimony he had given in a former trial (an offer Rendon accepted), to receive $15,000 from the lawyer and to hold it until after the false testimony was given, at which time he would pay Rendon and divide the remaining $5,000 between himself and Huckabee. The conspiracy was discovered, and Davila was arrested with approximately $14,000 still in his possession (the bulk of which, of course, was intended to bribe the witness Rendon).
Kuhn, Davila, and Huckabee were charged with the conspiracy to suborn perjury from this witness. Davila’s present plea of guilty to misprision was the result of a plea bargain on the eve of trial. The more serious conspiracy offense against him was dismissed, and he pleaded guilty and received a suspended sentence on a superseding indictment of the lesser-punished offense of misprision. (Although Davila cooperated fully with the prosecution and testified in accord with the government’s theory of the conspiracy charges, the other alleged coconspirators were acquitted.)
The majority holds that the requisite affirmative act of concealment of the crime occurred when Davila agreed to hold (and in fact, actually held) $15,000 in order to pay the bribed juror following his trial, but nevertheless did not report that fact immediately to law enforcement authorities. Thus, the majority holds the crime of misprision was committed by Davila’s failure to reveal immediately to law enforcement authorities that he was holding $10,000 for the purpose of bribing a juror, thus affirmatively concealing the conspiracy (in which he played a principal part) to bribe the juror.
In so holding, the majority relies upon decisions upholding as acts of affirmative concealment-misprision the nonrevealing by the accused of acts subsequent to the actual offense. No decision is cited where the affirmative act of concealment was a fact constituting part of the actual substantive felony allegedly being concealed — here, a conspiracy, in which the very act of concealment now relied upon (Davila’s holding of the money to pay the bribed witness after his false testimony), was the identical crimi*725nal conduct forming a substantial part of Davila’s commission of the felony allegedly being concealed. As will be shown, this is contrary to the decisional interpretations of the misprision statute and results, in violation of the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, in holding that an offender is guilty of misprision if he does not immediately report his own criminal conduct to the prosecutorial authorities.
The majority somewhat persuasively suggests that Davila’s act of holding the money could be separately viewed as misprision independent of the conspiracy, especially since the conspiracy charge against Davila himself was dismissed. Under this view, it is as if only the other three had been charged with conspiracy, and Davila was charged only with misprision, a lesser-punished offense, because he affirmatively concealed its commission by holding the money to be used to bribe the juror. However attractive this view is, it cannot be sustained. First, here Davila was charged, not with concealing a conspiracy of others, but with concealing a conspiracy in which he himself was a coconspirator.3 Second, even if his conduct were charged as an offense separate from a conspiracy in which he played a part, to require him to report his own criminal conduct to law enforcement authorities would implicate a violation of the accused’s Fifth Amendment protection against compulsory self-incrimination — not within any presumed legislative intent, and not sustainable by the courts if indeed intended.4
The decisions relied upon by the majority, which held that the offense of misprision was committed, all involve an affirmative act of concealment by the defendants, subsequent to and independent of the substantive offense. To the contrary, where the accused’s act of concealment relied upon constitutes part of a substantive offense by him, the courts have uniformly held that the crime of misprision, 18 U.S.C. § 4, is not committed.
In this circuit, United States v. Johnson, 546 F.2d 1225 (1977), vacated a plea of guilty to misprision pursuant to a plea bargain, where the factual basis shown was only that the accused had failed to report several firearms control criminal violations, with which he himself was with others initially charged. (As here, the charges for these firearms felonies were dismissed, in return for the defendant’s plea of guilty to misprision.) We there noted that the mere failure to report a felony does not constitute the crime of misprision, 18 U.S.C. § 4, and that the showing that he had failed to report the criminal transactions in which he himself was involved does not constitute an affirmative step in the concealment of the crime so as to constitute misprision. 546 F.2d at 1227.
Under similar circumstances, as I read them, the decisions of other circuits are to similar effect. The most recent of them are United States v. Jennings, 603 F.2d 650 (7th Cir.1979); United States v. Kuh, 541 F.2d 672 (5th Cir.1972); and United States v. King, 402 F.2d 694 (9th Cir.1968). In Jennings, the misprision conduct charged was the accused’s failure to report that a dealer in drugs had possessed and distributed them, where the accused had himself set up the purchase of these drugs from the dealer by an undercover agent; the conviction was reversed. 603 F.2d at 651, 652. In Kuh, *726the indictment for misprision was dismissed by the district court, where the offense charged was that subsequent to the offense these defendants had received a substantial sum of money that they knew had been stolen from an armored car, and that their concealment of this stolen money constituted the affirmative act necessary to constitute misprision; the trial court’s dismissal of the indictment was affirmed. In King, the brother of a bank robber was convicted of misprision, where his affirmative act of concealment was alleged to be his receipt of some of the stolen money after the robbery (knowing of its source) (and where he had been present when the robbery was initially discussed, although he did not take part in it); pointing out that although the conduct might have constituted a violation of other criminal statutes (e.g., knowingly receiving stolen money), the court held that it did not constitute the crime of misprision, 18 U.S.C. § 4, and reversed the conviction.
In all of these decisions, the courts pointed out that (as is true in the present case) the immediate report to the authorities of the acts allegedly constituting affirmative concealment would have furnished evidence sufficient to prosecute the accuseds for a crime, and that 18 U.S.C. § 4 would unconstitutionally violate Fifth Amendment protections if it were indeed interpreted to compel an individual to report conduct that he had reasonable cause to fear might lead to his prosecution and conviction of a crime.
The majority dismisses these Fifth Amendment concerns by noting that, in pleading guilty, Davila was informed and clearly understood that he had waived Fifth Amendment rights. I do not follow the majority’s reasoning that conduct, which could not in itself be a violation of the misprision statute,5 could somehow be converted into guilt of the substantive offense because an individual had voluntarily pleaded guilty to it.
I therefore respectfully dissent from the opinion of my esteemed brothers.

.' 18 U.S.C. § 4 provides:
Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined not more than $500 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

. The purpose behind such a requirement is to protect a defendant who may plead voluntarily with an understanding of the nature of the charge, but without realizing that his conduct does not actually fall within the definition of the crime charged. McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 467, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 1171, 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (1969); United States v. Johnson, 546 F.2d 1225, 1226 (1977).

. The superseding indictment to which Davila pleaded guilty charged:
That on or about September 26, 1978, to and including January 23, 1979, in the Western District of Texas, Defendant JOSE C. DAVILA having knowledge of the commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, that is, conspiracy to suborn perjury by Robert J. Kuhn, Doyle D. Huckabee, and Jose C. Davila from Florencio Rendon, did wilfully conceal the same and did not, as soon as possible, make known the commission of said felony to a judge or other person in civil or military authority within the United States; all in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 4.

. In LaFave and Scott, Criminal Law 526 (1972), the brief discussion of the crime does not indicate that any such interpretation has been advanced and notes that the repeal of this little-used statute has been recommended by the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, in favor of an offense of hindering of law enforcement officers.

. That is, if so construed (as need not be), it would unconstitutionally require an individual to incriminate himself, in violation of the Fifth Amendment.