Court Opinion

ID: 9836748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:14:57.076806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:18.749586
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
Appellant was a soldier with two wives, one of whom was bombarding his command with complaints about his suspected bigamy. His first sergeant (1st Sgt) had good reason to suspect these complaints were true when he called appellant into his office to hear “his side of the story.” Unfortunately, he did not advise appellant of his rights under Article 31 with respect to this suspected criminal offense. This failure to warn was wrong as both the majority and I agree. See generally United States v. Good, 32 MJ 105,108 (CMA 1991) (and case cited therein).1
Nevertheless, the 1ST Sgt (in pursuing his duties to clear up the inconsistencies in appellant’s administrative records and in response to the complaints of appellant’s first wife) proceeded to get appellant to explain his true marital status. The Army had a right to know since housing, medical, and other administrative benefits are dependent on the correct marital status of a service-member. The record shows that appellant (in response to requests from the 1ST Sgt) told the 1ST Sgt that he was divorced from his first wife and gave the 1ST Sgt a false divorce decree. There was no evidence that appellant was coerced to lie to his 1ST Sgt or to give a false divorce decree to him. These acts form the basis for the two charges of giving false official statements.
Today, the majority sets aside appellant’s conviction on one of these charges. In the process, it effectively provides military suspects an unparalleled right to lie in their official statements to their military superiors or other government authorities. In my view, such a holding directly contradicts existing precedent from our Court, an applicable Manual provision, and analogous Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and state court decisions. I dissent and would affirm appellant’s convictions for making false official statements in violation of Article 107, Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 USC § 907.
When one looks at this case from a distance, one could say that there is agreement by all the members of this Court on the requirement for warnings against self-incrimination. The different outcomes of the majority and my dissent are caused by the two different approaches to application of the exclusionary rule to the facts of this case. The majority takes a broad view of the exclusionary rule which allows appellant to escape any prosecution for the two false-official-statement charges. But cf. United States v. Wong, 431 U.S. 174, 97 S.Ct. 1823, 52 L.Ed.2d 231 (1977) (conviction for perjurious testimony sustained on basis of evidentiary use of unadvised but false statements); United States v. Knox, 396 U.S. 77, 90 S.Ct. 363, 24 L.Ed.2d 275 (1969) (conviction for making false official statement sustained regardless of validity of Government’s request for information). My dissent applies a narrow, more conservative view of the exclusionary rule which would affirm his convictions for the two false-official-statement charges. See Glickstein v. United States, 222 U.S. 139, 32 S.Ct. 71, 56 L.Ed. 128 (1911) (holding that similarly worded exclusionary-rule statute should not be interpreted to permit the giving of false testimony with impunity).
*456In my view, appellant had the right to be warned not to incriminate himself, but he had no right to lie in an official statement or to give a false divorce decree to his superiors in the U.S. Army. See generally 8 Wigmore, Evidence §§ 2270(2)(b) n.7 and 2282(1)(e) (McNaughton rev.1961). Neither the Constitution nor the Code gives him such a right to lie or deceive. See Brogan v. United States, 522 U.S. 398, 404, 118 S.Ct. 805, 139 L.Ed.2d 830 (1998) (“neither the text nor the spirit of the Fifth Amendment confers a privilege to lie”); United States v. Lewis, 12 MJ 205, 208 (CMA 1982) (following United States v. Mandujano, 425 U.S. 564, 96 S.Ct. 1768, 48 L.Ed.2d 212 (1976), and Glickstein v. United States, supra, in applying Article 31(d)). Moreover, I will not judicially create such a right of immunity.
The thrust of the majority’s opinion is that the broad wording of Article 31(d) expresses the careful judgment of Congress that the servicemember should have an exclusionary rule affording greater protection than that afforded his civilian counterpart. 53 MJ at 445. The legislative history of this provision does not support such speculation by the majority. Cf. United States v. Apfelbaum, 445 U.S. 115, 121-123, 100 S.Ct. 948, 63 L.Ed.2d 250 (1980) (no speculation as to Congress’ intent where it is inescapably supported by language and legislative history). Moreover, the majority’s construction of Article 31(d) flouts “constitutional hornbook” law, well-settled by 1950, that prosecutions for perjury are permissible even if no perjury exception is provided in an immunity statute. United States v. Housand, 550 F.2d 818, 822 (2d Cir.1977) citing United States v. Bryan, 339 U.S. 323, 70 S.Ct. 724, 94 L.Ed. 884(1950); and Heike v. United States, 227 U.S. 131, 141, 33 S.Ct. 226, 57 L.Ed. 450 (1913) (Holmes, J., noting statutory proviso for perjury prosecution “added only from superfluous caution”).
Instead, I adhere to the past decisions of this Court recognizing that Congress intended our exclusionary-rule remedy to be commensúrate with the Fifth Amendment exclusionary rule, as traditionally delineated by the Supreme Court, unless expanded by the President in the Manual for Courts-Martial. See United States v. Williams, 23 MJ 362, 368 (CMA 1987); United States v. Jordan, 20 USCMA 614, 617, 44 CMR 44, 47 (1971); United States v. Caiola, 18 USCMA 336, 340-41, 40 CMR 48 (1969) (Darden, J., lead opinion). This Court’s decision in United States v. Lems, supra,2 recognized this point and expressly permitted admission of evidence of unadvised statements to prove a subsequent disrespect offense. Moreover, the Supreme Court in Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971), did not suggest that unwarned statements of a suspect could not be used in the prosecution’s case-in-chief for any subsequent crimes. See United States v. Wong, supra (a post-Hams case refusing to apply Fifth Amendment exclusionary rule to case-in-chief evidence showing perjury before grand jury).
In my view, Harris v. New York, supra, does not support the broad “case-in-chief’ exclusionary rule espoused by the majority in this case. In Harris, the precise question was whether an accused’s pretrial statement, inadmissible under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), in the prosecution’s case-in-ehief to prove the sale of heroin, could nonetheless be used in rebuttal to impeach an accused’s trial testimony as to that drug offense. The Supreme Court approved an impeachment exception to the federal exclusionary rule as a part of the Miranda decision. 401 U.S. at 224-25, 91 S.Ct. 643. However, it did not purport to limit exceptions to the Miranda exclusionary rule to the impeachment situation. In fact, it cited as authority, United States v. Knox, 396 U.S. 77, 90 S.Ct. 363, 24 L.Ed.2d 275 (1969), a case which recognized the traditional false-official-statement exception to the Fifth Amendment exclusionary rule.
*457Furthermore, in United States v. Mandujano, 425 U.S. 564, 96 S.Ct. 1768, 48 L.Ed.2d 212 (1976), the Supreme Court subsequently approved the admission of similarly unwarned statements in the prosecution’s casein-chief for the offense of making a false statement to a grand jury. There, it approved its earlier decision in Bryson v. United States, 396 U.S. 64, 72, 90 S.Ct. 355, 24 L.Ed.2d 264 (1969) (prosecution for providing a false affidavit) and stated “similarly our cases have consistently — indeed without exception-allowed sanctions for false statements or perjury; they have done so even in instances where the perjurer complained that Government exceeded its constitutional powers in making the inquiry.” 425 U.S. at 577, 96 S.Ct. 1768 (emphasis added); see also United States v. Knox, supra. Federal practice in this regard seems clear to me. See United States v. Raftery, 534 F.2d 854, 857 (9th Cir.1976), cited with approval in United States v. Lopez-Martinez, 725 F.2d 471, 476 (9th Cir.1984).
The majority broadly dismisses as inapplicable these Supreme Court cases (Brogan, Wong, Knox, Bryson, Mandujano, and Glickstein) as well as a decision of one of our fellow U.S. Courts of Appeals, United States v. Veal, 153 F.3d 1233, 1241 (11th Cir.1998) (holds that Supreme Court has not excluded from criminal liability false statements made to government agents or agencies in violation of the Fifth Amendment, whether made under oath), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1147, 119 S.Ct. 2024, 143 L.Ed.2d 1035 (1999). In my view, however, although there may be some differences in terms of the nature of the Fifth Amendment violation in these eases, that does not alter applicability of their truthfulness rationale to our particular Article 31(d) question. The bottom line is that stated long ago in Glickstein v. United States, 222 U.S. at 142, 32 S.Ct. 71: “[I]mmunity afforded by the constitutional guaranty relates to the past and does not endow the person who testifies with a license to commit perjury.” (Emphasis added.)
In my view, Congress was aware of this bedrock judicial principle of self-incrimination law when it enacted Article 31(d) and intended it to apply to servicemembers as well. See generally Brogan v. United States, supra at 406-07, 118 S.Ct. 805 (citing cases where “background interpretive principles of general application” considered in construing criminal statute); see Hearings on H.R. 2498 Before a Subcomm. of the House Armed Services Comm., 81st Cong., 1st Sess. 984 (1949) (Article 31 structured to generally conform with “the privilege against self-incrimination”), and United States v. Aronson, 8 USCMA 525, 529-30, 25 CMR 29, 33-34 (1957).
The majority further suggests that Mil. R.Evid. 304(b)(1) has been improperly urged by the Government in this case to permit use of the unadvised statements in a prosecution for making a false official statement. It notes language in the 1980 Drafters’ Analysis suggesting that “a statement obtained in violation of article 31(b), however, remains inadmissible for all purposes” as supporting its view. I disagree.
Mil.R.Evid. 304(b)(1) (1990) states the contrary. It says:
(b) Exceptions.
(1) Where the statement is involuntary only in terms of noneompliance with the requirements of Mil.R.Evid. 305(c) or 305(f), or the requirements concerning counsel under Mil.R.Evid. 305(d), 305(e), and 305(g), this rule does not prohibit use of the statement to impeach by contradiction the in-court testimony of the accused or the use of such statement in a later prosecution against the accused for perjury, false swearing, or the making of a false official statement.
(Emphasis added.)
This language responded to this Court’s previous decision in United States v. Jordan, supra at 617, 44 CMR at 47, which noted that the Manual exclusionary rule was broader than federal practice. The amended rule permits use of unadvised statements in the Government’s case-in-chief in a false-official-statement prosecution as consistent with federal-exclusionary-rule practice. See United States v. Wong and United States v. Knox, both supra. Coincidentally, the Drafters’ Analysis for this new rule no longer contains *458the Article 31(b) language touted by the majority.
In sum, there is a basic difference between the majority’s view and my view of this case. It centers on one of the core aspects of the Federal Exclusionary Rule. I believe Article 31 (like the Fifth Amendment) only applies to past crimes, ie., those committed before the interrogation where there were no self-incrimination warnings. The majority wants to ignore our Court’s and federal civilian courts’ case law to say that, if there were no warnings of self-incrimination, any soldier can then lie under oath in an interrogation (ie., commit a present crime). I don’t think that the post-World War II Congress was ignorant of this distinction between “past” and “present” crimes when they passed Article 31. In my view, the majority is clearly wrong in believing that Congress gives immunity for any crime committed in an unwarned interrogation.
The majority apparently3 returns to the out-dated, absolutist view of Article 31(d) espoused by this Court prior to the decision of the Supreme Court in Harris v. New York, supra. See United States v. Price, 7 USCMA 590, 593, 23 CMR 54, 57 (1957). In doing so, it overrules, sub silentio, our subsequent decisions which have recognized Harris v. New York, supra, and earlier Supreme Court Fifth Amendment exclusionary-rule cases as the guiding force for our Article 31(d) case law. United States v. Lewis and United States v. Jordan, both supra. It also breaks ranks with mainstream jurisprudence in state and lower federal courts. See United States v. Veal, supra (federal cases cited therein); People v. Tomasello, 21 N.Y.2d 143, 287 N.Y.S.2d 1, 234 N.E.2d 190 (1967); Butterfield v. State, 992 S.W.2d 448 (Tex.Crim. App.1999); McGee v. State, 105 Nev. 718, 782 P.2d 1329, 1331-33 (1989).
Finally, in my view, the majority essentially holds that Mil.R.Evid. 304(b)(1) is legally invalid because of Article 31(d). “Applying the rule to a non-testifying accused, as urged by the Government, would place the Rule in direct conflict with Article 31(d). In any such conflict the Manual provision must yield to the statute.” 53 MJ at 451 (citation omitted). Supreme Court review of the propriety of such a holding would be most appropriate. See United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 118 S.Ct. 1261, 140 L.Ed.2d 413 (1998) (Supreme Court overturns decision of this Court that Mil.R.Evid. 707 prohibiting admission of polygraph evidence was unconstitutional).

. The lead opinion in United States v. Good, 32 MJ 105, 108 (CMA 1991), has been repeatedly recognized as the law of this Court. See United States v. Muirhead, 51 MJ 94,-96 (1999); United States v. Meeks, 41 MJ 150, 161 (1994); United States v. Davis, 36 MJ 337, 340 (1993), affd, 512 U.S. 452, 114 S.Ct. 2350, 129 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994).

. In United States v. Lewis, 12 MJ 205, 208 (CMA 1982), a unanimous Court stated: “Under these circumstances, we hold that failure to give an Article 31 advisement does not bar admission into evidence of the accused’s statement which, by its substance and context, constitutes a separate and distinct violation of the Uniform Code.”

. The majority attempts to have it both ways. On the one hand, it asserts that there are no express exceptions to Article 31(d), in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which permit use of this evidence in a false-official-statement prosecution. On the other hand, it asserts that evidence of unadvised statements may be used as impeachment evidence or to prosecute for perjury if an accused subsequently testifies falsely at a court-martial. Clearly, the majority's "gatekeeper” creation is not contained in the language of Article 31(d).