Court Opinion

ID: 9459526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:23:25.584199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:12.465277
License: Public Domain

MANSFIELD, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
I concur in Judge Smith’s thorough and thoughtful opinion except as to his conclusion that it was reversible error to have admitted into evidence Kahan’s pretrial statement, made in support of his application for appointment of counsel pursuant to the Criminal Justice Act, that he was without funds. Since I disagree with this conclusion, I would affirm the judgment as to both defendants.
It is settled that an accused’s self-incriminatory testimony, given at a pretrial hearing in support of his application for enforcement of his Fourth or Sixth Amendment rights may not later be admitted against him at trial as part of the government’s case. Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 389-394, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968); United States v. Branker, 418 F.2d 378, 380 (2d Cir. 1969).1 To hold otherwise would be to deter a defendant from the assertion of his lawful constitutional rights. In the words of Justice Harlan, speaking for a 6 to 2 majority in Simmons, supra, the accused would be “obliged either to give up what he believed, with advice of counsel, to be a valid Fourth Amendment claim or, in legal effect, to waive his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.” Absent a rule barring the government’s use on its direct case of the accused’s self-incriminatory statements, *296he would be able to give essential testimony only at the risk that damaging admissions would then be used to convict him at trial.
But when an accused decides to use perjury or false statements as a means of claiming a right (to which he might not be entitled if he told the truth) he faces no such dilemma or Hobson’s choice. The salutary rule of Simmons, as extended by Branker to the exercise of Sixth Amendment rights, was founded on the principle that an accused should not be deterred from telling the truth at a pretrial hearing even though it would involve admissions of an incriminating nature. No legitimate interest is protected by extending the rule to outright perjury or falsification. The latter should carry all of their normal sanctions, including the admission at trial of the accused’s demonstrably false statements wherever they would otherwise be relevant.2 It is unnecessary to grant him a license to falsify in order to protect his exercise of his pretrial constitutional rights.
Applying these principles here, Kahan’s volunteered representation to the court, upon his application for appointed, counsel, that he was indigent and had “no current funds” when he had in fact accumulated approximately $27,000 in four bank accounts over which he had exclusive control not only deceived the court but amounted to a false exculpatory statement. United States v. McConney, 329 F.2d 467, 470 (2d Cir. 1964).3 The proof showed that, assuming he had spent nothing during the *297years 1970 and 1971, he had deposited more money in these accounts ($27,000) than his entire legitimate income ($25,000) as reported by him on his tax returns. Evidence to that effect was properly received as the basis for an inference that he received some of the money paid by non-resident aliens to Mrs. Newman to obtain Kahan’s approval of their falsified applications for extension of the length of their stay in the United States.
It furthermore appears that, aside from Kahan’s false statement to the court as to his finances, which covers but 2Yz pages out of a total trial transcript in excess of 2,000 pages, the other evidence against him was overwhelming. See majority opinion, supra n.2. There was eye-witness testimony of meetings between Kahan and Mrs. Newman, from one of which he was seen to exit, take an envelope out of his pocket, remove money from the envelope and place the money in his wallet. Of 178 copies of INS Form 1-539 (Alien’s Application to Extend Time of Temporary Stay) found in Mrs. Newman’s apartment, 155 had been approved by Kahan. With six full-time inspectors and fourteen part-time inspectors working on such matters at the INS New York office, the chances are infinitesimal that if these 178 applications had been processed in the usual course of business, 87% of them would have been handled by Kahan. Furthermore, one of the forms found in Mrs. Newman’s apartment bore Kahan’s initials, from which it could reasonably be inferred that after approving it he had in violation of INS procedures returned it to Mrs. Newman. In addition there were Kahan’s deposits during the period 1970-71 of approximately $27,000 in accounts controlled by him, which was more than his reported adjusted gross income during the period and could not be satisfactorily explained as coming from legitimate sources.
Assuming that Kahan, upon retrial, decides to take the witness stand in his own defense, his false statement to the district court as to his lack of money will probably be admissible to impeach his testimony, see Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971); Walder v. United States, 347 U.S. 62, 74 S.Ct. 354, 98 L.Ed. 503 (1954), or as a false exculpatory statement, even though, according to the majority, it was error to have admitted the statement as part of the government’s direct case at the first trial. If, on the other hand, Kahan decides not to take the witness stand, the overwhelming case against him will stand virtually unrebutted. Under the circumstances, even assuming arguendo that the admission of his pretrial statement was error, it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1967); Schneble v. Florida, 405 U.S. 427, 92 S.Ct. 1056, 31 L.Ed.2d 340 (1972).
For the foregoing reasons I would affirm Kahan’s conviction.

. In Simmons the defendant, who was charged with armed robbery, moved to suppress the introduction at trial of a suitcase containing a gun holster and several items that had been taken from the bank at the time of the robbery as violative of his Fourth Amendment rights. Justice Harlan stated:
“The only, or at least the most natura], way in which he could found standing to object to the admission of the suitcase was to testify that lie was its owner. Thus, his testimony is to be regarded as an integral part of his Fourth Amendment exclusion claim. Testimony of this kind, which links a defendant to evidence which the Government considers important enough to seize and to seek to have admitted at trial, must often be highly prejudicial to a defendant. This case again serves as an example, for Garrett’s admitted ownership of a suitcase which only a few hours after the robbery was found to contain money wrapjiers taken from the victimized bank was undoubtedly a strong- piece of evidence against him. Without his testimony, the Government might have found it hard to prove that he was the owner of the suitcase.
* *
“In such circumstances, a defendant with a substantial claim for the exclusion of evidence may conclude that the admission of the evidence, together with the Government’s proof of linking it to him, is preferable to risking the admission of his own testimony connecting himself with the seised evidence.” (Emphasis added) 390 U.S. at 391, 393, 88 S.Ct. at 975.
In Branher the defendant was convicted after a retrial of knowingly participating in a scheme to defraud the government by obtaining false tax refunds. At an in-digency hearing held after the first trial in connection with his application to appeal in forma pauperis he admitted, after first denying that he had received for his personal use any of the refunds, that he had received small amounts out of refund checks cashed by him for others.

. Normally the fact that a defendant may be prosecuted for perjury based on his willful giving of materially false testimony does not preclude the government from offering into evidence his prior false statements where they are relevant and probative with respect to issues, e. g., knowledge, intent, consciousness of guilt. As with all other prejudicial evidence offered by the government, the defendant is protected by obtaining from the court, out of the jury’s presence, a preliminary ruling as to the falsity of the earlier statement and its relevance to the issues on trial, which was the course followed by Judge Motley. Indeed she further found that the pi'ejudicial effect of Kahan’s statement did not outweigh its probative value.

. Kahan’s pertinent statement to the court was as follows:
“The Court: Your name, sir?
“The Defendant: I am Norbert Ka-han, sir.
“The Court: Have you an attorney?
“The Defendant: No, sir.
“The Court: Have you any money to hire an attorney?
“The Defendant: I do, sir, but it’s blocked by my wife from whom I am divorced.
“The Court: Do you want a week to try and straighten that out?
“The Defendant: There is a suit coming up sometime early next year.
“The Court: We can’t wait until next year.
“The Defendant: Then if it pleases the Court I would like to have the Court assign me an attorney.
“The Court: You have no current funds?
“The Defendant: I beg your pardon?
“The Court: You have no current funds at all?
“The Defendant: No sir.
“The Court: Are you working?
“The Defendant: No, sir.
“The Court: I’m going to assign Mr. Jesse Berman at this point.”
Following a conference in the court room with his new client regarding his “financial status,” Mr. Berman reported to the court, on the basis of what Kahan had just told him, that Kahan “has no savings account in any bank in his own name. He had a joint account with his wife but since their divorce she has control of that account and he very strongly offers to reimburse the government should he be successful in his lawsuit against his ex-wife in the control of that account but at the present time he has no money.”
Although Kahan contended at trial that he understood that the Totten savings accounts opened up by him belonged to his children:, with himself merely the custodian, Judge Motley properly ruled that there was sufficient proof of falsity to warrant admission of Kahan’s statement. It is beyond dispute that if Kahan, upon his arraignment, had disclosed the accounts rather than throw the court off the track by referring to the blocked account in dispute with his wife, denial of assignment of counsel under the Criminal Justice Act would have been mandated.