Court Opinion

ID: 9457695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:30:18.771765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:28.094598
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent.
The majority states the issue in this case in a manner which is unacceptable to me. The issue is not “whether an answer under oath, which is true — but only half true — can constitute perjury under 18 U.S.C. § 1621,” for this phraseology intimates that Bronston’s answer was somehow half false, and even the majority cannot help but recognize that “it was never disputed that Bronston’s company had had an account in Zurich for six months. . . . ” I think the issue is better stated as whether a perjury conviction can stand when the defendant’s answer to a question under oath is literally truthful but unresponsive. I further think the answer is that it cannot, even if the defendant’s answer is motivated by a willful attempt to conceal some material fact.
During a section 21(a) hearing under Chapter XI of the Bankruptcy Act Bronston was asked by the referee, “Do you have any bank accounts in Swiss banks, Mr. Bronston?” He responded in the negative. The next question was “Have you ever?” and Bronston replied, “The company had an account there for about six months, in Zurich.” For this reply he has been convicted of perjury, and the majority affirms today notwithstanding the unchallenged accuracy of Bronston’s statement, unequivocal case law, and the clear words of the perjury statute requiring for conviction that a person under oath willfully state “any *561material matter which he does not believe to be true.”1
The majority acknowledges that “A crucial element of the crime of perjury is the belief of the defendant concerning the verity of his sworn testimony [citation omitted],” that “In order to support a perjury conviction, the question asked must be . capable of eliciting an answer which the defendant knows to be false [citation omitted],” and that “the defendant’s knowledge of the falsity of his statements at the time he gave them is essential to a perjury conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1621 [citation omitted].” Yet in face of these clear statements of the law and the equally clear wording of the statute the majority finds that, while Bronston’s answer was truthful, “the jury was entitled to find that the answer as given was intended to represent that Bronston personally did not have such an account.”
On the contrary, I believe that once testimony is found truthful there can be no perjury conviction as a matter of law, and the jury is not entitled to consider whether the defendant hoped that a truthful answer would be interpreted in any particular way. Whether Bron-ston’s answer was calculated to mislead the questioner and frustrate the bankruptcy proceedings should not here concern us. We should inquire into his state of mind only to determine whether or not he believed in the truthfulness of his answer.
The confusion betrayed by the majority may well result from a misperception of several cases which Bronston cites.
In Galanos v. United States, 49 F.2d 898 (6th Cir. 1931), the defendant was asked “Don’t you remember that you made arrangements yourself for the making of a bond?” He replied he did not, frustrating an attempt to prove his association with the party in need of a bond. His conviction for perjury was reversed, the court noting that, although he participated in negotiations leading to the making of the bond, he was entitled to consider the question as an inquiry whether he himself had procured the bond, and that his negative answer was consequently true.
The nature and scope of the question was also involved in United States v. Slutzky, 79 F.2d 504 (3rd Cir. 1935). The defendant was asked whether he had ever been convicted of a felony, and his negative response was found literally accurate because New Jersey, where he had been convicted of crime, did not classify any crimes as felonies. Thus his perjury conviction was overturned.
In United States v. Wall, 371 F.2d 398 (6th Cir. 1967), an interpretation of the question also decided whether the defendant’s answer was truthful. The defendant responded negatively to the question “Have you ever been on trips with Mr. X?” The government admitted that the question could be construed as asking either whether the defendant had ever accompanied Mr. X on a trip, or whether she had ever been on a trip at a particular place at the same time as Mr. X. Thus, although she and Mr. X had been in Florida together, the perjury conviction was reversed because there was no evidence to establish the falsity of her answer with respect to the first interpretation.
These cases have in common the fact that the truthfulness of the defendant’s answer turns on the scope or interpretation of the crucial question. Bronston argues that the question he faced was also ambiguous, and that his answer was a truthful response to- one interpretation. We should not let this argument obscure the fact that his response was truthful regardless of which interpretation of the referee’s question is adopted.2
*562Because I agree with the majority that the question put to Bronston was unambiguous, I likewise agree that the above cases are correctly distinguished —but only insofar as they deal with ambiguous questions.3 Insofar as they state the law upon a finding that the defendant’s testimony was truthful, they call for reversal of Bronston’s conviction. Although the majority would dismiss Wall because there the question was found ambiguous,4 Wall also said that a defendant cannot lawfully be convicted of perjury when his answer is literally accurate, 371 F.2d at 400. Galanos cannot be distinguished because the defendant’s answer was, in the majority’s words, “precise, literally true and wholly responsive,” 5 for Bronston’s answer was also literally true, and precision and responsiveness are not relevant to the crime of perjury.6 Galanos said unequivocally that the defendant clearly “cannot be convicted of perjury merely because his literally accurate answer might have been somewhat modified in effect if he had been asked to state all the circumstances.” 49 F.2d at 899. Slutzky cannot be disregarded, as the majority would do, because the defendant’s answer was “truthful and responsive” and Bronston’s “non-responsive.” Slutzky said “If the defendant’s answers to questions were legally truthful, he cannot be held for perjury.” 79 F.2d at 505. A truthful answer, even if not responsive to the question asked, is not perjury under § 1621.7
Suppose, in response to the question “Have you ever [had any bank accounts in Swiss banks] ?” Bronston had truthfully replied, “My daughter attended school in Switzerland.” Had the questioning stopped there, could Bronston *563lawfully be convicted of perjury? Could he be found willfully to have stated any material matter which he did not believe to be true?
That his actual answer was less obviously unrelated to the question, and therefore perhaps more likely to deceive, is irrelevant because the crime turns not upon whether he successfully deflected a more precise question but upon whether he believed in the truthfulness of his testimony. It may be that this puts a burden on the questioner to recognize when he is being led astray, but I prefer to insist upon the questioner’s acuity than to distort the statute. Had the referee here noticed that Bronston’s answer was unresponsive and questioned him with particularity about his personal accounts, and had Bronston thereupon answered responsively, I suspect that no one would think his original unresponsive answer perjurious. Bronston’s conviction should in no degree depend on the referee’s failure to notice he was being diverted.

. Section 1621 reads, in pertinent part: Whoever, having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person . . . that lie will testify truly . . . willfully and contrary to such oath states . . . any material matter which he does not believe to be true, is guilty of perjury . . .

. To the interpretation we reject (“Have you, meaning the company, ever had an *562account in Swiss banks ? ”), Bronston’s answer was truthful. To the only permissible interpretation (“Have you personally ever had such an account? ”), his answer was also true — but not responsive to the question.

. In these cases the issue was, as it must be under the statute, whether the defendant had told the truth. This in turn depended in large measure on a reading of the original question. If a certain interpretation was permissible, the defendant had told the truth. If not, he had lied. But here a determination of the meaning or scope of the question will not settle the issue of whether Bronston lied, since Bronston’s answer was not responsive to the question.

. In Wall the question put to the defendant was found by the appellate court susceptible to two interpretations, and the conviction was reversed. The contra-positive position, that in our case because the question was clear the conviction must stand, is untenable. The logic to this approach would be impeccable if indeed Bronston had lied to a question found capable of only one interpretation. But, however purposefully evasive Bronston may have been, his response was literally truthful. Were we to focus on cases dealing with ambiguous questions the true analogy would be to a case where a question was found susceptible to two interpretations and the defendant’s answer was responsive to neither.

. Galanos required only that the defendant’s answer be literally true, and never even used the words “precise” and “responsive.”

. In footnote 3 of the majority opinion, our case is apparently further distinguished from Galanos because “had further testimony as to the company’s account been elicited, the creditors would still have been in the dark about Bron-ston’s personal account.” As pointed out in the text infra, the success or failure of the defendant’s effort to sidetrack a particular inquiry has no bearing on whether or not his testimony was perjurious.

. The majority also would distinguish United States v. Cobert, 227 F.Supp. 915 (S.D.Cal.1964) because there the question was vague. The court also said, however, that “where it is clear from the face of the indictment that the defendant has not answered the question asked, he can hardly be held to have answered it falsely, and no assignment of perjury can be sustained.” The court further noted that the defendant’s answer was “nonresponsive at worst, and in no way shows that he committed perjury.” 227 F.Supp. at 919. That Bronston’s nonresponsive answer was perhaps not a product of misunderstanding makes no difference. A deliberate failure to respond is no more culpable than a failure prompted by confusion, especially when the answer given was concededly truthful.