Court Opinion

ID: 9493750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:18:14.881366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:01.075555
License: Public Domain

CALABRESI, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
This case presents the question of whether 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(5) — which requires a defendant to prove that she has “truthfully provided to the Government all information and evidence [she] has” in order to obtain “safety valve” relief from a statutory minimum sentence — employs an objective or a subjective standard of truthfulness. Put otherwise, we are called upon to determine whether a defendant who provides information that she believes to be true has met the requirements of § 3553(f)(5) and is eligible for safety valve relief, even though the data she gives is objectively false. The majority has determined that she is not. Because I believe that the majority’s reading of the safety valve provision finds no support (a) in its language when read according to the most elementary rules of grammar, (b) in prior cases interpreting that language, or (c) in the provision’s legislative history, I respectfully dissent.
I.
As with all matters of statutory interpretation, we begin with the language of the statute. See United States v. Piervinanzi 23 F.3d 670, 677 (2d Cir.1994). Although the majority claims to have analyzed what § 3553(f)(5) says, see ante at 146-47, it does not actually respect the provision’s plain language. Section 3553(f)(5) requires that a defendant who has otherwise met the “safety valve” criteria “truthfully provide[ ] to the Government all the information and evidence the defendant has.” The majority interprets this sentence to mean that a defendant must prove both “that the information he or she provided to the Government was objectively true and that he or she subjectively believed that such information was true.” Ante at 150. But § 3553(f)(5) in fact says nothing about the veracity of the information a defendant gives; it requires only that the defendant provide information that she believes to be true.
The majority’s interpretation treats the provision as if it stated that the defendant must “truthfully provide[ ] to the Government all the truthful information ... the defendant has.” The majority attempts to avoid the problem that the statutory language creates for its interpretation by treating the word “truthfully” both as an adverb modifying the verb “provide[ ]” (which it is) and as an adjective modifying the noun “information” (which it is not and grammatically cannot be).
It is, in other words, obvious that the provision as it is written (not as the majority might wish it to be) contains no requirement that the information provided comport with the facts of the case as the court finds them to be. Rather, the provision requires that the defendant “truthfully provide[ ] all the information ... [she] has.” She must, that is, make “a good faith attempt to cooperate with the authorities.” United States v. Gambino, 106 F.3d 1105, 1110 (2d Cir.1997) (discussing defendant’s safety valve proffer pursuant to § 3553(f)5). And the placement and form of the word “truthfully” unmistakably indicates that it is the defendant’s state of *151mind rather than the quality of the information that is at issue.
Further evidence that this is the proper reading of the statute can be found in the remainder of the provision: A defendant must truthfully provide “all the information the defendant has.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(5) (emphasis added). I cannot see how someone has information that she does not know about. As a result, when the government, remarkably, conceded that Reynoso genuinely believed what she said, it also necessarily conceded that she had truthfully provided the evidence she had. And this remains so even though the evidence she gave is not true.
The majority’s opinion is thus doubly wrong linguistically: Not only does the grammatical structure of the statute make it clear that the relevant issue is the defendant’s state of mind, but so too does the language requiring her to provide all the information she has. One need not be a philologist to conclude that a person has no information that for whatever reason, mental or otherwise, she is conceded not to have.
II.
Moreover, neither the majority’s lengthy citation of cases that have mentioned “truthful information,” see ante at 147-48, nor its rebanee on the provision’s legislative history, support — and certainly do not justify — its misreading of the plain language of the statute. It is true that if § 3553(f)(5) had required a defendant to “provide truthful information,” the majority’s reading would be correct. It is also true that some of our cases have, in passing, treated the provision as if it so read. But the majority takes the phrase “truthful information” in those cases completely out of context.
In none of the cases the majority cites was the courts’ rewriting of the sentence in any way relevant, let alone necessary, to their results, and so such judicial rewriting is of no significance.1 See United States v. Schreiber, 191 F.3d 103, 106 (2d Cir.1999) (holding that a defendant who had initially bed to the Government but then provided “truthful information” “no later than the time of the sentencing” was ehgible for safety valve relief); United States v. Conde, 178 F.3d 616, 621 (2d Cir.1999) (using the language of “truthful ... disclosure” but holding that there was no inconsistency in the district court’s granting defendant a three-step reduction in his guidelines offense level on account of his acceptance of responsibibty whole at the same time refusing to grant him safety valve relief); United States v. Smith, 174 F.3d 52, 56 (2d Cir.1999) (using the language of “truthful information” and holding that safety valve relief was inapplicable where defendant “willfully chose not to speak with any investigatory body so as not to implicate his brother”); United States v. Cruz, 156 F.3d 366 (2d Cir.1998) (using the language of “truthful information” but holding that the safety valve provision does not violate the Fifth Amendment); Gambino, 106 F.3d at 1110 (using the language of “truthful information” but affirming the district court’s denial of safety valve rebef where defendant “incredibly” claimed that he had not been involved in much of the conduct the government had proven). There is, in fact, not a shred of evidence that the question now before us was even subconsciously in the minds of the courts deciding the cases cited above. It follows that their modifications of the statutory language have no bearing on our decision here.2
*152In addition, there are also cases in which we have used language clearly indicating the importance of the subjective perception of defendants. Thus, in Gambino, 106 F.3d at 1110, the court said, “A defendant must demonstrate to the court that he has made a good faith attempt to cooperate with the authorities” — a statement that certainly suggests that subjective knowledge (good faith) is key to the safety valve. And in Schreiber, 191 F.3d at 106, we emphasized that the statute requires that the defendant cooperate in good faith.
More important, the only appellate cases that have directly focused on the issue before us have rejected the majority’s position. The majority has made a half-heart-ed effort to distinguish these decisions of our sister circuits. But, in the end, it declines to follow them. See ante at 150 (“In any event, to the extent that [United States v. Thompson, 76 F.3d 166 (7th Cir.1996) and United States v. Sherpa, 110 F.3d 656 (9th Cir.1997) ] are arguably on point and support Reynoso’s construction of § 3553(f)(5) ... we conclude that the cases are wrongly decided and decline to follow them.”).3
Of the two cases, Thompson is more directly germane. In both Thompson, 76 F.3d 166, and the instant case, the question is the same: What information did the defendant actually have, given the “limitations on [her] perceptual and analytical abilities.” Id. at 171. Thompson received safety valve relief when she provided objectively false information that the court found she subjectively believed. As in the case before us, a psychologist evaluated the defendant. The expert found “a diminished capacity to understand complex situations.” Id. at 168. The court stated that Thompson “gave the government information as she knew it and as she understood it.” Id. at 170. The Seventh Circuit accepted the district court’s reliance “on expert testimony presented at the sentencing hearing concerning limitations on Thompson’s perceptual and analytical abilities and conclu[sion] that Thompson was forthright within the range of her ability.” Id. at 171.
The same is true of this case. Reynoso was convicted of distributing and possessing with intent to distribute crack cocaine to an undercover police detective. Throughout her safety valve proffer, she consistently maintained that she believed she had stolen the drugs that she gave to the undercover detective. Dr. Mark Mills, a forensic psychiatrist retained by Reyno-so’s counsel, testified that Reynoso’s
history of intoxication, impaired memory and neglect accounts for her behavior at her proffer session. While she was ready to accept responsibility for her criminal behavior, she unconsciously elaborated, the technical term is “confabulated” a story that would account for her behavior given the highly incomplete recollection that she had. Expressed differently, Ms. Reynoso told something that was untrue, but did not appreciate that it was untrue because of her organic memory impairment, secondary to cocaine intoxication. Such a pattern of confabulation is common in those with significant memory impairment.
*153(emphasis added). Like Thompson, then, Reynoso “was forthright within the range of her ability.” Id. at 171. As a result, she provided the government all of the information she possessed. (Indeed, the government has conceded as much.) That is all the plain language of § 3553(f)(5) requires.
III.
The majority attempts to justify its deviation from the plain meaning of the statute by reference to the legislative history of § 3553(f). It argues that that history provides only one legitimate justification for a defendant’s failure to have (and hence to be able to give) information about the offense: the defendant’s limited role. lSee ante at 148. The majority also reads into the legislative history a government entitlement “not to be provided with objectively false information.” Ante at 148 (emphasis in original).
In fact, the legislative history indicates neither such entitlement, nor any other support for the majority’s interpretation. Rather, that history, as is often the case, is inconclusive. Most likely, all it shows is that Congress did not really think about the issue. But, if anything, it cuts against the majority view.
The principal goal behind the safety valve provision was undoubtedly to remedy the irony that “for the very offenders who most warrant proportionally lower sentences — -offenders that by guideline definitions are the least culpable — mandatory mínimums generally operate to block the sentence from reflecting mitigating factors.” H.R.Rep. No. 103-460, at 3 (1994), reprinted at 1994 WL 107571. Ordinarily, downward departures that are grounded in cooperation with the police, because they are based on substantial assistance being given to the Government, require that the defendant provide useful information that the Government does not already possess, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e), U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1. The safety valve provision was enacted to benefit defendants even if they “had no new or useful information to trade.” Cruz, 156 F.3d at 375. It would seem to follow that defendants may be eligible for safety valve relief regardless of whether they have useful knowledge, useless knowledge, wrong knowledge, or no knowledge at all.
This object of the provision — to ensure proportionality in sentencing for “the least culpable offenders” and provide incentives for them to tell all they know — does not militate in favor of any particular interpretation of the language at issue in the instant case. On the one hand, it is not out of the question that the Government might also hope to gain useful information as a result of safety valve proffers by minor participants. To that extent, the provision of true information might be desirable. On the other hand, the obtaining of information, and hence its quality — whether it is true or false, helpful to future prosecutions or not — is beside the point of the statute.
In this respect, the safety valve is totally different from § 5K1.1, which is designed to obtain substantial assistance for the Government. Such assistance is, instead, expressly not the point of the safety valve. Thus Reynoso argues that
[i]f the statute is meant to benefit low-level defendants who have tried to cooperate, but have failed to offer anything of value, it makes little sense to exclude from the statute’s purview those defendants, who, despite their “best efforts,” cannot offer objectively correct, or true, information because of faulty memory, mistake, or inability to perceive the “untruth” of their perceptions. If a defendant can qualify for the ... reduction by honestly professing his ignorance of any information, ... how can the court deny safety valve consideration to the defendant who honestly proffers mistaken information?
This argument remains valid in the face of the majority opinion. And the legislative history of the provision does not in any way undercut it or justify the majority’s *154departure from the natural meaning of the statute.
IV.
Underlying the majority’s refusal to read § 3553(f)(5) as it is written is a prediction that, under a subjective interpretation, defendants will be “reward[ed]” for “‘tradfing] on’ objectively false information,” ante at 148. This reflects a fear that allowing those like Reynoso, who profess to believe false information, to benefit from safety valve relief will lead to a mare’s nest. As the Government states in its brief: “Permitting such a class of persons to receive the safety valve’s benefit could mire district courts in a search for the intent behind a defendant’s proffer of information when such information is not in fact truthful but the defendant contends his or her perception is sincerely held.” Thus far, the Government continues, courts “ ‘have found it fairly easy to cull serious efforts at full disclosure from mere pretense.’ ” Brief for Appellee at 18 (quoting United States v. Montanez, 82 F.3d 520, 523 (1st Cir.1996)). “Permitting the result advocated by Reynoso would drastically change the courts’ abilities in this regard, inviting frequent battles between experts, and rendering a court’s fact finding mission exponentially more difficult.” The majority, like the Government, is understandably worried about defendants who might take advantage of~a reversal in this case to gain safety valve relief without providing truthful information. Lying, the majority warns, “may well be harmful to the Government.” Ante at 148.
Two considerations suggest that these fears are misguided. First, the district courts are already involved in determinations of the credibility of defendants’ proffers. See Schreiber, 191 F.3d at 107 (discussing the importance of the defendant’s credibility to the determination); Gambino, 106 F.3d at 1111 (describing how the district court based its denial of the safety valve motion on “the detailed representations in the government’s letter, which the court credited over [defendant’s] implausible arguments in rebuttal”). As a result, allowing defendants who provide subjectively believed but objectively false information to receive safety valve relief does not suddenly inject credibility determinations where they have never been required in the past. The fact is, moreover, that defendants willing to lie can, under the majority’s own holding, readily take advantage of the safety valve by credibly denying that they have any knowledge at all. This is so since, as all seem to concede, under the safety valve (a) a defendant can say that she thought that she had gotten the drugs in a particular way but frankly couldn’t remember, and (b) her lack of memory, if truthfully held, would be a defense. Hence, rather than avoiding credibility fights, all the majority does is to create a perverse incentive to deny knowledge of uncomfortable facts.
Nor are the credibility determinations that must be made in such cases any easier than those to be made in the case before us. To the contrary, they present much the same problems as those the majority fears. As a result, the principle effect of the majority’s interpretation is to create the need for Ptolemaic cycles and epicycles to enable courts to distinguish cases of lack of information due specifically to the minor role played by the defendant in the offense, from those due to lack of memory of the offense, and finally from those that, as in the instant case, are due to self-deluding false information.
Second, and more important, one can readily meet the majority’s concerns altogether by establishing an overwhelmingly strong presumption that defendants are not truthfully providing all the information that they have when the information given is, in fact, not trae. One could even go so far as to say that it is very hard to imagine, absent a concession like the one made by the government in this case, that an argument of this sort could ever work. Such a statement would not only be more than enough to avoid the problems the *155district court fears but it would limit the availability of the safety valve to cases as extreme as the one before us, in which the government is itself willing to concede the defendant’s honest belief in the veracity of the false information she has given.
Operating under a strong presumption that what is objectively true is subjectively believed is by no means unusual in criminal law. A defendant who truly believes that that which she held to the head of her victim was a banana and not a gun has a defense, based on an absence of mens rea, to a charge of murder or criminal assault. Nevertheless, it is almost impossible, and properly so, for a defendant to demonstrate the truth of that assertion because we assume, with an overwhelming degree of certainty, that everybody knows the difference between a banana and a gun. And so such a defense is virtually never even attempted. (I suppose that to make it out a defendant would have to show that all her life, she tried to peel and eat guns and shoot bananas.)
The defense, moreover, is never used despite the fact that criminal law places a very heavy burden on the government to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant in fact actually knew that what she was brandishing was a gun rather than a banana. Instead, in safety valve determinations, the burden rests on the defendant to produce persuasive evidence that she has truthfully provided all the information she has. It follows that the circumstances in which a defendant would succeed in convincing a court that she has told what she believed to be the truth, in the face of the obvious falsity of the information proffered, are even rarer. They are so rare, in fact, that they need not be feared and certainly cannot properly form the basis for a manifest disregard of plain statutory language.
V.
What makes this case odd, and so raises the problem, is the absurdity of the government’s concession, which both the district court and the majority of this panel accept arguendo. Let me be absolutely clear. My position in no way suggests that the evidence Reynoso proffered was sufficient to carry her burden of proof. Because, however, the government conceded that Reynoso believed she was telling the truth, I have no choice but respectfully to dissent.

. As I struggle in this opinion to avoid splitting infinitives as I discuss how defendants are required by the statute to "truthfully provide[ ]" information, it occurs to me that at least some of the off-hand judicial rewriting of the clause in these cases may have resulted from no more than an understandable, if slightly dated, desire to avoid this grammatical faux pas.

. Cases in which this court has utilized the actual language of the statute — that the defendant "truthfully provide” information to the Government — are, of course, also legion. *152And, in fact, many of the cases the majority cites have used the two phrases ("truthfully provide[ ]” and "truthful information”) interchangeably. See, e.g., Conde, 178 F.3d at 621 (discussing "[t]he requirement that a defendant truthfully disclose to the government all information and evidence the defendant has”) (internal quotation marks omitted); Smith, 174 F.3d at 54, 56 (repeatedly using "truthfully provide[ ]” language); Gambino, 106 F.3d at 1111 (agreeing with the district court that defendant had "failed to meet his burden of proving that he had truthfully provided all the information available to him").

. Of course, the majority can with complete propriety decide not to follow the reasoning of other circuits with which it does not agree. I mention the opinions of those circuits simply to note that some distinguished courts have, seemingly, favored the reading that I would give to the provision, and to point out the apparent creation of a circuit split on the issue.