Court Opinion

ID: 9481497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:21:02.600231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:21.651609
License: Public Domain

ROSENN, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I join in the opinion of the majority insofar as it reverses the district court’s dismissal of the indictments against the defendants, Andres Soberon and Armando Carta-ya. I also agree with the majority that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the federal constitution is not implicated in these appeals; the dismissal of the indictments in no way bars our jurisdiction to hear the appeals. I believe, however, that the district court properly dismissed the one-count conspiracy indictment against the defendant, Franklin Pena, although I differ as to the grounds for dismissal.1 I therefore re*942spectfully dissent from the majority’s reversal of the district court’s dismissal of the indictment as to Franklin Pena.
I.
In reversing the dismissal of the indictment as to Pena, the majority concludes that even though Agent McCann gave the grand jury critically false and misleading evidence which the district court found prejudiced Pena, this evidence does not bar Pena’s indictment. The majority reaches this result based on the rationalization that the testimony was not perjurious. Whether the testimony is perjurious depends upon whether the testimony was under oath and the state of mind of the witness; the absence of perjury, however, in no way diminishes the destructive effect of the false and misleading evidence upon its recipient.
Special agent McCann was a seasoned government agent with many years of investigating experience. He had personally monitored the conversation in Bruno’s hotel room among Pena, Bruno, and undercover agent Lee. Only five days later he testified before the indicting grand jury. Before testifying, McCann reviewed the transcript of the tape recording of that same conversation. McCann’s relatively brief grand jury testimony consisted in part of the following statements:
[Pena] said that his job was to come over and pick up the money, take it back and in two hours they would have the dope. And [Pena] indicated also in the conversation ... that Mandy was going to be the actual source this time of the cocaine. (Emphasis added).
As McCann later admitted at the trial of the defendants, Pena never used the words “dope” or “cocaine.” Following his indictment, Pena spent five months in jail because he could not post bond.
The majority concludes that McCann was merely “paraphrasing” the hotel conversation. However, the evidence in the record does not support the conclusion that it was a fair paraphrase. According to the transcript of the tape recording, the actual substance of the conversation with Pena was exemplified by the following exchange:
Bruno: “... I thought you were gonna count the receipts, now you’re saying you don’t even wanna count it. How you know how much you’re supposed to pick up?
Pena: “All I gotta do is take it [the money] over there. That’s the whole thing. Then, from there he’s supposed to call him up in two hours. Okay? And he’ll be at home.”
Agent Lee: “What? Call Mandy up?”
Pena: “No, Andy.”
Throughout the entire conversation, Pena made no reference, explicit or otherwise, to anything which Bruno was to receive in exchange for the money.
I disagree with the majority that McCann’s statements to the grand jury merely “paraphrased” this conversation. McCann strongly implied that Pena made some overt reference to drugs during this conversation. A grand juror listening to McCann’s testimony would have believed that Pena made such a reference. That implication was absolutely untrue. Even if, in McCann’s mind, the testimony given was a “paraphrase,” it was misleading, mi-sinformative, reckless and constituted misconduct. By attributing the words “dope” and “cocaine” to Pena, McCann put the key conspiratorial words in the mouth of Pena. In so doing, McCann disarmed the grand jury from its historic role as “a primary security to the innocent against hasty, malicious, and oppressive prosecution.” Ka-misar, LaFave, Israel, Modern Criminal Procedure, ch. 15, 194 (1989).
Prior to trial, Pena, who contends that he believed the hotel deal to have been a jewelry transaction, offered three times to take a polygraph examination with a government examiner to prove his innocence. The Government refused. The Government, however, did tender its coop*943erating witnesses, Bruno and Abraham, to polygraph examinations, which they both failed. Although perhaps not admissible as evidence, Pena subsequently passed a private polygraph examination administered by a police officer, in which the examiner asked Pena whether he believed he was aiding a jewelry transaction. Nothing else in the record is inconsistent with Pena’s alibi. Indeed, statements made by Pena during the hotel conversation evidenced a lack of awareness that this was to be a drug transaction for $36,000. Pena did not want to count the money. Pena brought with him no bag or satchel with which to carry the $36,000 in small bills. A search of Pena’s car turned up no evidence of drug paraphernalia. Of course, one cannot be convicted of participating in a conspiracy to purchase drugs when one does not know that drugs are involved in the transaction.
The district court here found that McCann’s false testimony severely prejudiced the grand jury against Pena, possibly to the point of being the primary reason for Pena’s indictment. Placing these two conspiratorial words in Pena’s mouth was certainly material: it was the only evidence on record that Pena knew this was a drug transaction. The Government has not pointed to any other evidence supporting the indictment against Pena except this single conversation in the hotel room. This lack of other evidence against Pena reinforces the prejudicial impact of McCann’s false testimony before the grand jury.
At the defendants’ trial, Agent McCann was the first to testify for the Government. On cross-examination, he acknowledged that, contrary to his grand jury testimony, there was no reference to cocaine or dope during the 3-4 minute conversation with Pena in the hotel room. McCann also admitted that his testimony on direct examination, to the effect that Pena had said that he or someone else would return with two kilograms of cocaine, was “incorrect.” McCann confirmed that the federal agents had no knowledge of the existence of Pena until the moment he walked into the hotel room. In addition, McCann stated that in the five days between Pena’s arrest and McCann’s appearance before the grand jury, McCann had “probably” met with the prosecuting attorney, Kaufman, “to discuss and prepare [McCann’s] testimony.” Even if not perjurious, McCann’s testimony was nonetheless untrue, reckless, misleading, and highly prejudicial. Without it, the Government had little evidence against Pena, except his presence in the hotel room to pick up the money at the direction of Soberon.
The majority, however, concludes that “McCann’s admission that these two words were not actually part of the conversation is certainly not an admission of a knowing misrepresentation.” Even if one accepts the majority’s construction that the misrepresentation was not “knowing,” this generous characterization of the misrepresentation in no way reduces the prejudicial effect of the misrepresentation on those it was intended to persuade. False testimony can be just as untruthful and deceptive whether given knowingly or innocently. Perjury adds to the legal responsibility of the witness but its absence in no way minimizes the substantive falsity in the search for the truth. The Biblical Commandment enjoining a person from bearing false testimony against a neighbor speaks not in terms of perjury but of falsity. To the grand jury hearing the witness, the inquiry is what is the truth; the oath to the witness is whether the testimony about to be given is the truth and the whole truth. Especially when a man’s freedom is at stake, courts of law should not treat falsity complacently. The majority fails to give any consideration to the prejudicial effect the conceded misrepresentation must have had on the grand jurors.
This court’s standard of review of the trial court’s fact-finding is whether it was clearly erroneous. Carter v. Rafferty, 826 F.2d 1299 (3rd Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1011, 108 S.Ct. 711, 98 L.Ed.2d 661 (1988); see also United States v. Bonanno, 852 F.2d 434, 437 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1016, 109 S.Ct. 812, 102 L.Ed.2d 801 (1989) (factual findings underpinning dismissal of indictment for outrageous government conduct reviewed under clearly erroneous standard). A finding of fact is clearly erroneous “only if it is completely devoid of a credible evidentiary basis or *944bears no rational relationship to the supporting data.” American Home Products Corp. v. Barr Laboratories, Inc., 834 F.2d 368, 370-71 (3rd Cir.1987). There is sufficient evidence on the record, considered by the district court, that McCann testified falsely and recklessly before the grand jury and that this testimony prejudiced Pena.
There is also support in the record that McCann did not knowingly lie to the grand jury. However, even if McCann believed that he was giving truthful testimony to the grand jury, his false attribution to Pena of the highly incriminating words “cocaine” and “dope” was at least reckless misconduct which “substantially influenced the grand jury’s decision to indict” or raises “grave doubts” that the decision to indict was not free from the prejudice caused by the false testimony. Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U.S. 250, 256, 108 S.Ct. 2369, 2374, 101 L.Ed.2d 228 (1988).
III.
Thus, in light of the infringement of Pena’s constitutional right to an unbiased grand jury, and the demonstrated weakness of the case against Pena, I believe that the district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing Count 1 against Pena with prejudice.

. A court of appeals is not precluded from affirming a judgment of the district court on any basis which finds sufficient support in the record. Myers v. American Dental Ass’n, 695 *942F.2d 716, 725 n. 14 (3d Cir.1982), cert,. denied, 462 U.S. 1106, 103 S.Ct. 2453, 77 L.Ed.2d 1333 (1983).