Bronston v. United States

• Decision Date: 10 January 1973
• Docket Number: No. 71-1011,71-1011
• Citation: 409 U.S. 352,34 L.Ed.2d 568,93 S.Ct. 595
• Parties: Samuel BRONSTON, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

409 U.S. 352

93 S.Ct. 595

34 L.Ed.2d 568

Samuel BRONSTON, Petitioner,

v UNITED STATES.

No. 71-1011.

Argued Nov. 15, 1972.

Decided Jan. 10, 1973.

Syllabus

Federal perjury statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1621, does not reach a witness' answer that is literally true, but unresponsive, even assuming the witness intends to mislead his questioner by the answer, and even assuming the answer is arguably 'false by negative implication.' A perjury prosecution is not, in our adversary system, the primary safeguard against errant testimony; given the incongruity of an unresponsive answer, it is the questioner's burden to frame his interrogation acutely to elicit the precise information he seeks. Pp. 357—362.

453 F.2d 555, reversed.

Sheldon H. Elsen, New York City, for petitioner.

Andrew L. Frey, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Mr. Chief Justice BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.

We granted the writ in this case to consider a narrow but important question in the application of the federal perjury statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1621:¹ whether a witness may be convicted of perjury for an answer, under oath, that is literally true but not responsive to the question asked and arguably misleading by negative implication.

Petitioner is the sole owner of Samuel Bronston Productions, Inc., a company that between 1958 and 1964, produced motion pictures in various European locations. For these enterprises, Bronston Productions, opened bank accounts in a number of foreign countries; in 1962, for example, it had 37 accounts in five countries. As president of Bronston Productions, petitioner supervised transactions involving the foreign bank accounts.

In June 1964, Bronston Productions, petitioned for an arrangement with creditors under Chapter XI of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. On June 10, 1966, a referee in bankruptcy held a § 21(a) hearing to determine, for the benefit of creditors, the extent and location of the company's assets. ² Petitioner's perjury conviction was founded on the answers given by him as a witness at that bankruptcy hearing, and in particular on the following colloquy with a lawyer for a creditor of Bronston Productions:

'Q. Do you have any bank accounts in Swiss banks, Mr. Bronston?

'A. No, sir.

'Q. Have you ever?

'A. The company had an account there for about six months, in Zurich.

'Q. Have you any nominees who have bank accounts in Swiss banks?

'A. No, sir.

'Q. Have you ever?

'A. No, sir.'

It is undisputed that for a period of nearly five years, between October 1959 and June 1964, petitioner had a personal bank account at the International Credit Bank in Geneva, Switzerland, into which he made deposits and upon which he drew checks totaling more than $180,000. It is likewise undisputed that petitioner's answers were literally truthful. (a) Petitioner did not at the time of questioning have a Swiss bank account. (b) Bronston Productions, Inc., did have the account in Zurich described by petitioner. (c) Neither at the time of questioning nor before did petitioner have nominees who had Swiss accounts. The Government's prosecution for perjury went forward on the theory that in order to mislead his questioner, petitioner answered the second question with literal truthfulness but unresponsively addressed his answer to the company's assets and not to his own—thereby implying that he had no personal Swiss bank account at the relevant time.

At petitioner's trial, the District Court instructed the jury that the 'basic issue' was whether petitioner 'spoke his true belief.' Perjury, the court stated, 'necessarily involves the state of mind of the accused' and 'essentially consists of wilfully testifying to the truth of a fact which the defendant does not believe to be true'; petitioner's testimony could not be found 'wilfully' false unless at the time his testimony was given petitioner 'fully understood the questions put to him but nevertheless gave false answers knowing the same to be false.' The court further instructed the jury that if petitioner did not understand the question put to him and for that reason gave an unresponsive answer, he could not be convicted of perjury. Petitioner could, however, be convicted if he gave an answer 'not literally false but when considered in the context in which it was given, nevertheless constitute(d) a false statement.'³

The jury began its deliberations at 11:30 a.m. Several times it requested exhibits or additional instructions from the court, and at one point, at the request of the jury, the District Court repeated its instructions in full. At 6:10 p.m., the jury returned its verdict, finding petitioner guilty on the count of perjury before us today and not guilty on another charge not here relevant.

In the Court of Appeals, petitioner contended, as he had in post-trial motions before the District Court, that the key question was imprecise and suggestive of various interpretations. In addition, petitioner contended that he could not be convicted of perjury on the basis of testimony that was concededly truthful, however unresponsive. A divided Court of Appeals held that the question was readily susceptible of a responsive reply and that it adequately tested the defendant's belief in the veracity of his answer. The Court of Appeals further held that, '(f)or the purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 1621, an answer containing half of the truth which also constitutes a lie by negative implication, when the answer is intentionally given in place of the responsive answer called for by a proper question, is perjury.' 453 F.2d 555, 559. In this Court, petitioner renews his attack on the specificity of the question asked him and the legal sufficiency of his answer to support a conviction for perjury. The problem of the ambiguity of the question is not free from doubt, but we need not reach that issue. Even assuming, as we do, that the question asked petitioner specifically focused on petitioner's personal bank accounts, we conclude that the federal perjury statute cannot be construed to sustain a conviction based on petitioner's answer.

The statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1621, substantially identical in its relevant language to its predecessors for nearly a century, is 'a federal statute enacted in an effort to keep the course of justice free from the pollution of perjury.' United States v. Williams, 341 U.S. 58, 68, 71 S.Ct. 595, 600, 95 L.Ed. 747 (1951). We have held that the general federal perjury provision is applicable to federal bankruptcy proceedings. Hammer v. United States, 271 U.S. 620, 46 S.Ct. 603, 70 L.Ed. 1118 (1926). The need for truthful testimony in a § 21(a) bankruptcy proceeding is great, since the proceeding is 'a searching inquiry into the condition of the estate of the bankrupt, to assist in discovering and collecting the assets, and to develop facts and circumstances which bear upon the question of discharge.' Travis v. United States, 123 F.2d 268, 271 (CA10 1941). Here, as elsewhere, the perpetration of perjury 'well may affect the dearest concerns of the parties before a tribunal. . . .' United States v. Norris, 300 U.S. 564, 574, 57 S.Ct. 535, 539, 81 L.Ed. 808 (1937).

There is, at the outset, a serious literal problem in applying § 1621 to petitioner's answer. The words of the statute confine the offense to the witness who 'willfully . . . states . . . any material matter which he does not believe to be true.' Beyond question, petitioner's answer to the crucial question was not responsive if we assume, as we do, that the first question was directed at personal bank accounts. There is, indeed, an implication in the answer to the second question that there was never a personal bank account; in casual conversation this interpretation might reasonably be drawn. But we are not dealing with casual conversation and the statute does not make it a criminal act for a witness to willfully state any material matter that implies any material matter that he does not believe to be true.⁴

The Government urges that the perjury statute be construed broadly to reach petitioner's answer and thereby fulfill its historic purpose of reinforcing our adversary factfinding process. We might go beyond the precise words of the statute if we thought they did not adequately express the intention of Congress, but we perceive no reason why Congress would intend the drastic sanction of a perjury prosecution to cure a testimonial mishap that could readily have been reached with a single additional question by counsel alert—as every examiner ought to be—to the incongruity of petitioner's unresponsive answer. Under the pressures and tensions of interrogation, it is not uncommon for the most earnest witnesses to give answers that are not entirely responsive. Sometimes the witness does not understand the question, or may in an excess of caution or apprehension read too much or too little into it. It should come as no surprise that a participant in a bankruptcy proceeding may have something to conceal and consciously tries to do so, or that a debtor may be embarrassed at his plight and yield information reluctantly. It is the responsibility of the laywer to probe; testimonial interrogation, and cross-examination in particular, is a probing, prying, pressing form of inquiry. If a witness evades, it is the lawyer's responsibility to recognize the evasion and to bring the witness back to the mark, to flush out the whole truth with the tools of adversary examination.

It is no answer to say that here the jury found that petitioner intended to mislead his examiner. A jury should not be permitted to engage in conjecture whether an unresponsive answer, true and complete on its face, was intended to mislead or divert the examiner; the state of mind of the witness is relevant only to the extent that it bears on whether 'he does not believe (his answer) to be true.' To hold otherwise would be to inject a new and confusing element into the adversary testimonial system we know....