United States v. Cooper, 73-3260. Summary Calendar.
| Decision Date | 29 April 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 73-3260. Summary Calendar.,73-3260. Summary Calendar. |
| Citation | 493 F.2d 473 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Larry Napoleon COOPER, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
George Peach Taylor, Univ. of Alabama, University, Ala. (Court-appointed), for defendant-appellant.
Wayman G. Sherrer, U. S. Atty., J. Stephen Salter, Asst. U. S. Atty., Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before GEWIN, GODBOLD and CLARK, Circuit Judges.
Larry Napoleon Cooper was indicted and subsequently convicted by the district court sitting without a jury for knowingly making a false statement of a material fact in a loan application submitted to the Small Business Administration (SBA) with the purpose of influencing favorable agency action thereon, in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 645(a). His direct appeal from the judgment of conviction and concomitant 30-day sentence presents four specifications of error in the proceedings below: (1) Cooper's written, negative responses to questions regarding the nature and number of any previous criminal indictments, arrests or convictions against him, if false, were not material misstatements because either the agency routinely investigated the criminal background of each loan applicant and thus could not have been influenced by the answer, or the information requested is itself irrelevant and immaterial; (2) the prosecution did not introduce sufficient evidence to corroborate Cooper's extra-judicial confession to FBI Agent Carr, in which he admitted that the misstatements were indeed falsely entered to avoid jeopardizing his loan application; (3) Cooper was entitled to be represented at trial by a Ms. McCutcheon, who was not a licensed or trained attorney; and (4) the SBA's requirement that loan applicants disclose their prior criminal record is unconstitutional. Finding each of these contentions to be without merit, we affirm.
The statute, as applied at bar, and the agency's request for information about the loan applicant's previous brushes with the criminal law fully comport with the Constitution. In any event, a defendant cannot test the constitutionality of requesting the information by giving a false response. United States v. Knox, 396 U.S. 77, 90 S.Ct. 363, 24 L.Ed.2d 275 (1969). There is no colorable merit in the proposition that a criminal defendant (especially one who has twice rejected the services of qualified and competent court-appointed counsel) is constitutionally vested with the right of assistance or representation by a lay person. It is similarly clear that Cooper's rejoinders to the SBA's inquiries about his criminal past were both false and materially so within the purview of the statute. See, e. g., United States v. Goberman, 458 F.2d 226 (3d Cir. 1972); United States v. East, 416 F.2d 351 (9th Cir. 1969); Owen v. United States, 386 F.2d 774 (5th Cir. 1967); Kovens v. United States, 338 F.2d 611 (5th Cir. 1964). Obviously, Cooper's false replies had "a natural tendency to influence, or were capable of influencing, the decision of the tribunal SBA in making a determination...
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