United States v. Williams

• Decision Date: 23 April 1951
• Docket Number: No. 134,134
• Citation: 71 S.Ct. 595,95 L.Ed. 747,341 U.S. 58
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. WILLIAMS et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

341 U.S. 58

71 S.Ct. 595

95 L.Ed. 747

UNITED STATES

v WILLIAMS et al.

No. 134.

Argued Jan. 8, 1951.

Decided April 23, 1951.

Mr. Philip Elman, Washington, D.C., for appellant.

Messrs. Ernest E. Roberts, John D. Marsh, Miami, Fla., for appellees.

Mr. Justice REED delivered the opinion of the Court.

The United States appeals from an order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissing an indictment against the appellees here. 18 U.S.C. § 3731, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3731. That indictment, 18 U.S.C. § 1621, 18 U.S.C.A. § 1621, charged each appellee with the crime of perjury while testifying in a prior criminal trial. The former trial was on charges of using 'third degree' methods to force confessions from prisoners.

In that prior trial, six defendants—the four appellees and two others not here involved—were prosecuted under an indictment, four counts of which charged them, 18 U.S.C. § 241, 18 U.S.C.A. § 241, with conspiring 'to injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate (under color of state law, four citizens of the United States) in the free exercise and enjoyment of the rights and privileges secured * * * and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. * * *'¹

The other four counts of the indictment, 18 U.S.C. § 242, 18 U.S.C.A. § 242, charged that Williams, Bombaci, Ford, and another not here involved, as police officers acting under state laws, committed substantive crimes by subjecting four persons to deprivation of certain 'of the rights, privileges and immunities secured * * * and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment,'² and that Yuhas and another wilfully aided and abetted in the commission of these substantive offenses.

In the prior trial, during which this indictment charges perjury was committed, Williams was found guilty by a jury of the substantive offenses. His conviction is affirmed today. See No. 365, Williams v. United States, infra, 341 U.S. 97, 71 S.Ct. 576. The jury found Bombaci and Ford not guilty of these offenses and Yuhas not guilty of aiding and abetting in the commission of these offenses. However, the jury was unable to agree on a verdict as to the four counts which charged conspiracy. Later a new in- dictment was presented which framed once again the conspiracy charges, and this time the appellees in this case were found guilty. The perjury charges not before us are not based on the proceedings in the second conspiracy trial. On appeal from the conviction in the second trial, and before the trial for perjury, the Court of Appeals quashed the conspiracy indictment and reversed. So far as here important, the basis for the reversal was that § 241 did not apply to the general rights extended to all persons by the Fourteenth Amendment. 179 F.2d 644, 648. This Court, today, affirms the Court of Appeals. No. 26, United States v. Williams, decided today, infra, 341 U.S. 70, 71 S.Ct. 581.

In dismissing the indictment in the case now before us, the District Court held, 93 F.Supp. 922, that since Williams had been convicted in the first trial of the substantive counts based upon his beating certain victims, to convict Williams of perjury for testifying that he had not beaten the victims—which is the gist of the perjury indictment against Williams—would constitute double jeopardy.

The District Court further reasoned that the jury's finding that Yuhas, Ford and Bombaci had not been guilty of the substantive offenses in the first trial, was a determination of their innocence 'whether as principals or accessories,' and therefore none of the three could be found guilty of the charge made by the perjury indictment: testifying falsely that they had not seen or observed Williams beating the victims.

Finally, the District Court reasoned that since the later indictment which repeated the conspiracy charges had been quashed on appeal, there was no jurisdiction to try the defendants on the conspiracy counts in the first criminal trial, and therefore the perjury counts based on the conspiracy counts in the prior case were bad.

The United States in its appeal urges that the District Court erred in all three grounds for quashing the perjury indictment. The federal perjury statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1621, 18 U.S.C.A. § 1621, reads as follows:

'Whoever, having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed, is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true, is guilty of perjury, and shall, except as otherwise expressly provided by law, be fined not more than $2,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.'

Its terms cover parties as well as other witnesses. If any incident or judgment of a former trial bars a prosecution for perjury under § 1621, that effect must be imported into the perjury trial by a legal rule distinct from the statute.

I. Former Jeopardy.—The conviction of Williams, at a former trial, for beating certain victims is not former or double jeopardy. Obviously perjury at a former trial is not the same offense as the substantive offense, under 18 U.S.C. § 242, 18 U.S.C.A. § 242, of depriving a person of constitutional rights under color of law. 'It is only an identity of offenses which is fatal.' Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 644, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 1182, 90 L.Ed. 1489, and cases cited. The trial court does not cite any authority for a contrary position, and appellees concede that the ground for dismissal cannot be sustained. It would be no service to the administration of justice to enlarge the conception of former jeopardy to afford a defendant immunity from prosecution for perjury while giving testimony in his own defense. Appellees' brief treats Williams' conviction as grounds for estoppel or res judicata.

II. Res Judicata.—Though former jeopardy by trial for the substantive crimes is not available as a defense against this perjury indictment, it could be that acquittal on the substantive charges would operate 'to conclude those matters in issue which the verdict determined though the offenses be different.' Sealfon v. United States, 332 U.S. 575, 578, 68 S.Ct. 237, 239, 92 L.Ed. 180.

Petitioner in the Sealfon case was acquitted of a conspiracy charge of defrauding the United States of its governmental function of conserving and rationing sugar. One item of evidence was a letter to an alleged co-conspirator said to furnish a basis for getting sugar illegally. On another indictment for uttering false invoices for the same sugar involved in the conspiracy, Sealfon moved to quash on the ground of res judicata. The motion was denied and Sealfon was convicted. The test of the soundness of the motion was whether the 'verdict in the conspiracy trial was a determination favorable to petitioner of the facts essential to conviction of the substantive offense.' 332 U.S. at page 578, 68 S.Ct. at page 239, 92 L.Ed. 180. We thought the acquittal of conspiracy determined that Sealfon did not conspire with Greenberg, the only alleged co-conspirator. Admittedly Sealfon wrote a certain letter. 'As we read the records of the two trials, petitioner could be convicted of either offense only on proof that he wrote the letter pursuant to an agreement with Greenberg.' 332 U.S. at page 580, 68 S.Ct. at page 240. The core of the two cases was the same. As the first trial cleared him of sending the letter pursuant to a corrupt agreement, that fact was res judicata. A like basis for res judicata does not exist here.

Ford and Bombaci were acquitted in the former trial on all counts charging substantive crimes. Yuhas was charged and acquitted of aiding and abetting. We shall assume with the District Court that Ford and Bombaci were acquitted also of that charge. 18 U.S.C. § 2(a), 18 U.S.C.A. § 2(a). In essence the first prosecution was for arrest and abuse through beatings by police officers Williams, Ford and Bombaci, acting under the laws of Florida, with Yuhas aiding and abetting. The perjury charged in this present indictment, allegedly committed at that former trial in which all except Williams were acquitted of the substantive offenses, is that the three acquitted men testified falsely that they had not seen Williams abuse the prisoner. The trial court thought that 'Whether they had seen or observed Williams beat the victims was a part and parcel of the charge against them in the substantive counts' of abuse and aiding and abetting the abuse. Ehrlich v. United States, 145 F.2d 693, 5 Cir., was cited.³ 93 F.Supp. 922.

We do not think the facts bring any of these defendants within the protection of res judicata, as recently expounded in Sealfon. Aiding and abetting means to assist the perpetrator of the crime.⁴ The substantive former charge against appellees here was abuse of a prisoner by police officers under color of state law. An acquittal of such a crime or of aiding and abetting was certainly not a determination that Ford, Bombaci or Yuhas did not see Williams assaulting the prisoners.

III. The counts in this indictment which charge that perjury was committed in the first conspiracy trial rely on the same facts to prove the perjury as are detailed above to support the counts of the indictment which charge perjury in the trial of the substantive counts. The trial court in the present case dismissed the counts for perjury committed in the first trial of the conspiracy charge for a different reason than that it gave for dismissal of the other perjury counts. In the first trial no verdict was reached by the jury on the conspiracy counts. The trial court in this case, however, relying upon the determination of the Fifth Circuit in the second conspiracy trial, Williams v. United States, 179 F.2d 644 (now affirmed here, No. 26, United States v....