BRONSTON v. UNITED STATES, 409 U.S. 352

Summary

During a bankruptcy hearing, petitioner was asked whether he had ever held any personal accounts in Swiss banks. Petitioner replied under oath with an unresponsive and arguably misleading answer that the company of which he was an officer had held an account there. For this answer, petitioner was convicted for perjury under 18 U.S.C.S. § 1621, which was affirmed on appeal. On further judicial review, the United States Supreme Court concluded that the legal sufficiency of petitioner's statement did not support a conviction of perjury within the meaning of the statute because, although petitioner did not answer the specific question posed, petitioner nonetheless believed his response to be true. Therefore, the jury should not have been permitted to decide petitioner's guilt on whether his unresponsive, yet facially true, answer was intended to mislead the examiner or was false by negative implication. It was the examiner's responsibility to recognize petitioner's evasion and to flush out...