United States v. Harrison

OPINION OF THE COURT

RABY, Senior Judge:

Appellant asserts that he was improperly convicted of Specification 1 of Charge III (false swearing). He maintains that the statements he gave to the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) investigator qualified within the “exculpatory no” defense.1 We disagree.

The “exculpatory no” defense prevents the government from punishing an individual for giving a false negative answer in response to a government inquiry if a truthful affirmative answer would have incriminated the individual, or if the individual reasonably believed that a truthful affirmative…