United States v. Robert L. Steele

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge.

The issue presented to the en banc court is whether the submission of false documents to the Internal Revenue Service by defendant, who was not a suspect, in response to an inquiry by an IRS agent during the course of a criminal investigation, is a prosecutable offense under 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Defendant urges us to adopt the judicially-created “exculpatory no” exception adopted by several other circuits to limit the application of section 1001. We decline to apply the doctrine to the facts in this case and find it unnecessary to decide whether the doctrine is viable in…