02-1336 U.S. v. Griffin

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“Since Griffin’s statement went beyond a mere denial of his involvement to craft out of whole cloth the identity of a fictional person in an attempt to mislead police, the government argues that the statement oversteps the boundaries of the exculpatory-no doctrine and therefore may support the enhancement. Certainly, Griffin’s Jaybo statement exceeds the protection of the exculpatory-no doctrine. Be that as it may, the clear guidance from the guidelines suggests that even the most outlandish and creative lies to law- enforcement officers, not given under oath, must have a detrimental effect upon their efforts to investigate or prosecute the instant offense before the enhancement can apply. This is not to say that, in an appropriate case, the elaborateness or intricacies of a manufactured story exceeding the boundaries of the exculpatory-no doctrine cannot demonstrate a resulting burden placed upon law-enforcement officials who expended resources to track down its false leads. But here, without proof that police expended any additional resources in their investigation because of the Jaybo story, basing the enhancement on that statement was improper.

“This is, however, an empty victory for Griffin.

Besides relying on the Jaybo lie to support the enhancement, the district court made the independent finding that Griffin had lied on the stand by ‘ma[king] up a scenario relative to the events.’ … [H]ere, all that was at issue was Griffin’s presence in that car that evening. In the end, the jury believed that he was and therefore must have rejected his elaborate mistaken-identity and alibi defense as untruthful. But more importantly for sentencing purposes, the district court believed he lied, independently determining that the only defense Griffin presented at trial-the mistaken identity and alibi story-was untruthful.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Stiehl, J., Kanne, J.