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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 204 Filed 04/16/21 Page 147 of 239

to determine the meaning that a defendant assigns to a specific question.” Id.; see, e.g. United
States v. Sampson, 898 F.3d 287, 307 (2d Cir. 2018).47

A narrow exception arises when language in a question is so “fundamentally ambiguous”
that a Court can conclude, as a matter of law, that a perjury count cannot stand. Lighte, 782 F.2d
at 375. A question is “fundamentally ambiguous” when “it is not a phrase with a meaning about
which [people] of ordinary intellect could agree, nor one which could be used with mutual
understanding by a questioner and answerer unless it were defined at the time it were sought and
offered as testimony.” Id. at 375 (internal quotation marks omitted). In such a case, the “answers
associated with the questions posed may be insufficient as a matter of law to support the perjury
conviction.” United States v. Markiewicz, 978 F.2d 786, 808 (2d Cir. 1992) (quoting Lighte, 782
F.2d at 375). For instance, in Lighte, a case involving post-conviction appellate review, the Court
found that a question was fundamentally ambiguous because it used the word ““you’ without
indication that, unlike the prior two questions, the appellant was now being questioned in his role
as trustee.” 782 F.2d at 376. “[F]undamental ambiguity,” however, “is the exception, not the
rule.” United States v. Sarwari, 669 F.3d 401, 407 (4th Cir. 2012) (quoting United States v.
Farmer, 137 F.3d 1265, 1269 (10th Cir. 1998)). A defendant cannot demonstrate fundamental
ambiguity simply by showing that words used in a question are amenable to multiple meanings,
or that an answer “might generate a number of different interpretations.” Lighte, 782 F.2d at 375;
United States v. Strohm, 671 F.3d 1173, 1178 (10th Cir. 2011) (“Simply plumbing a question for
post hoc ambiguity will not defeat a perjury conviction where the evidence demonstrates the
defendant understood the question in context and gave a knowingly false answer.”). “If, in the

47 The Second Circuit analyzes general principles of perjury similarly under 18 U.S.C. § 1623 and
another perjury statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1621, see Lighte, 782 F.2d at 372, and it has assumed without
deciding that those standards also apply to offenses under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2), see United States
v. Sampson, 898 F.3d 287, 307 n.15 (2d Cir. 2018).

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