At doctors’ appointments, museum tours, and freshman orientations, there are no bad questions. But when a prosecutor is the one asking and the answer carries a potential perjury charge, there are. This is how Judge Gregory A. Phillips of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals began the ruling in United States of America v. Lori Milliron, handed down by the 10th Circuit on Tuesday.
The court partially overturned the conviction of Milliron, the longtime girlfriend of Colorado dentist Larry Rudolph. Milliron was convicted for lying to a federal grand jury investigating Rudolph’s murder of his wife, who died during a safari in Zambia. Milliron was convicted of two counts of perjury, accessory after the fact to foreign murder, and obstruction of justice after testifying before the grand jury in 2022.
The court focused on a principle governing perjury prosecutions: prosecutors must ask precise questions. One perjury count arose from the prosecutor asking Milliron why Rudolph had been “so generous” in giving her approximately $60,000 during one year of their affair. Milliron responded that she did not know why.
The court concluded that this answer could not support a perjury conviction as the question required Defendant to speculate about another person’s motives. The court ruled that “stated plainly, a witness generally can’t be convicted of perjury for saying she didn’t know what went on inside another person’s head.” The panel emphasized that “precise questioning is imperative” and reminded prosecutors that their role is “to obtain the truth, not to obtain perjury.”
The court affirmed the jury’s verdict except for Milliron’s conviction on one court of perjury, which was vacated. The case was remanded to the district court for further proceedings. Read the opinion.