United States v. John Joseph Raftery, Jr.

During grand jury proceedings appellant purportedly lied when he testified that he had never been on any premises where hashish oil was manufactured, or where there was a laboratory for such manufacture, or where people were contemplating such manufacture.

Because of these “false declarations” before the grand jury, appellant was indicted, tried by jury, and convicted of perjury under 18 U.S.C. § 1623 .

Prior to this jury trial the government successfully appealed a trial court ruling suppressing evidence consisting inter alia of certain drug-oriented paraphernalia which could be used for refining hashish, a quantity of hashish and smoking equipment. The search and seizure involved had been declared illegal in the California State courts. United States v. Raftery, 534 F.2d 854 (9th Cir. 1976). A panel of this court held that this illegality in the course of state narcotics proceedings did not operate to preclude the use of this evidence to prove an alleged perjury offense before a federal grand jury where the alleged perjury occurred after the illegal search and seizure and after the state court had suppressed the evidence.

On this appeal appellant first contends that the trial…