Cite as: 520 U. S. 461 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court.*
In this case the trial court itself decided the issue of materiality in a perjury prosecution, rather than submitting it to the jury as our decision in United States v. Gaudin, 515 U. S. 506 (1995), now requires. No objection was made by the petitioner, Joyce B. Johnson, and we hold that the court's action in this case was not "plain error" of the sort which an appellate court may notice under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b).
In the late 1980's, a federal investigation into the cocaine and marijuana trafficking of Earl James Fields revealed that he and his partner had amassed some $10 million from their illicit activities. Following the money trail, federal authorities subpoenaed Johnson, Fields' long-time girlfriend, to testify before a federal grand jury. Johnson, who is the mother of a child by Fields, earned about $34,000 a year at the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. She testified before the grand jury that she owned five pieces of real property, including her house. That house was purchased by Johnson in 1991 for $75,600, and in the next two years she added sufficient improvements to it that in 1993 it was appraised at $344,800. When asked the source of her home improvement funds, Johnson stated that she had put $80,000 to $120,000 into her house, all of which had come from a box of cash given her late mother by one Gerald Talcott in 1985 or 1986.
On the basis of this testimony, Johnson was indicted for perjury under 18 U. S. C. § 1623. At trial, it was revealed that Fields had negotiated the original purchase of Johnson's home and that Johnson had paid for the property with eight different cashier's checks, including two from a corporation in which Fields had an interest. It was also established that Gerald Talcott had died in April 1982, several years before
*Justice Scalia joins all but Parts II-B and II-C of this opinion.
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