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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document616_ Filed 02/24/22 Page17 of 32 433 F.3d 273, 303 (2d Cir. 2006) (citing McDonough, 464 U.S. at 556). Ms. Maxwell need not prove a deliberate falsehood. Jd. The government all but ignores Stewart, relying on United States v. Shaoul, 41 F.3d 811 (2d Cir. 1994), in an effort to minimize Langford. The government’s invocation of Shaoul fails. First, Shaoul did not reject the argument Ms. Maxwell makes here. Nowhere in Shaoul does the Court cite or discuss Justice Blackmun’s concurring opinion or Justice Brennan’s opinion concurring in judgment, which together were supported by five justices. See Shaoul, 41 F.3d at 815-17. This Court should not read Shaoul to have rejected an argument it did not even consider. Second, the language from Shaoul on which the government relies is dictum. That’s because the Shaoul Court held that the defendant could not “satisfy the second part of the McDonough test—that the juror could have been challenged for cause.” /d. at 816. The Court’s discussion of deliberate-versus-inadvertent false answers thus was not necessary to its conclusion, and this Court is not bound by it. Jama v. Immigr. & Customs Enf’t, 543 U.S. 335, 352 n.12 (2005) (“Dictum settles nothing, even in the court that utters it.”’). Third, if the government’s reading of Shaoul were correct, then Shaoul is inconsistent with Langford, not to mention McDonough. Because Langford was decided first, and because McDonough is a United States Supreme Court opinion, this Court is bound by both and not by Shaoul. Compare United States v. Wilkerson, 361 F.3d 717, 732 (2d Cir. 2004) (one panel of the Court of Appeals is “bound by the decisions of prior panels until such time as they are overruled either by an en banc panel of our Court or by the Supreme Court”), with Indep. Cmty. Bankers of Am. v. Bd. of Governors of Fed. Rsrv. Sys., 195 F.3d 28, 34 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (“In the event of conflicting panel opinions . . . the earlier one controls, as one panel of this court may not overrule {2 DOJ-OGR-00009207