When the FBI Comes Calling…®
PERJURY
With the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury at the end of October 2005, much attention has been paid to the crime of perjury. At its simplest, perjury is lying under oath. This crime is often associated with false statements and obstruction of justice prosecutions.
18 U.S.C. § 1621 (2007)
The Crime
It is a crime under section 1621 for a person to
- take an oath that he will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly contrary to such oath state any material matter which he does not believe to be true; or
- in any declaration, certificate, verification, or statement under penalty of perjury, willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe to be true.
The Punishment
The punishment for a violation of section 1621 is
- a fine, imprisonment for up to 5 years, or both.
Case Law Interpreting Section 1621
A defendant can be found guilty of perjury if a jury could find beyond reasonable doubt from evidence presented that he knew what the question meant and gave knowingly untruthful and materially misleading answers in response, since the crime of perjury depends not only upon clarity of questioning itself, but also upon knowledge and reasonable understanding of testifier as to what is meant by questioning. United States v DeZarn, 157 F.3d 1042 (6th Cir. 1998).
Put a different way, a witness "who testifies under oath or affirmation commits perjury when he 'gives false testimony concerning a material matter with the willful intent to provide false testimony, rather than as a result of confusion, mistake, or faulty memory.'" United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 94 (1993).
Furthermore, the defendant's perjury conviction cannot be sustained unless his false testimony was material. In a case that relates to committing perjury before a grand jury (which can be prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. § 1623, infra) the defendant was charged with violating section 1621, but the court noted that his conviction could not be sustained unless his false testimony was material to the grand jury's investigation. United States v. Lococo, 450 F.2d 1196, 1198-99 (9th Cir. 1971). However, "[f]alse testimony before a grand jury is material if it 'has a natural tendency to influence the Grand Jury in its investigation'; the Government need not prove that the perjured testimony actually impeded the investigation." Id. at 1199 (citations omitted). Materiality is determined by its relevancy to either the primary subject of the investigation or to "any subsidiary issue under consideration by the tribunal."