AJ 010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Subornation Of Perjury, Perjury, Moe Williams

• School: Pasadena City College
• Department: Administration of Justice
• Course: AJ 010
• Professor: Gallon

Document Summary

The crime is strictly speaking superfluous, because all cases of subornation of perjury could be treated as incitement to commit perjury. Subornation of perjury, however, coincides only with cases of successful incitement to perjury, because the crime is not committed unless the false evidence is in fact given by the person suborned. Subornation may overlap with the crime of defeating or obstructing the course of justice. It is not clear whether the party suborned should himself be aware of the fact that the evidence he is asked to give is false, but the better view seems to be that such knowledge is not required. It became clear long ago that it was often very difficult to prove that a person had committed common-law perjury. As a result many persons who ought to have been punished for making false declarations under oath escaped convictions of perjury.