Perjury Question

Five Green Bottles

Has anyone ever heard of or knows of someone that has been convicted of Perjury in the District or the Circuit court in Ireland?

I know of two ongoing cases both family law, both have alleged that their partners have made false statements to the Gardai, both have alleged that in the initial a Section 4 information Affidavit that false claims were made, both allege false evidence was given under oath in court.

Im asking from a neutral perspective as thankfully I'm not involved

UrbanFox

Five Green Bottles wrote: »

Has anyone ever heard of or knows of someone that has been convicted of Perjury in the District or the Circuit court in Ireland?

I know of two ongoing cases both family law, both have alleged that their partners have made false statements to the Gardai, both have alleged that in the initial a Section 4 information Affidavit that false claims were made, both allege false evidence was given under oath in court.

Im asking from a neutral perspective as thankfully I'm not involved

See this http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0731/78881-mcnamaraa/

See this http://www.irishtimes.com/news/building-contractor-convicted-of-perjury-1.708745

barman linen

My experience of family law is that false information on affidavits is the norm rather than perjury. Challenging anything seems to be frowned upon and seen as 'petty'. Bizarre.

coylemj

People go into court every day and give conflicting evidence, clearly one side is committing perjury when it comes to assault cases and a lot of traffic accidents where the passengers back up their driver's evidence even though they could have been asleep or reading something when the crash happened.

Even if (as often happens) the judge directly accuses one or more witnesses of telling bare-faced lies, nothing much happens afterwards.

seamus

Perjury itself being a separate offence would require proving that the person charged with the offence knowingly lied.

Even where two witness statements may directly contradict, you still have to prove that one them is telling a bare-faced lie and not just remembering things differently.

It's a relatively easy defence since people's memories and senses are very easily fooled. There are millions of videos online showing that people will respond with "fake" memories.

http://science.time.com/2013/11/19/remember-that-no-you-dont-study-shows-false-memories-afflict-us-all/

The car crash example is a good one - the passenger may wake up at the instant of the crash, and through the whole incident being recited over and over by the driver, the passenger can legitimately "forget" they were asleep or reading a book and instead will make claims about seeing things that didn't even happen.

Even watch live internet comments after a major incident - actual eyewitnesses at the incident will claim they definitely saw something, which if re-examined under the cold light of day didn't happen at all.

This is why a perjury charge is so hard to bring. You would have to prove for certain that the defendant is intentionally lying and not just misremembering - most likely by showing that they had completely changed their story from one documented account to another.

NUTLEY BOY

coylemj wrote: »

People go into court every day and give conflicting evidence, clearly one side is committing perjury when it comes to assault cases and a lot of traffic accidents where the passengers back up their driver's evidence even though they could have been asleep or reading something when the crash happened.

Even if (as often happens) the judge directly accuses one or more witnesses of telling bare-faced lies, nothing much happens afterwards.

Now now....

The conflicting evidence of witnesses does not carry the automatic implication that one is lying and that the other is telling the truth.

I assume that your proposition follows the concept of mutual exclusiveness.

Some witnesses recollections are simply defective. Some witnesses evidence is to be preferred to that of other witnesses. That is different from calling them liars. :rolleyes:

huddlejonny

What happens if a person is convicted in court and gets a sentence even though the prosecuting gardas statement is factually incorrect.

For instance, mate of mine was done for a road traffic offense and in the gardas evidence they state that they visually saw my mate turn the key and take it out of the ignition, when in fact the car she was driving had no ignition and the key is one of those wireless proximity keys which was not in view at the time.

Would that be considered perjury on the gardas behalf? Or could the judge turn a blind eye to it?

Peregrinus

huddlejonny wrote: »

What happens if a person is convicted in court and gets a sentence even though the prosecuting gardas statement is factually incorrect.

For instance, mate of mine was done for a road traffic offense and in the gardas evidence they state that they visually saw my mate turn the key and take it out of the ignition, when in fact the car she was driving had no ignition and the key is one of those wireless proximity keys which was not in view at the time.

Would that be considered perjury on the gardas behalf? Or could the judge turn a blind eye to it?

False dichotomy: Not considering a statement to be perjury is not the same thing as turning a blind eye to its falsity. For example, if I believe the guard's statement to have been incorrect, but think the guard was careless or mistaken or confused in making it, his statement is not perjury.

Let's assume that:

(a) the guard made a statement that must have been false; and

(b) it was shown in court to be false; and

(c) the court accepted that it was false; but

(d) your friend was still convicted. What's going on here?

The likely explanation is that other evidence was sufficient to satsify the court, beyond reasonable doubt, that your friend was guilty.

Now make different assumptions: Suppose that

(a) the guard made a statement that must have been false; and

(b) it was shown in court to be false; and

(c) the court accepted that it was false; and

(d) the court considered that the guard was intentionally lying when he made the statement; but

(e) your friend was still convicted.

Is this possible? Yes, it is. It could still be the case that other evidence, not tainted by any suspicion of perjury, is enought to prove your friend's guilt. The guard might even be prosecuted for and convicted of perjury, and yet your friend convicted of his offence.

In practical reality, this is an unlikely combination of events. The prosecutionw wouldn't be leading the guard's evidence unless they were relying on it to secure a conviction, and having beem shown to be leading perjured evidence would be a huge blow. But, in theory, the question of whether your friend has been shown to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the question fo whether one prosecution witness perjured themselves on one point, are independent questions.

huddlejonny

Peregrinus wrote: »

False dichotomy: Not considering a statement to be perjury is not the same thing as turning a blind eye to its falsity. For example, if I believe the guard's statement to have been incorrect, but think the guard was careless or mistaken or confused in making it, his statement is not perjury.

Let's assume that:

(a) the guard made a statement that must have been false; and

(b) it was shown in court to be false; and

(c) the court accepted that it was false; but

(d) your friend was still convicted. What's going on here?

The likely explanation is that other evidence was sufficient to satsify the court, beyond reasonable doubt, that your friend was guilty.

Now make different assumptions: Suppose that

(a) the guard made a statement that must have been false; and

(b) it was shown in court to be false; and

(c) the court accepted that it was false; and

(d) the court considered that the guard was intentionally lying when he made the statement; but

(e) your friend was still convicted.

Is this possible? Yes, it is. It could still be the case that other evidence, not tainted by any suspicion of perjury, is enought to prove your friend's guilt. The guard might even be prosecuted for and convicted of perjury, and yet your friend convicted of his offence.

In practical reality, this is an unlikely combination of events. The prosecutionw wouldn't be leading the guard's evidence unless they were relying on it to secure a conviction, and having beem shown to be leading perjured evidence would be a huge blow. But, in theory, the question of whether your friend has been shown to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the question fo whether one prosecution witness perjured themselves on one point, are independent questions.

Some interesting points. I dug a little deeper and it appears the gardas evidence in their statement said they requested the car engine be switched off - no mention of keys. But in court the arresting garda said he observed the person take the keys out of the ignition of the car. So he was adding wings to his written statement. Interesting.

Peregrinus

huddlejonny wrote: »

Some interesting points. I dug a little deeper and it appears the gardas evidence in their statement said they requested the car engine be switched off - no mention of keys. But in court the arresting garda said he observed the person take the keys out of the ignition of the car. So he was adding wings to his written statement. Interesting.

Not that interesting. The guard could have misinterpreted what he saw, or he could have been mistaken in his recollection. There's no reason to assume a deliberate lie, if only because: why bother to lie about this? It's irrelevant to the charge, and doesn't increase the chances of conviction.

A hand rule that I try always to follow: Never use a conspiracy theory to account for something that is more rationally accounted for as a mistake or a stuff-up. It just makes you look paranoid.