Why aren&#39;t all guilty people charged with perjury Say you are convicted of murder, for example. When you go to court, and plead not guilty under oath, isn't that perjury, since you're lying by saying that you didn't do it? &quot;Perjury is a criminal act that occurs when a person lies or makes statements that are not truthful while under oath.&quot; Source You are making a statement that isn't true (you aren't guilty), while under oath, so why isn't this perjury? If this is then does that mean that if you are guilty, and you don't plead guilty that you are committing perjury?
Perjury is not 'not telling the truth'. It requires (in most jurisdictions) being proven to have deliberately lied under oath. As Xavier pointed out, you are not on oath when entering a plea (among other reasons, you would be required to incriminate yourself). Secondly, "I am not guilty" could mean anything from "the prosecution wrongly think that what I did is illegal" to "this law is unconstitutional" even if the facts are not in dispute; either may be mistaken without being a lie. If the facts are in dispute, the jury will have to deliver a verdict that implies (it does not state, let alone prove) that they disbelieve one party; deliberate falsehood, whether by a defendant or a police officer, would be several steps beyond that.
The fact that it is possible to engage in fraud, doesn't mean that it is impossible to prove something. Usually, in a civil action, testimony that a business record says something and that it was not falsified is sufficient to meet a preponderance of the evidence standard (i.e. to establish to the satisfaction of a judge or jury that it is more likely that something is true than it is that it isn't true). It is easy to forge checks too (and hard to prove that a signature is fake), but that doesn't mean that you can't prove payment by check or that negotiable instruments are useless.
I don't think that's an accurate interpretation of the statement. The key difference between the two scenarios is the defendant's legal assessment of who owns the necklace. In the first he thinks he is the owner and can claim mistake of law; in the second, he he thinks someone else is the owner, so he cannot. To say he believes "the law allows for someone to do whatever they want with lost property even if they know who the rightful owner is" is very different from saying he thinks he's the owner. He doesn't think he's the legal owner, he just thinks he has legal rights that include some rights associated with ownership. So if the defendant's statement had actually been, "I thought I was the owner," that would have been a successful defense when the crime requires depriving the owner of the property. The defense was actually, "I thought I was allowed to deprive the owner of the property," which is an admission of guilt when the crime requires depriving the owner of the property. There are a couple questions here: a. A different crime that did not require intent -- or even required a different kind of intent -- could still lead to a conviction. A legislature is free to define larceny differently, so it could say that anyone who recklessly or negligently deprives another of property is guilty. Or it could say that your state of mind doesn't matter and that depriving another of property is larceny regardless of intent. b. In most cases, the mistake of law defense requires that the defendant honestly believe in the mistake; unlike mistake of fact, it does not require that his belief also be reasonable. Either way, the question of reasonableness would probably be a question for a jury, so a judge wouldn't be able to reject it (except in a bench trial). c. Mistake of law is a potential defense to any crime that requires an intent to do something that requires an assessment of what the law is. So if it's illegal to intentionally have sex with a woman who is not your wife, and you mistakenly believed you were in a legal marriage, sex with your non-wife would not be a crime. It has potentially very broad implications, but keep in mind that in many cases, the mistake a defendant would have to claim would be pretty far out there. If it were illegal to intentionally let anyone under 21 years old into your bar, I guess you could argue that you only let a 20-year-old in because you thought the law started calculating at conception, but I doubt you'll convince a jury. Mistake of law defenses still pop up pretty regularly. Here's one just yesterday from the Tenth Circuit. And this one is a Kansas case where a conviction for carrying a weapon while a felon was overturned because the court wouldn't allow a mistake-of-law defense. The Kansas case, though, uses the more modern definition of mistake of law, which also includes reasonable reliance on official statements from the government. In that case, the felon's parole officer had told him that it was OK to carry a pocketknife, but in reality, the law titled "Criminal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon" prohibited carrying knives, as well.
You have not committed a crime or a violation of non-criminal law when you swear something under oath believing in good faith that what you are saying is true, and you are mistaken. The law does not expect omniscience. Also, making a false statement under oath is only sanctionable if you make a false statement of a &quot;material fact.&quot; Whether or not you have a Social Security number is not a &quot;material fact&quot; in the context of a passport application where the material facts are that you are the same person as the person described in your birth certificate, that the parents there are to the best of your knowledge your parents, that the birth certificate is authentic, and that you have not renounced U.S. citizenship. The question about a Social Security number is there for administrative convenience, not to make any determination about your right to a passport. You should apply for a Social Security number. If you already have one, your actions consistent with not having one will only corroborate the fact that you were ignorant of that fact when you applied for a passport, and you will have your existing Social Security number provided to you. As a practical matter it is unlikely that you have one. There are no forms that your non-U.S. parents would have to be filled out that would have required one, and you know that you haven't applied for one in the past. Before Social Security numbers of dependents were required on U.S. tax forms, most people didn't get Social Security numbers until they got their first job.
At the federal level, there is no real equivalent to what you're describing. A probable cause hearing evaluates the government's evidence in a similar way, but it doesn't ask whether a reasonable jury would convict. The closest I can think of is a Rule 29 motion, which does ask that question, but not until trial has already begun. You typically make the motion at the close of the government's case, and (if it was not successful) again at the close of your own, though I've heard tales of judges granting the motion at the end of the government's opening statement. The states all have their own rules, but they're generally pretty similar to the federal rules in this respect, as I understand it. I don't know of any state that allows the kind of motion you're talking about, in criminal cases, at least. In civil cases, I think everyone has Rule 12(b)(6) motions, which ask the court for a pretrial determination that there's no set of facts that could establish liability on the plaintiff's theory of the case.
I can’t think of any laws against pretending to commit a crime, per se. For example, undercover police officers often pretend to buy or sell illicit goods, to see who will take them up on the offer. However, pretending to commit some crimes could be a crime. if you intentionally pretend to be violent or unstable, and this “puts another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact,” that could be common assault.
Short Answer Statements of jurors about their deliberations are not allowed to be considered for any purpose, subject to very narrow limitations which do not apply in the fact pattern you are asking about in this question. The General Rule And Its Exceptions Consideration of juror statements, subject to narrow exceptions, is barred by Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b), which has a state or territorial equivalent that is substantially similar in every U.S. jurisdiction that has true jury trials (as opposed, for example, to courts-martial which look like jury trials but are not jury trials from a legal doctrine perspective). Federal Rule of Evidence 606, which is the model for the lion's share of these rules reads as follows: Rule 606. Juror (a) At the Trial. A juror may not testify as a witness before the other jurors at the trial. If a juror is called to testify, the court must give a party an opportunity to object outside the jury’s presence. (b) During an Inquiry into the Validity of a Verdict or Indictment. (1) Prohibited Testimony or Other Evidence. During an inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may not testify about any statement made or incident that occurred during the jury’s deliberations; the effect of anything on that juror’s or another juror’s vote; or any juror’s mental processes concerning the verdict or indictment. The court may not receive a juror’s affidavit or evidence of a juror’s statement on these matters. (2) Exceptions. A juror may testify about whether: (A) extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jury’s attention; (B) an outside influence was improperly brought to bear on any juror; or (C) a mistake was made in entering the verdict on the verdict form. This is subject to exceptions only in a few extremely limited circumstances: To document interference or influence on the jury from outside the jury during the trial or deliberations (e.g. bribery of a juror, a juror's consultation of outside facts, blackmail of a juror, counsel for a party providing information not authorized by the judge to the juror). This is covered by Rule 606(b)(2)(A) and 606(b)(2)(B). To establish that a mistake was made filling out the verdict form (e.g. testimony immediately following a jury trial that the jurors confused the names of two co-defendants and incorrectly filled out the jury form convicting each one of the crimes where the jury found the other co-defendant guilty). This is covered by Rule 606(b)(2)(C). Under an exception created just this year for the first time (the source opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court by a 5-3 vote in this case, Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado (March 6, 2017), is here), to document that one or more jurors essential to the verdict reached the result as a result of a racially/ethnically discriminatory reasons (e.g., one or more of the jurors who voted to convict in a case resulting in a conviction said "let's convict him because he's Hispanic" and then did so). This is not expressly covered by Rule 606(b), but the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is constitutionally necessary to allow it. The situation you pose does not involve any of these exceptions. Instead, it concerns the internal deliberations of a jury not subject to outside influence, and it does not involve racial or ethnic bias in deliberations. So, this information is legally irrelevant and may not be considered by any court at the trial or appellate level. Procedural Aspects Of This Question Of course, in all of these scenarios including the exceptions, the mere fact that a juror says something publicly is meaningless legally. But, there is no means by which a lawyer in a case (or anyone else) can obtain information about juror deliberations through a subpoena or other compulsory court process. The only way anyone could find out about improper jury deliberations is if a juror voluntarily discloses these facts. Any effort to introduce consideration to this statement would have to be submitted to the trial court (generally, the trial court that handled the original case, but sometimes a habeas corpus action trial court) in either the form of a sworn affidavit of the juror, or live witness testimony of the juror under oath in the trial court in a post-trial hearing of some sort. This would have to be submitted by a lawyer for the defendant (or less often by the prosecutor in the case, seeking to right a wrong discovered by the prosecutor, for example, in the context of a separate bribery investigation conducted by the prosecutor's office). The juror or a third-party would not have standing to challenge the verdict or to bring juror statements to the court's attention in a legally effective manner. A statement of a juror about the verdict or how it came to be at a trial can only be considered at the trial court level and only: (i) in a post-trial motion for a new trial, which can be considered on direct appeal, (ii) in a collateral attack on the original verdict in a different kind of post-trial motion (state practice differs regarding what these motions are called), or (iii) in a collateral attack through a separate civil action (called a habeas corpus action) to set aside a jury verdict. Generally speaking, appellate courts never consider new evidence in any kind of case and can only consider evidence that is part of the official trial court record. The only true exception to this rule is that it may consider a post-trial fact that would terminate the case for procedural reasons (e.g. the existence of a settlement by the parties, or the death of a defendant during the pendency of the appeal or earlier which would render the appeal moot). Appellate courts can take "judicial notice" of certain matters that constitute general knowledge not specific to the case before them (e.g. the existence and duration of the U.S. Civil War, or the distance between New York City and Chicago, or the name of elected officials at the time the facts of the case took place). But, evidence concerning juror statements is not something about which judicial notice may be taken. Policy Considerations Why do we have such a rule when allowing this testimony could prevent serious miscarriages of justice? In rough order of importance, the reasons include the following: To protect the ability of a jury to engage in "jury nullification", which is an issue also informed by the double jeopardy protections of the 5th Amendment to United States Constitution (applied to state and local proceedings by virtue of incorporation through the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution and parallel state constitutional protections) against revisiting a jury acquittal in a criminal case for any reason. To minimize the burden jury service places on jurors who would otherwise routinely be interrogated by lawyers unhappy with their verdict after the trial even if they didn't want to speak with those lawyers. To protect the finality of verdicts on appeal and in post-trial proceedings as this would add another set of grounds to disturb a court decision in addition to those which can be observed in the court record. Non-Obvious Consequences Of This Rule One important consequence of this rule is that "harmless error" analysis by an appellate court, which is conducted when there is a legal error made in a jury trial to determine if the error, if it had been corrected, was material enough to change the outcome of the case, is always conducted on a hypothetical and theoretical basis rather than based upon actual factual knowledge of what would have or would not have influenced the jury's decision. Another important consequence of this rule for appellate practice is that jury verdicts will be upheld in any case where it would be possible for the trial court record to allow a jury to come to the conclusion that it did, whether or not the jury actually considered the arguments and facts it would have had to have considered to correctly reach its verdict. Thus, it is frequently the case that a jury misunderstands the jury instructions or the facts of the case and makes an incorrect decision as a result, but that verdict is upheld on appeal because it would have been possible for a jury which, for example, found witnesses that the actual did not actually believe were telling the truth to have been truthful to rule in the manner that it did. Another practical effect of this rule is that it is easier to overturn a judge's decision on appeal because the judge must articulate his or her factual and legal basis for each ruling, than it is to overturn a jury verdict, since a jury need not articulate the reasoning behind its verdict except to the extent that it is given and completes special verdict forms when it deliberates.
Can the judge flat out tell the jury that they cannot vote to nullify the verdict? He can but this kind of &quot;jury nullification&quot; makes little sense and is obvious that is not possible. A verdict is rendered by the jury. Once the verdict is rendered, there is no further vote. It would also make little sense for a jury to render a guilty verdict and later have another vote to nullify the previous verdict. From now one I will refer to jury nullification as we usually refer to it: the jury returns a not guilty verdict, although the jury believes the accused is guilty of the crime (rather than returning a guilty verdict and later nullify it, which is what you are implying here) A different question would be &quot;can the judge ask the jury to not engage in jury nullification&quot;? Yes he/she can. A judge can respond that jury nullification is not possible. If the jury convicts, this false information by the judge is generally deemed a harmless error on appeal, and the conviction is upheld If the judge did so and the jury chooses to nullify the verdict anyways would the fact that the judge forbade them to do so have any impact on what happens from that point forward? No. Jury nullification is part and parcel of common law, and it could well be part of the &quot;jury trial&quot; granted by the Constitution. Would the jury risk repercussions for nullifying a verdict against the judges orders? Only for jury nullification no. They can face repercussions if they lie in voir dire and say that they will follow the law as given to them no matter what, for example. Finally is there any situation where jury trying to nullify a verdict could phrase their objection incorrectly such that the judge could rule it as a guilty verdict (ie if they say &quot;we think you proved the plaintiff did this thing, but we don't believe he should be punished&quot; can the judge rule that they said he was guilty and just ignore the second half?) Juries return a guilty/not guilty verdict. They don't return their thoughts to the court (&quot;we think that....&quot;). They simply say &quot;guilty&quot; or &quot;not guilty&quot;. If for some unknown reason they should choose to tell the judge more than what is required from them, jury nullification is still an option of the jury and something that the jury can do, have the right to do, so the judge will not be able to override the jury. But this is something that should not happen. If the jury wants to engage in jury nullification, they have to tell the judge &quot;not guilty&quot; and nothing more. The jury doesn't have to explain its decision to acquit.