The Prevalence of Perjury
Shriver, Mark O.
602 THE PREVALENCE OF PERJURY By MARK O. SHRIVER IN ITS issue of February 2, The Commonweal printed a brief editorial note on the wide-spread prevalence of perjury in the country today....
...Too often the witness himself, if he is in the court-room, does not recognize that bellowed name as his own...
...What happens when the plain citizen appears before a notary or judge to make affidavit to papers of everyday life—to customs declarations, tax returns, or any of the other documents which must be so attested...
...An ingrained respect, a feeling of reverence for the means by which justice is administered, is bound to follow, and it is especially noticeable among that class which lawyers call the laity...
...It is a serious and a sobering thing, that obligation which a witness is required to take...
...It is all in the day's work of a bailiff...
...A large proportion of such perjured oaths are due entirely to this carelessness, or, worse, this criminal neglect, on the part of the administrator...
...A good lawyer could pick a dozen flaws in that definition, but for the present intent it should suffice since the purpose of this paper is not so much to set down an accurate definition of a particular crime, as to discuss the basic and underlying reasons for the unusual frequency of such a crime...
...and before the final mute could have drifted across the room, had it been enunciated, there follows in the same breath, "Nuhpresensalrftitey" down to the final "nothing but the truth...
...Some bailiff bawls out the name...
...Of course, there are some persons who are prepared to swear a thing through regardless of any consequence or consideration, and it is with that type of lying testifiers that most people are concerned when the question of perjury is discussed...
...General irreligion and indifference, lack of definite dogmatic training and of belief in God, as ordinarily understood, explain a great part of it, but there is another cause that cannot be passed over lightly...
...A liar at heart will lie as glibly by the name of God as by bell, book, candle, or any other person or thing by which it may be pleasing or convenient to swear...
...That was a vital and timely topic since it is quite manifest to anyone who comes in contact, even occasionally, with the courts in the administration of justice, or with such officers as notaries, magistrates and the like, whose duties include the administration of oaths, that the regard in which the sanction and binding force of such obligations is held by the generality of the community is scant indeed...
...I mean the habit and conduct of the very courts themselves and the supercilious, careless routine habits of some of the court attendants...
...It comes in waves as lack of steadfast, virile belief in God fades among a people...
...He swears a score and more of witnesses a day, and this is just one more to be got away with...
...He is the Clerk of the United States Court for the District of Maryland...
...A final gasp as the last words wheeze out, and he adds, "Sworn name, sit down...
...The reason for the existence of this class is not far to seek...
...Before courts of justice as we know them had been established among men, the single oath of a credible man sufficed to clear him of a charge...
...Now to be explicit, and perhaps technical, for a moment, perjury may be loosely defined as "falsely and wilfully declaring or deposing under an oath, taken before a duly authorized official, in a matter where such oath is required, to depose and declare truly...
...Nowadays it is considered clever, a sign of intellectuality, indeed, to be a sceptic, and to question the existence of a Supreme Being and a personal God...
...In civil practice, there was the system of compurgation, or coswearing, under which twelve men made oath that they believed the oath which one party to a cause had sworn was a true one...
...To them no sanction can mean anything...
...Prevalence of perjury is no unusual thing...
...Unhappily what occurs is usually something like this: In the course of the trial there comes a time when a particular witness is called...
...It may sound extreme, but in twenty years at the bar I have known only one man who habitually and unfailingly administered an oath to witnesses with due solemnity...
...Almost invariably the official does one of two things...
...And even among them, set in purpose though they be, there are many who would falter if they could be impressed by the tremendous import of the invocation of Almighty God...
...Gradually it fell into disuse...
...Millions do not believe in a Being Who rules the universe and Who will hold them accountable for their acts, and reward or punish therefor as justice dictates...
...In the presence of Almighty God" it runs, "you solemnly promise or declare that the evidence which you will give to the court and jury in the matter now pending shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth...
...From which the amazed witness is presumed to know that he has called on God to witness to the truth of what he will say, and that having so announced, the bailiff is now asking him to repeat his own name, and then, if he wishes, to be seated...
...If there were always proper decorum on the part of court attendants, the seriousness of the proceedings would be more deeply impressed on all who attend the sittings...
...but perjury is a menace because the truths of the existence of God and man's dependence on Him have become negligible factors in the lives and hearts of so large a proportion of the people...
...But they really constitute no very great number...
...Finally, however, he reaches the witnessstand, and that same bawler steps briskly out and starts something that sounds like "Holeupyeritehan...
...Either he certifies that the oath has in fact been made, saying nothing, except, perhaps, as he blots his signature, "Fifty cents, please," or, as he attends to the mechanics of the job, he directs detachedly and wearily, "Swear to this," and completes his certificate without pausing to find out whether his customer really intends to depose or not...
...Spoken in the precincts of that court, those words are calculated to cause even the most scatterbrained to pause...
...Disregard and contempt is a natural consequence...
...It is all so stereotyped, so mechanical, so utterly regardless of the formality with which it should be surrounded, that there is small wonder that the witness fails to realize or to be impressed by the fact that he has actually taken an oath before God...
...The godless schools have done their work well and there is startling lack of faith on every side...
...That condition, it seems to me, is the cause of a monstrous lot of false swearing in court and out, for though false swearing before a court may seem more important, the making of false oaths privately is quite as serious an offense...
...and so it was decided...
...The name of God has been banned from the schools and there has arisen first suspicion, then doubt, and then a dark cloud to befuddle and perplex...
...Such a condition could exist only in a society in which the sanctity of an oath was highly regarded...
...One need sit in a court-room for a very little while, listening to the conflicting and contradictory testimony of successive witnesses to feel quite certain that some one or the other of them is playing fast and loose with the truth...
...It is these deliberate perjurers who constitute the greatest menace to the due process of the courts, who hang up juries, obstruct civil justice, and secure acquittal in criminal cases when, by every 603 rule of right and conscience, conviction should have been had...
...It was the great sin of the middle-ages...
...Agnosticism it may be rather than crass atheism...
...How many appearing before such an official have been really, verbally administered the oath, as it is set out in the certificate and as the statute providing for such a verification contemplates...
Vol. 5 • April 1927 • No. 22
