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Lies
Steve said on this thread that "It's not a lie if you believe it to be true. A lie requires knowledge that it is a lie." He said later that this idea was discussed in an earlier thread. I've looked, but I can't find it.
Many of my criminal clients (and quite a few of my divorce clients) would love it if this were so. Attorney General Gonzales would also be pleased. Sadly, this is most definitely NOT the case in court.
What do you think?
Many of my criminal clients (and quite a few of my divorce clients) would love it if this were so. Attorney General Gonzales would also be pleased. Sadly, this is most definitely NOT the case in court.
What do you think?
Comments
If you provide false information without intent, that is not lying. It is ignorance. For example, if I tell you that Hannibal crossed the Alps sometime around 1800 AD, and I honestly believe it, I am an ignorant idiot. I'm not, however, lying.
How is that not the case in court? My guess is that the only reason the courts uphold their strange definition of a lie is because they cannot prove or disprove that a person knows a piece of information.
Further, the fact finder can form it's own opinion about the credibility of the declarant. So, if someone says there are WMD's in Iraq when the WHOLE WORLD knows there are none, the fact-finder could find that the declarant was lying regardless of the declarant's belief.
Take Gonzo's testimony - His testimony was contradicted by Goodling, Comey, FBI Director Mueller, Negroponte, members of Congress, his own previous testimony, and various documents. Regardless of Gonzo's belief, Congress can find that his statements were at least untruthful and probably outright lies.
PART I - CRIMES
CHAPTER 79 - PERJURY
Sec. 1621. Perjury generally
Whoever -
(1) having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer,
or person, in any case in which a law of the United States
authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify,
declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony,
declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed, is
true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes
any material matter which he does not believe to be true; or
(2) in any declaration, certificate, verification, or statement
under penalty of perjury as permitted under section 1746 of title
28, United States Code, willfully subscribes as true any material
matter which he does not believe to be true;
is guilty of perjury and shall, except as otherwise expressly
provided by law, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more
than five years, or both. This section is applicable whether the
statement or subscription is made within or without the United
States.
How about this:
Pat Tillman was not murdered. Truth or lie?
10 PRINT "Definition: To make an untrue statement with intent to deceive."
20 INPUT $joeresponse
30 IF $joeresponse = "That's not how it works in court" THEN GOTO 10
As for Pat Tilman, was it murder or manslaughter? Was it on purpose or was it an accident? To say that Pat Tilman was killed by one of his own men would not be a lie. To say it is murder would require proof.
If joe Schmoe on the street made those two statements the first would easily be a lie while the second would not. It would be an opinion only until the truth of the matter came to light.
As for your earlier statement about WMDs... EVERYONE in the Intelligence community thought he had them! I'm more inclined to believe that either:
a. He had them.
b. He fooled the world into thinking he had them as a show of strength.
c. Bush lied.
I'm even on the first two but the last one I put no faith in.
1. Motive to lie.
2. Character of the declarant. The basis of this factor is whether the
child had a reputation for telling the truth.
3. Were the statements heard by more than one person.
4. Spontaneity of the statements.
5. Timing of statements and relationship between child-declarant and
witness.
6. Assertions of past fact.
7. Possibility of faulty recollection.
8. Circumstances surrounding statements.
9. Whether cross-examination can reveal lack of knowledge.
The case I linked to is just an everyday example of how a Court weighs all these factors. You didn't say anything about whether the statement could be independently verified. You said: I don't know it's untrue that I'm a Supreme Court Justice. I believe it with the intensity of a thousand white-hot suns. Under your definition, that's not a lie. EVERYONE? Pretty extraordinary statement. Easily disporoved if I can find one counterexample. Hans Blix said they weren't there. Joe Wilson wrote that there wasn't any yellow cake. So, it wasn't everyone. What about Curveball's reliability? The administration put a lot of stock in what he said. But it turned out he was as unreliable as they come and anyone who took the time to check knew it.
What's the more extraordinary claim? That a tin-pot dictator with poor decorating taste fooled the world or that an administration whose top law enforcement officer is being investigated for perjury and whose Vice-Pesident's chief of staff was convicted of perjury, lying to the FBI, and obstruction of justice lied about whether the tin-pot had the WMDs?? The article says that he was shot three times in the forehead, that it appeared from the spacings that he was shot by an M-16 from no more than 10 yards away, and that there was no sign of enemy fire on the scene. Sounds pretty murder-y to me. Read the article again. Do you think anyone lied? Does it matter if the Army, the Pentagon, and the administration really, really wanted to believe their stories or were they simply LYING?
Back to your Supreme Court Justice lie... When a truth is obvious any person who claims something that is the opposite of that obvious truth is is either crazy or a liar. I know you are going to parse my words or otherwise dissect them but I'm trying to deal with the slippery slope of your argument (at what point is it a lie even if you believe it to be true).
I still believe that it is not a lie if you believe it to be true. Even if what you say is found to be false it is still not a lie as a lie requires knowledge that you are spreading a falsehood willingly and knowingly.
Just like Iraq. First it's WMD's. Oh, that doesn't work? Then it's Al Qaeda. That doesn't work? Then it's that Saddam was a dictator? You don't care? Well then, it's because they hate our freedom.
Tell me this: Do you think the authorities lied about Pat Tillman? Did they lie about Jessica Lynch? She testified to Congress that they lied. Did they? Someone did. Either the authorities or our Ms. Lynch lied. So who was it?
Joe: Reasonable suspicion about oil tomfooleries in Iraq.
Steve: You don't understand supply and demand as well as I do. I LOVE the oil companies and believe everything they tell me. We owe our lives to the oil companies and I worship them every day.
Jason: You're a CCCCRRRRRAAAAAAZZZZZZZY conspiracy theorist (OMG!) if you don't think everything is just fine and the oil companies are our bestest of friends. I'll pray to the oil gods to forgive you for your sins. I win the thread.
WIP: Bonzai!!!111
It's happened before.
Edit: Just something that's been bugging me about "crazy conspiracy theories": Re-read this bit from the Tillman article:
*snip*
Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.
*snip*
See, that could reasonably be construed as a conpiracy. All that's required for a conspiracy is an agreement to do an act or ommission. Why do you think there are conpiracy crimes in state and federal criminal law? What is the point of RICO? To prosecute conpiracies, specifically the mafia. Do you believe in organized crime? Then you believe in conspiracies. The Lincoln Assassination was an actual conspiracy. No all conspiracies are "crazy conspiracy theories." I'm becoming weary of the phrase "crazy conspiracy theory" being used as a cudgel.
Antitrust law is a booming industry. It doesn't just concern monopolies. It also concerns itself with agreements to engage in anti-competitive behavior, which is by it's very nature a conspiracy. Some of these agreements can be pretty complicated, like the one in this Complaint.
What I object to is the trend I'm seeing of people yelling "CRAZY CONSPIRACY THEORIST!" anytime someone suggests that there might be a problem with business or government or that things in general might not be hunky-dory.
The longer a FRC thread gets, the probability of "Bonzai!!!111" approaches 1?
I tell you what. Let's take all the political conspiracy theories on the Internets right now and divide the total by the number that have turned out to be true. I'll bet the percentage that are substantive are less than .001.
Just like this from a previous post quoting from the Tillman article:
*snip*
Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.
*snip*
If someone actually has those emails, we'd have pretty good evidence of an actual conspiracy to cover up the real story of Tillman's death. What I don't like is when people hear "Pat Tillman" and "conspiracy", they immediately yell "CRAZY CONSPIRACY THEORY!"
I was doing a document review just a couple of months ago involving state tax implications for a corporate merger. Company A bought Company B. The DOJ found that the merger would be anti-competitive and required Company A to divest itself of the assests of Company B. So it did, and got into a mess with their state taxes. The issue was whether the acquisition of Company B was done in the normal course of business.
Now, at a conference held some time before the merger, the CEO of Company A said that Company B was a "prize." No joke. The state found this statement very persuasive that Company A intended to acquire Company B in the normal course of its business.
So, Cheney's statement (and everything else I've come to know about Cheny - read that Washington Post series that I linked to in a previous thread) leads me to believe that he wants that oil.
I know what you'll say about the complexity of the required conspiracy, but I don't think it has to be complex at all. I'm no corporate type, but I think that only Cheney and maybe a couple of high level people in the industry would have to know.