Perjury False Testimony Lying Under Oath
Perjury is a federal and state criminal offense. Although perjury statutes have been challenged a number of times, their use and broad scope have been upheld repeatedly by the U.S. Supreme Court. Perjury is considered process crime, which means that its commission impedes the proper functioning of the criminal justice system. However, in practice and in some jurisdictions, the state enjoys partial immunity against perjury charges. This essay examines perjury from a legal and jurisprudence perspective.
Framing Testimony
Dominick LaCapra's essay "Here There Is No Why" takes its title from the answer that an S.S. at Auschwitz gave to Promo Levi when he dared to ask the "Why?" question. To be sure, the guard was simply attempting to be cynical and sarcastic rather than reflective or philosophical, but LaCapra is also critical of Claude Lanzmann for failing to ask this question enough in Shoah. All of the Germans who Lanzmann interviewed were either perpetrators of complicit bystanders, and they spent a great deal of time explaining what, where and how the Holocaust happened, while also denying or minimizing their own responsibility. Franz Suchomel, the S.S. guard at Treblinka, was a notable exception to this rule, but Lanzmann interviewed him with a hidden camera after promising to keep his identity anonymous. Almost all of the Jewish survivors described what happened in painful detail, and Lanzmann's preference was to make them literally relive their experiences, but they were not asked why.
Jesus\' Testimony to the Pharisees in John
This paper discusses the "I AM" pronouncement of Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter 8. It examines it in relation to the situation or setting, in relation to the Old Testament (God's naming of himself as I AM to Moses), and in relation to Jesus' affirmation of his own divine essence or equation to the God of Abraham and Moses.