I don’t particularly understand the idea of people testifying before congress without being put under oath. Why is/was this allowed? Doesn’t saying you won’t testify under oath basically mean you won’t testify if you can’t lie?
I honestly do not know.
To me the formality of being put under oath means you could face punishment if caught lying. So, the absence of an oath would suggest you could lie without specific legal repercussions.
However:
So, oath or not seems you are busted if you lie.
Maybe they just do it because it looks good for the cameras or they hope the oath carries religious significance for you (i.e. breaking the oath affects your chances at heaven or some other afterlife dealie).
I can’t remember exactly where it is but there’s a passage in the Bible that says that a person should not swear on anything but that their word should be their word.
So there are some Christians who will refuse to swear an oath but will give their word to tell the truth.
In England you are allowed to refuse to swear and there’s an alternative statement that simply says you agree to tell the truth, so maybe that is the same in the US??
Whatever, you’ll get done for lying!
Both the Concise Oxford and Merriam-Webster define “oath” as a solemn promise usually calling on some form of deity to witness and/or punish the oath-taker if they tell a lie.
In court in the UK, an oath is always taken on the Bible (or an appropriate substitute).
However, <wikipedia>in law, an affirmation is a solemn declaration allowed to those who conscientiously object to taking an oath. An affirmation has exactly the same legal effect as an oath, but is usually taken to avoid the religious implications of an oath. In some jurisdictions, it may only be given if such a reason is provided.</wikipedia>
<wikipedia>Since 1695 the right to give an affirmation has existed in the United Kingdom. It has its origins in the refusal of Quakers (also known as the Religious Society of Friends) to swear any oath, which would otherwise have barred them from many public positions.</wikipedia>
This predates Independence, and is probably included in the established law of the US, indeed <wikipedia>the final draft of the 1787 Constitution of the United States makes four references to an “oath or affirmation”.</wikipedia>
In a nutshell, some people will not take “an oath” for religious reasons, but every witness has to commit to telling the truth (with legal and/or divine penalties being applied to proven liars).
taking an oath is just a quaint tradition kind of like judges wearing robes. If you knowingly utter a falsehood to ANY federal employee-even indirectly (say on a form)-you are guilty of a felony:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18usc_sec_18_00001001----000-.html
We have discussed this before, and the key (for me) is the knowingly part. While the law makes me nervous about talking to any federal official, as I understand it the prosecutor still has to prove that you knowingly lied. So there is some intent in the law. It isn’t as bad as going to jail for any casual comment you might have made to the park ranger four years ago.
As for the OP. Congress clearly included themselves in the law. If a witness, heck a member of the audience, says anything to any employee of the government at any time, the statement had better be true-an oath has nothing to do with it.
Nitpick: the cite I could find says it’s a crime to lie in a matter under federal jurisdiction – nothing in particular about who is being lied to. I assume then it’s possible to be charged for lying to a state trooper about a federal matter, but you can lie to a federal employee about non-work stuff (so Bill is OK fibbing to Hillary about where he was last night). Actually, the code lays down fairly specific circumstances where it applies to the legislative branch, so as long as he’s not at a hearing, Bill can lie to Hill anytime, even about government matters.
The primary federal perjury statutes, 18 U.S.C. 1621 and 18 U.S.C. 1623, require that the testimony be under oath. Allowing a witness to testify without swearing makes subsequent perjury prosecution under those statutes impossible. They can still be charged with 18 U.S.C. 1505, which criminalizes obstructing Congressional investigations, or the “False Statements Statute” Whack-a-Mole quoted, 18 U.S.C. 1001, as John Poindexter and Oliver North both were. Testifying to Congress while not under oath takes away at least that one avenue of prosecution.
I don’t understand the question. Do you mean that you object to the idea that people can say “I affirm…” instead of “I swear…” (which have the same legal effect), or is it that you object to the idea that people can testify without any such ritual (which would be news to me)?
A classic Cecil column that the OP may find of interest: How do courts swear in atheists?
One thing I have wondered – if the witness refuses both to take an oath and to offer an affirmation, can that witness be held in contempt of court.
From the Sermon on the Mount:
Big name witnesses, like Alberto Gonzales, are sometimes allowed to testify unsworn before Congressional hearings as a “courtesy to the witness.” No I swear, I affirm, or anything.
As pravnik noted, you can’t prosecute a lying witness for perjury if he’s not sworn in. Congress has been (or at least felt) burned by a few less-than-honest witnesses in recent years, so now - unless it’s a Cabinet secretary or some other high-ranking witness to whom they extend the courtesy of an unsworn statement, sort of an implicit statement that “You’re too much of a gentleman to lie to us, right?” - virtually everyone appearing before a Congressional committee is sworn in nowadays.
All American courts of which I’m aware permit a witness to testify on either oath or affirmation. I occasionally have Muslim or other religious-minority witnesses who ask to affirm rather than swear an oath when they appear before me, and of course I permit them to do so. Every witness is evaluated for credibility, of course, and I’ve believed or disbelieved them all based upon my reading of whether or not they’re telling the truth, regardless of how they came to occupy the witness stand.
bordelond, if a witness refused to either swear the oath or affirm that her testimony would be truthful, I would simply not permit her to testify. There’d be no need to hold her in contempt.
Thanks for the knowledge.
Is that kind of a backdoor way of beating a subpoena? “Sure, I’ll show up, but I won’t testify.”
I suppose so; I guess in your hypo I was assuming that the witness wanted to have her cake and eat it too. If the witness was trying to game the system and one party or another in the case really wanted her testimony and convinced me that it was material and available through no other means, then I would consider holding the witness in contempt if she refused to either swear or affirm. It’s never happened in my court, though, and I doubt it ever will.
Elendil’s Heir answered for what happens in the judicial branch. If it’s a subpoena to testify before a legislative body, such as the US Congress, they have their own means to compel testimony. If you refuse to answer a question (and you are not pleading the fifth) you can be held in contempt of Congress and jailed.
I appreciate all of the responses. I was getting the email notifications.
For all of those of you who were curious as to why I was asking. I was reading Scott McClellan’s book in which he mentioned Karl Rove refusing to testify to congress under oath. I doubt he was doing it for religious reasons either.
Never mind.
Do you not get non-Christians who want to swear an oath under their religious traditions?
I’d actually like that to happen sometime; it could be cool. But no, IME they just want to affirm and not to swear.
Here in Saskatchewan, it’s not uncommon for First Nations to swear an oath via a traditional sweetgrass ceremony.