So vaguely inspired by the events of Jan 6th, but not asking for discussion of those events, is the act of breaking an oath a criminal offense (not just cause for a civil suit) in and of itself in any US jurisdiction?
There are crimes that are related to oath breaking, most obviously perjury, but AFAIK if you are prosecuted for perjury you aren’t being punished for breaking your oath to tell the truth, you are being punished for the effect lying as a witness in a trial has on the judicial process (and the chances of someone being found guilty or not guilty, etc. because of it). Its not a punishment for breaking an oath per se (but I’m totally not a lawyer)
Is there any situation in which you could be prosecuted and punished (not civilly found liable) purely for breaking a sworn oath?
Generally speaking, yes and no. The purpose of an oath is to impress upon you your solemn duty at that point to tell the truth and/or to appeal to your religious duty to obey your word to God. As you noted, in some cases it is punished both because of the harm it causes society and because you were put on notice of the importance of the oath.
In other cases, marriage vows, for example, you are not largely punished legally. I suppose a few states still criminally punish adultery, at least de jure, but if you fail to “love” or “cherish” your wife, don’t expect a knock at the door.
State or federal statute may say that violation of certain oaths are crimes, but the violation of the oath itself is not per se a crime.
They can? As in rather than some specific military crime like desertion they can be prosecuted for doing something that is not a crime in itself, but is breaking their oath?
“Your honor, when this elected official took office, he swore to do A, B, and C. The prosecution will show that he violated that oath on occasions X, Y, and Z. Those acts were not violations of the law in and of themselves, but we will prosecute him for failing to uphold his oath.”
This was actually what prompted this question. All the politicians, cops, soldiers, etc who have taken an oath to uphold and protect the constitution but still took part in a coupe attempt. But that’s well outside GD territory.
Yeah but the question wasn’t are “all oaths covered by criminal law”, that would indeed disapprove that. It was whether breaking any oath, whether in a court of law, cub scout troop, or anywhere else, illegal in and of itself in any us jurisdiction.
I was assuming the OP was asking about oaths of office, which he has confirmed.
I feel in general violating an oath of office does not carry a penalty other than being removed from that office and rendered unable to hold any office which requires an oath.
I think the cub scout oath is essentially an oath of office; it’s part of the requirements for being a cub scout. As far as I know, the maximum penalty you can receive is that the cub scouts kick you out.
I don’t see any reason why any government would feel the need to penalize people who violate private oaths. If you’re a Mason, for example, and you violate the Masonic oath by revealing the organization’s secret codes, why is there any public interest in punishing you? They’ll just let the Masons handle it, like they did with William Morgan.
I feel like you have constructed this problem poorly. Perjury is illegal because of the effect it may have on the judicial process. But you absolutely are being charged with a crime specifically because you violated the oath and lied in a setting where such an oath to answer truthfully has been deemed to warrant criminal sanctions where violated. The lie was the thing that broke the oath, but to lie without being under oath (and in the appropriate setting/circumstances) would not be a crime.
There are elements to perjury. In most (perhaps even all) jurisdictions, being under oath is one of those elements. In such a jurisdiction, the lie itself is not enough. Presumably, if you were to lie on the stand at a criminal trial, but you were never under oath, perhaps by a collective brain fart between the judge and the lawyers, you would not be subject to prosecution for perjury.
I don’t know. Enforcing covenants and contracts is one of the raison d’etre of modern (and pre-modern) government. And oaths seem an extension of that. Its just that modern legal system prefers to make that the purview of the civil legal system.
But you’d run into some right of association issues if the government placed itself into this. First, if the government chose to penalize oath breaking, then people could argue that it was putting an obstacle on joining an organization that required oaths. Using my example above, suppose I join the Masons. I take their oath. I later decide to break the oath; the only penalty I risk is expulsion from the Masons.
Now suppose the government enacted a law which says anyone who breaks an oath is subject to a thousand dollar fine. This means that in the previous scenario I would face criminal charges and a fine. That possibility might discourage people from joining the Masons or any other private organizations that required oaths. So the government’s actions would inhibit people’s right to associate.
The second and more direct issue would be non-association. While it’s not as common, the right of associate also encompasses the right of non-association. People have a general right to not be a member of an organization they don’t wish to. You’re free to be a Mason - and you’re free to not be Mason.
But if the government enacts an oath breaking law, it is putting pressure on you to remain in the Masons once you’ve joined and taken the oath. It is compelling you to associate with the Masons, which would be a violation of your right of non-association.
If somebody violates his oath to uphold and protect the constitution by a criminal act — i.e. something for which he could be prosecuted even if he had taken no oath — then the question of whether his violation of oath constitutes a separate offence is unlikely to arise in practice.
The question is at it’s most acute if he violates his oath by something which is not intrinsically criminal. I think the answer from first principles is that criminalising acts has to be done unambiguously; the citizen is entitled to know whether an act is a crimimal offences, and if the legislature wants to make it a criminal offence it has to do so in unambiguous language. Obviously this answer will vary by jurisdiction, but I’m not aware of any jurisdiction where the criminal code makes oath-breaking in general a crime.
Separate matter as to whether, e.g., a police officer could be discharged from the force for behaviour — even when off-duty — inconsistent with his oath. That wouldn’t be a criminal sanction, though.
That’s probably a bad example, because boy scouts are underage, and so I doubt that oath would be enforceable, even if every single one an adult took was.
This is an evolving point of law, in both the US and the UK. There used to be something called “breach of contract,” where a woman could get a hefty judgment against a man for failing to live up to a marriage proposal-- enough that men just never bothered to break them off.
This is the crux of all those Jeeves and Bertie stories where Bertie accidentally gets engaged to someone, and Jeeves figured out a way to manipulate her into breaking off the engagement herself. Hilarity ensues.