Lying under oath during a trail is considered a crime. However it, like all crimes, is selectively enforced. If you look through cases of perjury, both prosecuted and dismissed, a trend seems to exist. When the oligarchs get the result they want perjury seems to go unnoticed but when things don’t go their way they’re quick to get revenge. It has been revealed that several witnesses in the grand jury trail of Darren Wilson knowingly lied about what they saw but are going unpunished, probably because Darren Wilson wasn’t charged:
On Monday, the Smoking Gun published a story revealing the identity and troubled history of “Witness 40,” a woman whose elaborate story of witnessing Brown’s death was allegedly taken from newspaper accounts. The woman, who told investigators that she is racist, bi-polar and has raised money for Wilson, approached prosecutors five weeks after the Aug. 9 shooting. In a journal entry that she showed the grand jury, the woman said she had driven through Ferguson at the time of the shooting “so I stop calling Blacks N—— and Start calling them People.”
Another witness, according to The Washington Post, described Brown on his hands knees pleading for his life. “What you are saying you saw isn’t forensically possible based on the evidence,” a prosecutor said. That witness, The Post noted, later asked to leave.
Nonetheless, McCulloch told KTRS host McGraw Milhaven that he will not pursue perjury charges. He said he thought it was more important for the grand jury to “hear everything” and assess each witnesses’ credibility on their own.
It’s unlikely that the decision would have been different if the lying witnesses hadn’t testified because grand juries have a habit of charging everybody except cops. But it’s important to acknowledge this because it’s an example of the state once again selectively enforcing its laws.
This post shouldn’t be construed as me saying the lying witnesses should be charged. I don’t believe they should. The state is an illegitimate entity to which nobody should be expected to tell the truth to. In fact you should lie to the state as much as you feel you can get away with because that’s the best way to avoid some of its extortion.