Are Lying and Perjury Dual Character Concepts?

Abstract To commit perjury, you have to say something you believe to be false, not merely suggest it. The paper presents a novel explanation for the divergence between the folk and the legal concept of lying, labeled perjury. Two experiments indicate that lying is a dual character concept: it has concrete criteria of application (saying something you believe to be false) and deeper, more abstract criteria of application, such as the intent to mislead the hearer and extract an unfair advantage. This paper argues that the technical, legal understanding of lying, labeled perjury, is not an entirely new concept that lawyers have to learn in law school. It then proposes new jury instructions that would ensure that lay juries can ascribe perjury in line with the technical definition, rather than with the folk concept of a lie, which could lead to overcriminalization.