Definition
Subornation of perjury is the criminal offense of inducing, procuring, or persuading another person to commit perjury. The suborner is the instigator; the person induced is the principal perjurer. Both commit criminal offenses, but subornation is the distinct offense of the person who sets the false testimony in motion.
Two elements are required. First, the defendant must have solicited, procured, or induced another person to take a false oath. Second, the induced person must actually have taken that false oath in a judicial or other legally required proceeding under circumstances that would constitute perjury. If the solicited person refuses, or takes the oath but does not in fact make a false statement, the offense of subornation is not complete — though a criminal solicitation charge may remain available.
The critical requirement that the false oath be actually administered distinguishes subornation from mere solicitation. An unsuccessful attempt to procure perjury does not complete the crime of subornation.
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Common Confusion
Subornation of perjury is sometimes conflated with obstruction of justice. The two are distinct. Obstruction of justice is broader and encompasses a wide range of conduct that impedes legal proceedings — witness tampering, evidence destruction, and more. Subornation of perjury is narrower and specific: it concerns procuring false sworn testimony. Conduct that involves pressuring a witness to lie under oath may be charged as both subornation and obstruction, but the offenses have separate elements and should not be treated as interchangeable. Researchers working with historical indictments should note that the omnibus obstruction statutes now codified in federal law postdate many historical cases that would have been charged solely as subornation.
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Core Elements
1. Procurement or inducement: The defendant must have affirmatively acted to persuade, procure, or incite another to testify falsely. Passive knowledge that a witness intends to lie is insufficient.
2. Intent: The defendant must have known the testimony sought was false and acted with the purpose of having that false testimony given.
3. Completion of the underlying perjury: The induced person must have actually taken the false oath. No completed subornation exists unless the perjury itself is completed. This is not true of the underlying solicitation, which may be separately punishable.
4. The underlying act must qualify as perjury: The false oath must have been given in a context — a judicial proceeding, legislative proceeding, or other legally required oath — where perjury can be committed. If the principal's act would not constitute perjury, there is no subornation.
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Why It Matters in Research
The completed-act requirement is the primary research trap. Historical sources — and some modern practitioners — assume that soliciting perjury is itself subornation. It is not. Bouvier's is explicit: "no abortive attempt to solicit will complete the crime." Researchers reading historical indictments or opinions must determine whether the charged conduct involved actual false testimony or only an unsuccessful attempt; the legal consequences differ substantially.
Jurisdictional codification is uneven. At common law, subornation of perjury was a distinct common law misdemeanor, later a felony in many jurisdictions. In modern American law, most states have folded subornation into their general perjury statutes, treating procurement of perjury as an aggravated form of or as equivalent to perjury itself. Others retain subornation as a separately charged offense. Federal law addresses the conduct primarily through 18 U.S.C. § 1622 (subornation of perjury), which sits alongside 18 U.S.C. § 1621 (perjury). Researchers should identify which statutory regime governed the case or period under study before assuming the term carries the same doctrinal weight across sources.
The corpus connection to obstruction doctrine is important for modern research. Many modern prosecutions that would historically have been charged as subornation are now brought under obstruction of justice or witness tampering statutes, particularly 18 U.S.C. § 1512. This means that case law on subornation specifically becomes sparse after the mid-twentieth century, and researchers tracing conduct forward should pivot to obstruction materials.
Historical treatise coverage is sparse compared to perjury itself. Hawkins's Pleas of the Crown (cited by Bouvier) remains one of the most thorough early common law treatments.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in close agreement on the core definition: subornation is the procurement of another's perjury, and the perjury must be completed. There is no meaningful divergence among Black's (both editions), Rapalje & Lawrence, and Bouvier on this point.
Bouvier adds the most doctrinal texture, specifying that criminal solicitation short of completion is punishable separately but does not constitute subornation, citing 2 Show. 1 and 5 Metc. (Mass.) 241. Black's 2nd edition adds case citations from Georgia, Delaware, and Kansas but does not expand the substantive definition.
What the historical dictionaries collectively omit: they do not address the relationship between subornation and the emerging obstruction-of-justice framework, they do not distinguish between judicial and non-judicial proceedings with any granularity, and they predate the federal statutory scheme that now governs most significant federal prosecutions. For research extending past the early twentieth century, the historical dictionary definitions are a starting point only.
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Jurisdictional Note
Federal law treats subornation of perjury as a distinct statutory offense under 18 U.S.C. § 1622, carrying the same penalty as perjury itself. Many states have merged subornation into their perjury statutes or charge the conduct under witness-tampering provisions. The common law distinction between completed subornation and mere solicitation of perjury persists in most jurisdictions but may be obscured by modern charging practices favoring broader obstruction statutes.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Perjury and False Statements (18 USC 1001, 1621) — The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia
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