Cisneros is accused of conspiring to hide details of his relationship with an ex-mistress before and after his confirmation in January 1993. He has denied wrongdoing. And in perhaps the most famous perjury case in American history, Alger Hiss, a former State Department official, was convicted in 1950 of lying about whether he had passed copies of confidential documents to Whittaker Chambers, who claimed to be a courier for a communist spy ring in the 1930s. A Narrow Concept Prosecutors and defense lawyers agree that perjury is and should be a difficult crime to prove. Otherwise, every witness would be exposed to prosecution.
Perjury is far narrower than the lay concept of lying.
And to be prosecuted, lies must be important. Under federal law, for false testimony to qualify as perjury, it must have the potential to affect the outcome of the proceeding. West Virginia resident Sharon Dunnigan learned the hard way that when perjury is prosecuted, it can be serious business. Three witnesses told a federal jury that Dunnigan ran cocaine from Cleveland to Charleston, W.Va. Three others said they bought cocaine from her.