In the US, lying under oath is the crime of purjury.
A lawyer who advises a client to lie is, at the very least, guilty of unethical behavior. Were such advice to become known, a lawyer should be disbarred.
It is not illegal for a lawyer to know that a client is lying and do nothing about it. In fact, once the client is on the stand, there's not much a lawyer can do without violating client confidentially. If a lawyer knows that a client is intending to lie ahead of time, they should try to talk them out of it and, failing that, resign as their client's legal counsel.
As a practical matter, the crime of purjury is often difficult to prove and is rarely prosecuted. Many trials come down to conflicting testimonies. In the end, I think most people who are going to lie to the court also lie to their lawyers.
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The Ottawa Citizen and Southam News wish to apologize for our apology to Mark Steyn, published Oct. 22. In correcting the incorrect statements about Mr. Steyn published Oct. 15, we incorrectly published the incorrect correction. We accept and regret that our original regrets were unacceptable and we apologize to Mr. Steyn for any distress caused by our previous apology.
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