Honesty is to be honest, truthful and sincere. To be honest is to be fair and righteous in speech and act, not to lie, not to cheat or steal. There are two types of solemn or sworn statements of honesty in society today, an affidavit and an oath.
An affidavit is a voluntary written statement sworn before an officer qualified to administer an oath. Both the person making the affidavit (that is, swearing to the truth of the facts contained in the document) and the witnessing officer (a judge, a commissioner of deeds, or a notary public) are usually required to sign the document. Affidavits are quite frequently used in preliminary legal proceedings, for example, in filing, or starting, a lawsuit. Persons who swear falsely in an affidavit may incur severe legal punishment.
An oath is a sworn statement, affirmation or a pledge often used in legal matters, which are usually based on religious principles. One example of an oath is – every witness, in a court of law must affirm or swear that the testimony she or he gives is the truth. Another example of an oath is the oath that is taken by a public official, such as the vice president and president of the United States of America when that official assumes office. The taking of an oath generally implies some legal or moral sanction for failing to carry out one’s sworn pledge. A trial witness, for example, may be charged with the crime of perjury for lying under oath.
When someone swears to a statement under oath or on an affidavit and the statement is found to be false it is called perjury and is considered a breach of oath. Perjury in some states in the United States of America is also known as a felony.
Perjury in criminal law is a willful false statement made under oath with respect to a material matter, either by a witness at a trial, in an affidavit affecting title to property in a legal proceeding or in matters in which an oath is authorized or required by law. To use perjury in a legal proceeding, it is not necessary that the offender know the statement would affect the determination of the case in which it is taken. It is sufficient if the statement might have affected such a proceeding. A misstatement by a witness, made through inadvertence or mistake, does not, however, constitute perjury. A violation of a promissory oath, for example, the oath of office taken by a judge, does not warrant prosecution for perjury.
Perjury cannot be proved by the statement of a single witness, corroboration of the false statement is necessary to convict an offender. Willfully procuring another person to commit perjury constitutes the crime of subornation of perjury. Even an unsuccessful attempt to suborn is a criminal offense.
In law, the general term for if a party is dishonest and takes unfair advantage of another party is fraud. Any means used by one person to deceive another may be defined as fraud. One example of this is if a person represents himself or herself as the agent of a business with which she of he is unconnected to and causes another party to make a contract to the other party’s disadvantage or injury, the first party is guilty of fraud. Therefore, if in making a contract, a person obtains an unjust advantage because of the defective mental capacity, intoxicated condition or youth of the other party to the contract, she or he is guilt of fraud.
In a court of law, it is necessary to prove that a representation was made as a statement of fact. That it was untrue and known to be untrue, that it was made with intent to induce and to deceive the other party to act upon it, and that the other party relied on it and was induced to act or not to act, to his or her injury or damage.
In equality of right, fraud includes any act concealment or omission, which is involving a breach of an equitable of legal trust or duty, which ends and/or results in injury to or disadvantaging another. One example of fraud in the above sense is the act of insolvent (unable to pay debts, relation to insolvency) who contrives to give one creditor an advantage over the other creditors and competitors. Fraud can also be constructive, which is, deemed fraud by interpretation. The sole difference in the case of constructive (not directly expressed) fraud is that no dishonest intent need be adduced. It arises from a breach of duty, such as the breach of fiduciary relationship (relationship held or given in trust/relationship depending for its value on public confidence or securities) in which a trust or confidence had been betrayed.
In society it is sometimes hard to tell if someone is being honest and telling the truth. In a court of law, the Jury and the Judge have the duty to use their best judgment, take all facts into consideration and decide if the accused is being completely honest and telling the truth. Sometimes even then it is had to tell if the accused is telling the truth, so the court may use a Scopolamine or Hyoscine, which are both truth serums, or a Polygraph, which is a lie detector.
The Scopolamine or Hyoscine is a viscous liquid, which dissolves fairly quickly in water. This serum has a formula of C17H21NO4, which includes the roots of certain herbs belonging to the nightshade family. The active and levorotary- that is, it rotates the plane of polarized light to the left. Scopolamine is used medically to dilate the eye; to depress the central nervous system, which effect makes it valuable as a sedative and preanesthetic; and to prevent motion sickness.
Scopolamine’s effect on the central nervous system also makes it useful as a “truth serum,” by means of which uncooperative people may be forced to answer question. This method of interrogation is common in popular fiction books and movies but cannot be used legally in the United States without consent, and because evidence obtained is so unreliable, it is often inadmissible in court.
A Polygraph is a scientific recording device that was designed to register a person’s bodily responses to being questioned. Also known as a lie detector, the polygraph has been used successfully in criminal investigations, although it is also used in employment and security screening practices. The results of the polygraph are used with other observations, information and evidence, because no machine can recognize when a person is lying.
The Polygraph measures emotional stress, which is reflected by this test, for instance, you do not have emotion stress if you are honest. However, if the subject is a pathological liar they will show no measurable body responses when they give a false answer.
Mental abnormalities, ordinary nervousness, discomfort, excessive pretest and interrogation, individual physical, or indifference to a question also affects the accuracy of the test. The polygraph can also provide a basis for an evaluation on whether or not the subject is telling the truth. This test has also been helpful in proving innocent people accused of crimes.
A polygraph is several instruments combined to simultaneously record changes in respiration, pulse and blood pressure. The electrical conductivity of the surface of the skin can also be measured-increased sweat-gland activity reduces the skin’s ability to carry electrical current. The Reid polygraph, devised in 1945 by the American criminologist John Edward Reid, also records muscular movement.
The apparatus that is worn by the seated subject includes a pneumograph tube, which is placed around the chest, an ordinary blood-pressure cuff and electrodes on the fingers and surface of the hand. Through a small panel unit, the actual physiological changes are transmitted into synchronized readings on moving graph paper; these parallel graphs are then interpreted to determine whether the subject is lying.
The room used should be quiet, plain, private and comfortable. Microphones and two- way mirrors are sometimes used as legal precautions. Proper conditions and procedure are essential in polygraph testing. The examiner must be consistently objective and should be thoroughly trained in scientific interrogation to reduce the inherent human error.
Except where mutual agreement is given by the opposing parties in a case, Polygraph results are generally considered inadmissible as legal evidence in U.S. In 1988 the use of the device in private employment procedures was severely restricted by federal law courts. The chief objections to the polygraph are that its use is unconstitutional, it constitutes an invasion of privacy, and it is still too inconclusive scientifically to be considered valid as evidence. In several countries the governments prohibit the use of the polygraph on the basis of violation of free will.
