Law and Lies Deception and Truth-Telling in the American Legal System [Hardcover]

This is the first book to thematically investigate lying in the American legal system.This is the first book to investigate lies and deception in the American legal system. Analyzing examples from undercover police deception to lying under oath and from political lying to the military's Don't ask, don't tell policy, it reveals that the government's stance towards truth is anything but simple.This is the first book to investigate lies and deception in the American legal system. Analyzing examples from undercover police deception to lying under oath and from political lying to the military's Don't ask, don't tell policy, it reveals that the government's stance towards truth is anything but simple.Law has a strangely complicated relationship to deception. Though it sometimes takes a hard line on behalf of truth  the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,  competing values often cause law to look the other way. How and why is lying alternately accepted, condemned, or prosecuted? What are the government's interests in allowing or disallowing lying? Law and Lies is the first book to thematically address the role of lying in the American legal system. Undercover police agents are permitted to lie in the name of catching criminals, and government officials are permitted to lie in service of national security. In the case of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, lying was not only permitted, but actively encouraged. A range of illuminating case studies reveal that the government's tolerance of deception is rarely as simple as the whole truth.Introduction Austin Sarat; 1. Where the law lies: constitutional fictions and their discontents Mary Anne Franks; 2. The artifice of advocacy: perjury and participation in the American adversary system Norman W. Spaulding; 3. Lies to manipulate, misappropriate, and acquire governmental power Helen Norton; 4. Lies, rape, and statutory rape Stuart P. Green; 5. Law and the production of deceit William N. EsklÃ$