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N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:28-1

Perjury

Known as the September 11th, 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act

The act spans §§ 2–2 (912 sections).

Applied in 8 court decisions — leading case Eugene Ruocchio (1999)

Most recently applied in O'Sullivan v. State (December 2021)

L.1978, c. 95, s. 2C:28-1, eff

How often courts cite this section

198920002010202130
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

a. Offense defined. A person is guilty of perjury, a crime of the third degree, if in any official proceeding he makes a false statement under oath or equivalent affirmation, or swears or affirms the truth of a statement previously made, when the statement is material and he does not believe it to be true.

b. Materiality. Falsification is material, regardless of the admissibility of the statement under rules of evidence, if it could have affected the course or outcome of the proceeding or the disposition of the matter. It is no defense that the declarant mistakenly believed the falsification to be immaterial. Whether a falsification is material is a question of law.

c. Irregularities no defense. It is not a defense to prosecution under this section that the oath or affirmation was administered or taken in an irregular manner. A document purporting to be made upon oath or affirmation at any time when the actor presents it as being so verified shall be deemed to have been duly sworn or affirmed.

d. Retraction. It is an affirmative defense under this section that the actor retracted the falsification in the course of the proceeding or matter in which it was made prior to the termination of the proceeding or matter without having caused irreparable harm to any party.

e. Corroboration. No person shall be convicted of an offense under this section where proof of falsity rests solely upon contradiction by testimony of a single person other than the defendant.

Current official text: New Jersey Legislature. Digitized from the New Jersey Legislature bulk statutes download. Reproduced from public-domain New Jersey statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.