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Government

May 20, 2011

Rejecting Government Lies

Not even the government, when it invokes national security, is above the law. By Erwin Chemerinsky of UCI School of Law

Erwin Chemerinsky

Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law

Erwin's most recent book is "Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism." He is also the author of "Closing the Courthouse," (Yale University Press 2017).


One of the most important judicial opinions of the year is a recent federal district court opinion, which emphatically holds that no one, not even the U.S. government, is permitted to lie to a court. On April 27, 2011, in Islamic Shura Council of Southern California v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Judge Cormac Carney forcefully explained that even claims of national security do not justify making false statements to a court. In this way, Judge Carney reaffirmed ...

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