How do you prove it? How does anyone prove it?
How did "suborning perjury" ever come to be, then?
I guess my thought is that this defendant is a known, proven and further charged liar. She has not told any truth in this entire case. She has been living a lie for years now. Her family lies. By putting her on the stand...wouldn't this be another setting for her to lie?
Why would she be expected to tell the truth now? For her lawyers to ask her to testify, would be asking her to lie.
Not AFAIK (this question might be better suited to the legal board).
But a few thoughts:
Firstly, as AZ has stated, Perjury convictions are very rare. Indeed, it is very rare for such a prosecution to ever be brought.
Secondly, there are generally ethical laws in most jurisdictions that cover this matter and indeed their are various offenses such as aiding a principal in perjury and such like and indeed suborning perjury (whether these are applicable in Florida see below). However, most of these would require the Defense Attorney to actually know the testimony to be false, as in the Defendant admitted as much too him. Plus all the Defenses he could raise (I didn't know she would lie then when she was there I couldn't reveal the lie to the court on the basis of Attorney-Client privilege, etc) would make the prosecution extremely difficult.
In fact, prosecutions or disciplinary charges of this nature are extremely rare and indeed (AFAIK) almost non-existence.
N.B. I could not find "Subornation of Perjury" on a brief glance at the Floridian Statute. However, I suppose this could be prosecuted as aiding and abetting a principle. Further, there is a federal statute (§ 1622, Title 18, USC) but I am unsure if it applies to state proceedings.
Lastly, Perjury and other "Honour code"/"obstruction of justice" offences I think are nowadays used as a deterrent rather then actually prosecuted whenever occur, regardless of the derivation of these offences.
HTH
