mcgee.jpgAfter deliberately lying during testimony in a Milwaukee County courtroom, Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee (aka Jackson) will not be charged with perjury.

The perjury occurRed on April 12, May 12, and May 16, 2006 during Domestic Abuse Injunction Hearings before the Family Court Commissioner and Judge Clare Fiorenza. The hearing involved McGee/Jackson and his pregnant former mistress Kimley Rucker.

Judge Fiorenza indicated in her ruling that she did not believe McGee/Jackson’s testimony (calling it “incredible”) that the relationship ended in August 2005, and that it was clear that the relationship extended beyond that.

The Milwaukee District Attorney’s Office follows this logic in deciding that no perjury occurred:

There is no crime in Wisconsin for .giving incredible testimony,. or for .intentionally misleading under oath.. Wisconsin does proscribe perjury, which is defined in Wis. Stat. Sec. 946.31 as having all of the following legal components:

PERJURY DEFINED:

  1. An oral statement must be made under oath or affirmation.
  2. The statement must be false when made.
  3. The declarant did not believe the statement to be true when made.
  4. The statement was made in a proceeding before a court.
  5. The statement must be material to the proceeding.

Prosecution of perjury requires proof of each and every one of these elements: what is required is an unambiguous statement or assertion that was demonstrably and unambiguously false.and which is material to the purpose of the hearing.

Ethically, before bringing a perjury charge, prosecutors must have sufficient competent evidence to convince 12 jurors beyond a reasonable doubt. Three areas of testimony have raised the most suspicion:

  • Mr. McGee.s denial of a .romantic relationship. with Ms. Rucker.
  • His denial that [email protected] was .his. e-mail account.
  • His denial of authorship of several e-mails to Ms. Rucker.

The District Attorney’s Office goes on to explain that “romantic” is ambiguous, so they don’t know if McGee/Jackson’s denial of it is a lie. The fact that the email account belongs to McGee/Jackson’s campaign means that they don’t know if he really lied.

But the best part is McGee/Jackson’s denial that he wrote certain emails to Rucker. The District Attorney’s Office says:

Of course it is utterly implausible that someone else wrote and sent those e-mails: however, there is no direct evidence that Mr. McGee wrote and/or sent them.

So they believe he wrote them, yet they say there’s no evidence?

And the final reason for not charging McGee/Jackson is that the untrue testimony he gave was not “material”. They say these lies didn’t relate to whether or not domestic abuse occurred, so they weren’t material.

Yet again, McGee/Jackson gets away with criminal behavior in a courtroom.