False testimony claims are an increasingly popular vehicle in a handful of states through which petitioners can challenge unconstitutional criminal convictions. Successful false testimony claims grant petitioners access to remedies guaranteed by the Due Process Clause and overturn offending convictions, giving individuals access to new trials or similar relief. But like many post-conviction standards, false testimony is evaluated differently from state to state, producing disparate results. While every state’s standard requires that the testimony used at trial be proven both false and material to the petitioner’s conviction, states diverge as to whether petitioners must show that a state actor—usually prosecutors or police—knew when introducing that testimony that it was false. Most state courts require such evidence, known as a state knowledge element. But not all states demand proof of knowledge. Some have removed the knowledge prong from their false testimony standards, recognizing that a knowledge element is superfluous to a determination of whether lies were used to convict and incarcerate a defendant. These states understand due process to be violated when petitioners demonstrate that their convictions were based on material lies, not just when petitioners can find evidence proving police or prosecutors knew about those lies. The result of such divergence is that petitioners in some states receive relief for claims that are barred in others—including claims in which courts openly acknowledge that false, material testimony was used.
This Note argues that state knowledge requirements should be removed from state-level post-conviction false testimony standards because they are constitutionally unnecessary and violate the Due Process Clause’s fundamental fairness principle. First, this Note describes the three broad types of state knowledge standards employed by state courts: actual knowledge requirements, constructive knowledge requirements, or no knowledge requirements. Second, it examines the Supreme Court’s line of false evidence and false testimony cases and asserts that not only do these cases have no knowledge requirement—a common misconception used to justify state knowledge standards—but the Court’s reasoning suggests that a standard without knowledge would support their understanding of false testimony. Third, it examines the institutional factors that make state knowledge so difficult to prove, including the incentive structures of law enforcement and the nearly impossible hoops petitioners must jump through to obtain evidence that could prove knowledge. It concludes by proposing that states eliminate their knowledge standards by either reexamining Supreme Court jurisprudence or situating this more expansive right to due process in state constitutions.