One significant legal distinction lies in the specific realm of knowledge necessarily possessed by a defendant for her statements to be properly called perjury. Though the defendant must knowingly render a false statement in a legal proceeding or under federal jurisdiction, the defendant need not know that they are speaking under such conditions for the statement to constitute perjury. All tenets of perjury qualification persist: the "knowingly" aspect of telling the false statement simply does not apply to the defendant's knowledge about the person whose deception is intended.
One significant legal distinction lies in the specific realm of knowledge necessarily possessed by a defendant for her statements to be properly called perjury. Though the defendant must knowingly render a false statement in a legal proceeding or under federal jurisdiction, the defendant need not know that they are speaking under such conditions for the statement to constitute perjury. All tenets of perjury qualification persist: the "knowingly" aspect of telling the false statement simply does not apply to the defendant's knowledge about the person whose deception is intended.