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A Legal Question?
08-18-2014, 02:45 AM
Suppose a man was legally declared dead. Said man committed murder. Said man was caught by the police. Can he even be charged with murder?
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Well... depends on if he's actually dead or not.
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I'm most definitely not a lawyer, but I imagine if he's not literally a corpse in a box (or ashes) and there's a solid case against him, he'll be sent away.
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Quite definitely.
In fact there are people in India who have been declared legally dead by relatives who want to get a hand on their land. One way they try and bring publicity to their plight is threaten to commit a crime, in which case the government will be forced to admit they're alive when it charges them.
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I am not a lawyer etc. but still; yes. Even if he actually is dead the man can be charged and tried, although it'd need to be in absentia. Governments just usually don't bother because there's no point to it.
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I was pretty sure Law and the Multiverse had covered the subject of "declared dead" before and this time at least my Google-Fu proved handy. - The first post I found linked to a Straight Dope article, What Happens When Someone Legally Dead Shows Up Alive the article makes it pretty clear that having been declared dead gives you no special protections and may in fact hurt you. For example, you may have had debts cleared from an insurance payout -- but if so then the insurer will likely sue you to recover what they paid.
- The Law And The Multiverse post, I'm Not Dead Yet, expands on that. In short, you're likely to lose property with no recourse to recover it. If it's been given away according to your will or probate court, oh well it's gone. Although at least one state requires that a bond for the value of the property be posted if you are only 'presumed dead' and not known to be dead.
- Another interesting LatM post is, Resurection Redux: Crimes, Punishment, and Debt in which the subject is exactly what it says on the tin. Speculative by its nature as there are no cases of resurection proven in court. But a handy quote: "...coming back from the grave would seem to
require leaving its protections behind as well. Here, it seems plausible
that a judge would base the treatment of any outstanding debts on the
way that the character goes about the rest of his assets." Eg: Make a clean break, get a clean break; Otherwise no reclaiming the good parts of your old life without reclaiming the debts and obligations, monetary or otherwise.- An interesting point, why should being declared dead protect you from culpability? Why would legislators even bother writing a law saying, "Dead people can't be held culpable for a crime." I haven't found any entries that directly approach this specific question but that's the first question to ask, "Why the heck would being presumed dead give you any kind of immunity from prosecution?" Ask this, you're declared dead in court, and through whatever means hold a job for a few years without paying taxes. Then someone sees a picture of you on the employer's web site and says, "Hey, he's still alive!" Do you really think the IRS would say, "Oh well, you're legally dead so we can't touch you." And if you made that argument do you really think the courts would accept the argument?
- BINGO! Elsewhere I found this article Man long declared dead arrested in kidnapping (which sadly as with many kidnappings escalated to murder). Well. That answers it at least for Mississippi. Having been declared dead didn't protect Mr Sanders from arrest and Jury selection set in case of man declared dead shows that it has also not protected him from facing the potential of the death penalty.
Well, I didn't in the end find the answer on Law and the Multiverse, but that's still a fascinating blog.
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Tangentially related:At some point in the late 1990s, the following short article by Nuri Vittachi was included in the Far Eastern Economic Review:
Quote:Dead Man Walking: Takashi Mori, 48, a Japanese man living in the Philippines, allegedly faked his death in order to claim insurance money from a company in his home country. But he was later found to be alive and well.
Case closed? No. A judge at a court in Manila Metropolitan Trial Court recently examined all the evidence in the case, and concluded that there was no proof that Mori and his alleged co-conspirators faked his death. The judge wrote a two-page judgment explaining that he was dismissing charges that the Japanese man and his associates had falsified public documents in Manila, Kyodo news agency reported.
This must be the first case in history of a live man winning a court case which appears to hinge on the fact that he is, in fact, dead.
One wonders what sort of pleasantries they exchanged?
"Thank you, M'lud."
"Not at all. Rest in peace, Mr. Mori."
On another tangent, I've wondered from time to time what legal difficulties would result if somebody added a clause to his will devoting some of his estate to finance a contract assassination. "Upon my death, I direct that $500,000 be applied to hiring a couple of guys to whack __." Does it count as conspiracy or something like that if no killing will be made or even really planned until after the person ordering it has died?
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You can be tried and sentenced posthumously. In some places, like East Asia, where family honor is very important, there may be the political will and motivation to do so. However, in the western world, I don't think there would be much interest.
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>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
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Quote:DHBirr wrote:
On another tangent, I've wondered from time to time what legal difficulties would result if somebody added a clause to his will devoting some of his estate to finance a contract assassination. "Upon my death, I direct that $500,000 be applied to hiring a couple of guys to whack __." Does it count as conspiracy or something like that if no killing will be made or even really planned until after the person ordering it has died?
A contract to break the law is unenforcable. I'd assume they could theoretically charge the deceased (but why bother), but the clause in the will is invalid.
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Quote:Jinx999 wrote:
Quote:DHBirr wrote:
On another tangent, I've wondered from time to time what legal difficulties would result if somebody added a clause to his will devoting some of his estate to finance a contract assassination. "Upon my death, I direct that $500,000 be applied to hiring a couple of guys to whack __." Does it count as conspiracy or something like that if no killing will be made or even really planned until after the person ordering it has died?
A contract to break the law is unenforcable. I'd assume they could theoretically charge the deceased (but why bother), but the clause in the will is invalid.
Well, I took it for granted the authorities would want to arrest the guy before he dies, the moment his lawyer ratted him out about the provision in the will; I'm just curious as to what exactly the charge would be. Conspiracy, I figured; that strikes me as being a catch-all for crimes that haven't necessarily happened yet.
I'll admit that what brought this to my mind was that I kind of felt the urge to put such a clause in my will. What stopped me was, a. I knew I'd be busted for it, and b. there're just SO many people who I feel deserve to be targets, and I don't have nearly that much money.
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