# 35 year old found guilty of murder comitted 21 years ago, what to do? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 8, 2018, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/35-year-old-found-guilty-of-murder-comitted-21-years-ago-what-to-do/810235 "2018-03-08T13:37:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/35-year-old-found-guilty-of-murder-comitted-21-years-ago-what-to-do/810235/81 "2018-05-22T02:30:55Z")
Oops, I see **Grey Ghost** already addressed this in post 54 back in March. Sounds like our systems deal with the issue similarly. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/35-year-old-found-guilty-of-murder-comitted-21-years-ago-what-to-do/810235/82 "2018-05-22T02:44:54Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Re-reading this, I’m curious about the OP: why should society not punish this guy? > [@Velocity](#): > > Trial, conviction, give him a light sentence of just a year or a few years. I’m with **Grey Ghost** : if a murderer gets a light sentence because he got away with it for a long time, we’re punishing the most dangerous murderers more lightly than the stupid murderers. Murderer A is stupid and leaves lots of clues behind. The cops investigate and nail him after a short investigation. So when he’s convicted, he gets a heavy sentence. But Murderer B is smart: • He makes sure there weren’t any witnesses to him being there at the time of the murder. • He wears gloves and doesn’t touch anything at the murder scene, so he doesn’t leave any DNA. • He bought the gun in a way it can’t be traced to him • He takes the gun with him and disposes of it in a way that it won’t be found and traced back to him. • He burns his clothes so there’s no blood or powder residue. • He goes swimming in a chlorinated pool as soon as he can, to muck up the powder residue, if any. The cops are baffled and only find him when he spills the beans many years later. As between Murderer A and Murderer B, which is the more dangerous one to society? I’d say the smart one, not the idiot one. We don’t punish the smart one lightly because he evaded detection for so long. We punish them both in the same way, for murdering another human being. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/35-year-old-found-guilty-of-murder-comitted-21-years-ago-what-to-do/810235/83 "2018-05-22T15:31:53Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > **Really Not All That Bright** , two questions for you. > > 1. Can the accused raise the issue of self-defence without any factual evidence to support it? The reason I ask this is the Canadian system with which I’m familiar sounds similar: if the defence raises self-defence, the Crown then had the onus of disproving beyond a reasonable doubt. > > However, there is an important first step: in order to raise the defence and trigger the Crown’s duty to rebut, there has to be something in the evidence before the Court to give the defence “an air of reality”. It’s not a persuasive burden on the accused, but it does impose an initial evidential burden. Is there anything similar in US law? (I réalisé you’ve got 51 different criminal systems, but in general?). And, it can be in the Crown’s case as well. > > 1. Are there any professional restrictions on defence counsel that apply? In Canada, the codes of conduct usually provide that a defence counsel is not allowed to refer to a defence in their openings or closings unless they know that there is some evidence that will meet the “air of reality” test. Defence can’t just throw anything they want at the Crown and then say “Now, disprove that!” > > (Both of these questions relate to the discussion I started to have with **Dr Jackson** back when this thread started, and his mention of his personal experience as a juror. I must have missed the thread when it was still active and didn’t think to raise this issue. Sorry, **Dr J**! Paging **Bricker**. I’ll defer to **Gray Ghost** ’s answer previously, but I am not sure it would be necessary to put the defendant on the stand to meet the defense’s burden of production to put self-defense at issue. For example, a law enforcement officer, ballistics expert, or whoever could testify that a claim of self defense is plausible given X, Y and Z facts (e.g., “the defendant fired at the deceased from a prone position based on gunshot residue. Analysis of blood left by the defendant at the scene indicated that the defendant was bleeding while lying prone, indicating that he had already been shot when he returned fire.”) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/35-year-old-found-guilty-of-murder-comitted-21-years-ago-what-to-do/810235/84 "2018-05-22T15:48:10Z")
Agreed - doesn’t require the accused to testify to meet that initial burden. It can be anything in the evidence either defence or Crown that might raise it. For instance if’s a bar-room fight that resulted in a death and if the can-says for the Crown witnesses who were there indicate there might be a basis for self-defence to be raised, the defence could say in their opening “And we anticipate that some of the evidence you’ll hear from the Crown’s own witnesses will raise the issue of self-defence.” ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/35-year-old-found-guilty-of-murder-comitted-21-years-ago-what-to-do/810235/85 "2018-05-22T19:52:43Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Suppose you have a genius scientist who has a remarkable track record at developing cancer drugs. Some of his drugs have slowed the development of certain cancers, others have greatly reduced the pain that people with cancer have suffered. > > He may actually be close to a real cure for at least some types of cancer. > > Then he cold-bloodedly murders his wife in a domestic dispute. > > But hey, it’s only one bad act in an otherwise exemplary life, and putting him in jail would mean society would lose a valuable person who’s making real and positive contributions. > > So he shouldn’t go to jail, right? Maybe probation and a strict warning from the bench not to do it again. We’d all be good with that, right? Pretty disingenuous interpretation of my point. Whatever gets you through the night I guess. Ill let you work out the difference between a socially valuable person who may also be a dangerously violent and powerful adult, and someone who evaded the law for a crime he MIGHT HAVE committed as a child on his distant past and has since turned himself into a solid citizen. But ill give you credit if it is due. If you think I find the current judicial system in this country wholly unacceptable and unfair you’re right. You’d also be right in understanding I believe “punishment” for its own sake is juvenile and beneath the dignity of a society that would call itself civilized. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/35-year-old-found-guilty-of-murder-comitted-21-years-ago-what-to-do/810235/86 "2018-05-22T21:18:27Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > It’s not a rhetorical question. I’m responding to **Inigo Montoya** ’s position, which I assume he meant as a real proposal. > > But what his proposal and your response both boil down to is that a person’s moral and legal responsibility for murder is lessened if that person is an otherwise productive member of society. No, I don’t think their responsibility is lessened, but rather, that it’s an un-ideal world and one with un-ideal choices. The ideal thing would be to have one’s cake and eat it too - give the murdering scientist the full brunt of punishment and yet simultaneously have society enjoy the full benefit of his continued research in cancer cures and treatments. But those two things are mutually exclusive. And it’s better to have some injustice for his one murder victim, than to have millions of cancer patients miss out on the benefit of his cures. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2018, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/35-year-old-found-guilty-of-murder-comitted-21-years-ago-what-to-do/810235/87 "2018-05-22T21:53:04Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > And I’d like the person to be locked away forever. I don’t believe in an afterlife where justice is meted out, so I wish for people who commit serious crimes to suffer here. Assuming you have his statement that it was self defense. No other reliable evidence can be found. The statement does not sound like an obvious lie, it’s ambiguous to the juror’s ears. (after all, he’s still accused of murder and will say anything to get off) Still want to lock him away forever? You don’t know if he’s even guilty. Also, if you don’t believe in an afterlife, does that mean you believe in evidence-based punishment? I don’t know what the evidence says precisely, but what if the evidence for punishment effectiveness says that 10 years is statistically indistinguishable from a life sentence. That is, if you give him 10 years and he comes out, the probability of him committing another crime is equal to that of a random citizen from the population. Here’s a page[from the NIJ](https://nij.gov/five-things/pages/deterrence.aspx)on this idea. I’m just using this as an example, again, I don’t know what the evidence says. Still going to insist on life? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/35-year-old-found-guilty-of-murder-comitted-21-years-ago-what-to-do/810235.md?page=4)