There is a moment in an episode of In the Heat of the Night that has always stuck with me: a new character moves into town and over the course of the episode it is revealed that her (IIRC now adult daughter) is someone that she kidnapped as an infant and raised as her own. The woman tries to make some defense about how well she has taken care of the girl, and someone (Gillespe or Tibbs, don’t remember) pointed out to her that every morning that she woke up and didn’t confess to her crime, she was committing the kidnapping all over again. And that’s the way I think about an unconfessed killing.
I don’t think that should mean when you use the phrase “serious crime” in this thread I am supposed to assume you have your own definition of it. Your mileage obviously varies. Carry on.
As in, for the purposes of this thread I can consider the use of phrases in an intentionally ambiguous way to be a “serious crime” and nobody should really question my judgment?
That’s not what I said and I certainly never said “nobody should really question my judgment”, but thanks for opining and being an opiner. (I have my own definition of that last word).
So, wait, is the position here that refraining from explaining to the family where their kid('s body) is for 21 years is a worse crime than murder? So, like, if one person killed somebody who they thought was an orphan, and another person heard about it who knew the victim had family and neither of them told, the witness’s crime is worse?
This is an extremely odd position that I can’t really get behind.
I don’t see where you think he implied that. It seems he thinks it was a “serious crime” even if he didn’t commit murder. I don’t see any implications made that it’s worse than murder.
Interesting. On the one criminal jury on which I sat, the defense council, in his opening statement, said something like “The prosecution must prove that this incident was not self defense by my client” or something to that effect. The defendant never testified, nor did anyone testify on his behalf to suggest self defense. That is my total experience with this, though, so I defer to the experts.
For the record, the prosecution did prove their case, the defense seemingly tried every trick in the book, the guy was absolutely guilty and we found him so. The prosecutor thanked us afterward for getting a career criminal with escalating violent tendencies off the street.
Given that this thread is about what we think the law should be, not what it is, no I shouldn’t. His claim of self defence should be considered true unless proven false beyond reasonable doubt, the same as any other claim of innocence needs to be. “Innocent until proven guilty” is not just a mantra, it’s a statement of fact. Someone is innocent until they are proven guilty, factually. And the court determines what the facts are.
Self defence should not be an affirmative defence, or in any way considered as an excuse for committing a crime. Killing in self defence should not be a crime.
The OP does ask us to assume we know nothing about what the actual law is about cases like this. The OP does not ask us to make up our own facts about the case that go against the scenario he provided us with.
Darren Garrison said he’d like the person to be locked away forever. You replied “Even though he killed in self defense?”
So, you asked Darren that because of what you think think the law should be? He is supposed to know that you just made up your own facts? The OP tells us that the evidence doesn’t dispute either alternative; he doesn’t tell us that the accused killed in self-defense.
No, presumed innocent does not mean specific claims should be considered true. Unless of course these are just your own “I’m pretending I know nothing about the law” facts again. It certainly doesn’t mean when discussing the case we say things like “but he didn’t do it.”
People are not literally innocent until proven guilty. They are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Thanks, Doc!
You’ve provided the verbage for the tiny shred of a thought that I’ve been trying to formulate for days.
Is it that hard to see that an unsolved homicide causes grief and distress for the deceased’s loved ones and that admitting the crime at the time would spare society the worry over subsequent years that the child’s killer is running around periodically committing similar homicides?
Is society such worry a crime in and of itself?
I am reminded of a TV mini-series called Chiefs, and would therefore answer with a resounding YES to the second question. Because that self-defense was not reported, Society has been needlessly burdened with a lingering fear and lack of closure; investigative resources have been squandered on a matter which should have been quickly closed.
–G
*I may have over-edited Gray Ghost’s excerpt to formulate my own post. If so, I apologize.
The two questions that our society in general refuses to address:
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What purpose, in principle, is incarceration intended to serve?
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What would be the benefit of incarcerating this particular offender?
At common law, self-defense was an affirmative defense that the accused had to prove by a preponderance of the evidence (assuming the prosecution otherwise met its own burden). However, nearly every US jurisdiction has done away with the common law rule; in every state except Ohio, the prosecution is now required to prove that a killing was not in self defense, if the defendant claims that it was (whether or not the defendant testifies). The prosecution’s burden to rebut a self-defense claim is a preponderance of evidence in some jurisdictions, clear and convincing evidence in others, and beyond reasonable doubt in others still.
It’s not a good thing to do, but does one bad act counter a lifetime of good ones and make someone a bad person? OP specifies only that the perp “…has been a good citizen for 21 years…” That creates a pretty broad continuum from “doesn’t make trouble” to “social do-gooder who has helped alleviate the suffering of thousands of people.” Is there a point on that scale at which he has atoned? I think there is.
For the family’s sake, though, there should be a trial. And for society’s sake the judge should be allowed a sentence ranging from, “expungement of a minor’s criminal record” to “serve some time”. But if society loses a valuable asset who is making real and positive contributions, then justice is not served.
Trial, conviction, give him a light sentence of just a year or a few years.
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?
I realize this is a rhetorical question but I could actually support a special type of imprisonment or house arrest for such a scientist, one that allows him to continue his research but applies some punitive measures on him in some other way. Maybe put him in prison but give him a great deal of Internet access so he can communicate with other researchers in the field, his own computers, plenty of books, pens and paper, a phone call to anyone he wants, a special cell, better food and treatment than other inmates, regular visits from other researchers, etc.
It shouldn’t be an all-or-nothing thing where he either rots away in the drop-the-soap facility or gets full unfettered freedom.
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.
The proposal also means that different spouses have different levels of protection from the law.
The wife of the scummy drug dealer knows that if he tries to kill her, or succeeds in killing her, the law will come down hard on him. He gets hard time, maybe a life sentence.
The wife of the upstanding member of society knows that if her husband tries to kill her, or succeeds in doing so, he’s facing a much lighter sentence, maybe even probation so he can keep working on his lab.
Is it fair that the spouses of the two men have different degrees of protection from being assaulted or killed?
Which I think segues nicely into the kind of productivity. What if the guilty party was willing to contribute to society my donating $30,000,000 dollars to cancer research instead of being a researcher himself. Should he then be able to buy his way into a better prison sentence? Most of us would say no (I hope). But if that does just as much good, and he’s never done anything like this before…
Would certainly lead to an even starker difference in punishment for rich and poor.
Really Not All That Bright, two questions for you.
- 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.
- 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!