I don’t know what I was thinking, I guess I misunderstood the scenario.
Ah, that’s easy. Just ask either one “Who would the OTHER twin say is the murderer?”
You can’t give someone a life sentence for perjury.
Obviously, this is way out in Hypothetical Land. But I’m wondering if a conjoined twin was found guilty of a *capital *crime and sentenced to death, could he be severed from his brother surgically? Assuming it could be done medically, of course, without killing his brother. Perform the separation and then administer whatever form of execution would normally be required.
This would only work if the innocent twin wasn’t the weaker of the two and all the working organs could be assigned to him, of course.
Of course you could also place black or white hats on each twin’s head so that either twin can only see the other’s hat. Then have them derive the colour of their own hat logically.
The innocent conjoined twin could not lawfully be punished for the crimes of the guilty one, assuming you could even determine, by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, who did what. So both would usually be freed. I could see circumstances where the court might order the surgical severing of the twins if it could be done safely and if releasing the guilty twin would otherwise pose a danger to public safety, as with a murderer or a serial rapist conjoined twin (boy, there’s a mental image!). Once severed, the guilty one goes to prison and the innocent one goes on his way. I suppose if they could not be severed, and if the guilty one was just too dangerous to be released, some form of house arrest might be ordered. There’d be no perfect solution in a case like this, and hard cases make bad law, as the saying goes.
My assumption is that if they could be separated surgically without killing one of them, it would have been done when they were children. Most conjoined twins who remained conjoined do so because separating them would kill one of them. If it’s the guilty one, I don’t personally see a problem with that - separating them and letting the guilty one die of the natural consequences of the operation. But I have no idea how the law would see it. Is surgery a legally accepted from of execution? Is it like Catholics and abortion, where the intent of the surgery matters more than the end result? Would they have to have a reasonable assurance of healing him post-surgery in order to execute him by more common means? I have no idea.
I think that decision is sometimes delayed until the twins are old enough to decide for themselves, since their lives are often at risk.
Abby would never do anything like that! Britney, on the other hand…
They are in college now. I hope they are majoring in communications and public speaking. They could make a huge amount of money as motivational speakers. They could talk about the importance of cooperation. I’m sure any number of corporations would pay tens of thousands of dollars to bring them in to speak at events, especially after a merger.
And even in cases when the both twins could survive seperation both could end up severly crippled. I belive that’s the case with the Helsen Twins. If they were seperated they’d both spend the rest of their lives in wheelchairs.
So if you have cojoined decuplets, nine of whom commit a murder, you could imprison them all?
My gut tells me to charge them both with conspiracy and jail them on that charge. If those facts won’t fit, try Tampering with Evidence, Hindering Apprehension, or whatever else you can think of. No way did Twin A commit a crime without Twin B helping him out a little, even if the only “help” involved walking away from the scene so that his brother could leave as well.
Nope, it’s better for ten guilty men to go free, so you’d need dodecuplets to achieve the desired 11:1 ratio.
Perhaps you could arrange some type of arrest where the non-guilty could get a bunch of perks, and then voluntarily give up some freedom. He can maybe even still go out with a monitor, and the guilty twin being somehow restricted.
Heck, being a conjoined twin creates a pretty big restriction in itself. I can’t think of any heinous crimes one could commit without the other knowing, and pretty much being able to stop.
Actually, I don’t think the “holding a gun to the other one’s head” would work, because I think in most cases of one twin dying, the other does shortly afterwards.
Again, I think you’d be considered an accessory for not stopping the guilty one.
I don’t think that’ll work, since it’s not guarunteed one will tell the truth.
A would say “B would say A is the murderer”
and B would say “A would say B is the murderer”
you still get 2 different answers
Question them in separate rooms to see if their stories agree… no.
Put a listening device on just ONE of them to see if… no, no good either.
Cut a plea deal with one of them so that they’d have immunity from… never mind.
Hell, just put them in an octagonal square and have them fight it out to the death. That should work.
Ask their mother which one did it, and if she refuses to answer then threaten to cut them in half. IIRC it worked for Solomon.
You’re not legally required to prevent crime.
I think as long as one twin remained silent it would be no different from any other contestant.
As for going to prison, Grady “Lobster Boy” Stileswas a murderer- tried and convicted- but allowed to remain free because of his extraordinarily unusual disability (which obviously didn’t disable him from killing). Basically the court ruled that he could not survive in a regular prison and the state did not have the resources to keep him safe and to put him in solitary would be cruel-and-unusual-punishment, etc., so they let him remain free. They’d probably do something similar for conjoined twins. (Let’s hope it’d work better than it did for Lobster Boy who threatened another family murder and continued abusing his family until he himself was killed and three people instead of one were sent to prison.)