OK, I did a search & couldn’t find this discussed anywhere … does anyone have any idea what would happen if one member of a pair of conjoined twins committed a felony? It seems unfair that the innocent twin could be imprisoned for the crime of his/her brother/sister. But on the other hand, you can’t just let the guilty party go free, either, can you?
I highly doubt there’s any legal precedent, as very few inseparable conjoined twins survive to adulthood; I’m really just looking for informed theories. The closest I was able to find in a web search was a 1950 movie called ‘Chained for Life’, starring real-life conjoined twins Violet & Daisy Hilton, where one twin was on trial for murder. Don’t know what theory that movie put forth-even that would be interesting (not that I believe Hollywood’s legal theories, naturally). (If Eve still posts hereabouts, could someone snag her? Her comments on another conjoined twins thread indicates that she has seen that movie, although from her comments on its quality she may have suppressed the memory.
How could the other twin not be guilty of a crime also. Although the “innocent” twin would have no duty to stop the other twin from pulling the trigger, he or she would at least be an accessory to the fact. You’d have to have more facts before any definite answer can be given. Did the “innocent” twin try to stop the murder? Where were they conjoined? Did they have independent minds?
What if half A commits the crime, and half B reports it?
Or
What if half A is a crook and half B is a lawyer? Then the half B could prosecute half A, and they might both end up in prison. I’d pay to see the cross examination…
or
What if half A commits a crime against half B and then half B presses charges?
Stop making this more complicated than it needs to be. Let’s suppose that there’s no doubt that Twin A acted without the consent of Twin B. Will A be let off the hook, because any attempt at punishing A will also punish B as well?
It doesn’t matter if twin B consented. If he had knowledge and did not report it, he would be an accessory. I don’t think you can visualize a situation when he would not be, at least, an accessory; however, his crime would not be as great and he should not serve time as long. His sentence should be cut in half. I repeat, his sentence shou.
Twin B is asleep.
Twin A is lying “next” to Twin A.
In walks Mystery Man C.
Twin A shoots Mystery Man C with a silenced weapon.
The man is killed. Twin A has a buddy named Mike D. Twin A calls Mike D.
Mike D comes over and cleans up the mess.
Twin B is asleep the whole time.
Mike D rats out Twin A.
OK, here’s a hypothetical situation, based on the blurb about ‘Chained for Life’ I read: female twins, joined at the hip. One gets married, then has a fight with her new husband & in a fit of rage, grabs a pistol and shoots him. No warning, nothing the other twin could have done about it; but afterwards, she disarms her sister and calls the police, and prevents her from fleeing the arresting officers. (Not hard, obviously. ) No question about the facts, the courts would easily get a conviction of manslaughter or 2nd degree murder on the gunwoman. Now what?
A & B (joined at the hips) surviving into adulthood, are employed as accountants. They work side by side, but don’t necessarily pay attention to each other’s work. Twin A finds a way to route funds from the company into his personal account. This goes on long enough for A to steal a considerable amount. When A is finally caught, he has lost most of it via poor stock trading. A now faces criminal charges for the embezzlement, and is civilly (?) responsible to the company for the stolen money.
As to the OP- what criminal penalties could be imposed on A that would not inflict undue harm on B? And if A had no money to repay the company, could they go after joint assets? As to the second question, my WAG is that they could, there not being too much difference between this situation and a typical domestic case involving embezzlement. Good luck finding a real answer to this.
If you’re going to intentionally miss the point time after time, why do you bother posting? Nobody said mystery man C was a “home invader”. Maybe he was their uncle visiting for the holidays. Cripes.
This is a really interesting question. I believe there was an outer limits episode like this once. Or some other show. In it one of the twins goes ahead and commits a murder based on the fact that he believed that he would be free since to put his CT bro in jail would be ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’ I think that it worked like this. They’re in bed and the innocent one is married and his wife is sleeping beside him. After the innocent CT and his wife are asleep he kills her.
Anyhoo I’d venture to guess that being conjoined might be a license to kill. And you’d get away with it, except maybe in Texas.
Incidentily the show ends with the innocent CT finally agreeing to be sperated from his brother, the operation is a success and the guilty one gets the chair. Now I saw this maybe 10 15 years ago so everything is REALLY hazy.
The post said it was her husband. It was no “mystery man” and was not “their uncle.”
You wouldn’t understand since you don’t live in SC, but the SCSimmons does, as he lives in SC. Our attorney general made that comment (no charges will be filed against a home invader) and the other day a lady killed her live-in-boyfriend, whom she had momentarily kicked out. The AG told the authorities not to prosecute.
And you,gait, if you can’t read the post correctly why criticize another? Moreover, if you are going to make derogatory comments take it to the Pit. I never go there.
Barbitu, what do any of your posts have to do with trying to answer the question? You seem to be under the impression that it is a cosmic impossibility for one conjoined twin to commit a crime and the other to be innocent. There are about a billion different ways for this to happen.
No, it doesn’t. The word “husband” never appears in the thread until after your unnecessarily argumentative posts. In addition, the post which you were replying to absolutely says that person C is a “mystery man”. It in no way implies that he is a “home invader”. “Their uncle” was merely an example to demonstrate to you that there are many people who could potentially be in the house without being “home invaders”.
Your made-up scenario makes the act self-defense, which is not a crime, and therefore obviously outside the scope of the original question. You missed the point entirely.
What the hell are you talking about? The question is neither framed in the context of SC, nor is it about a specific case concerning a home invader. I suggest you read it again.
I do not appear to be the one adding imagined details to the posts I’m reading. Perhaps I need your magic decoder ring which translates “Twin A shoots Mystery Man C with a silenced weapon” into “Twin A kills Home Invader C with a silenced weapon”.
Sorry if my comments seem like Pit material to you. I’m just trying to help this thread along, since you seem determined to drive it into the ground by constantly raising dumb objections to what are perfectly valid questions.
The question remains: if one conjoined twin was convicted of a jailable offense while the other was not (for whatever reason – let’s say the innocent one was held at gunpoint and reported the crime at his earliest opportunity), what would happen?
I remember watching a similar episode from Tales from the Cryptkeeper. There were two conjoined twin brothers (not identical) in their early thirties. They go to a club one night and meet this nice woman that one of the twins (the shy, serious one) develops a crush on. She is stunned to discover they are joined at the lower waist/hip by a single band of skin. She sort of shys away from them. Meanwhile, the ‘bad twin,’ who drinks, wants to separate from his ‘good twin’ and wants him to sign a consent form for an operation to separate them. The good twin refuses and the bad twin tries to save money and perform the operation himself by cutting away the band of skin with a butcher knife. The good twin confesses he doesn’t know how it will be if they separate and says he might feel lonely. The viewer discovers the bad twin has a heart after all and doesn’t cut away the skin. However, one night, the twins get in an arguement and the bad twin swallows a bunch of pills, which makes the good twin angry because that means that he will be knocked out, too. Meanwhile, the woman comes back and confesses her love for the good twin, saying she doesn’t care if he is conjoined. The bad twin in some fit of rage murders the woman with a butcher knife and then passes out. The good twin, is about to pass out too, but before he does, he grabs a pen, dips it in the woman’s blood and signs the consent form on the floor. We see the twins again in a hospital. They wake up and the bad twin starts laughing about how he’ll never get convicted. Suddenly, the police come in and wheel the bad twin away, and the viewer sees that the twins are actually separated by the operation.
Anyone know how to remove a cranium from a rectum?