Convicted wrongly then commit a crime in prison...

Factual Questions
1

I don’t know if this belongs in GD, but will give it a try here first. Mods please feel free to move it if it becomes necessary.

I was watching an episode of The Jury from last week and the guy was found guilty of murdering a priest during a riot in the prison. During jury deliberations, it was found out that he was actually innocent of the very first crime. Legally, what are the repercussions because obviously he would not have been in a situation to commit the 2nd crime if he hadn’t been wrongly convicted in the first place?

I believe that it is wrong to hold him responsible for the 2nd crime as he wouldn’t have committed it if he wasn’t in prison in the first place.

2

IANAL etc. but the “he wouldn’t be there if not for a mistake” excuse carries no weight as a defense. Wherever he was when the crime took place, he still made the decision to commit the crime and is legally responsible for his actions. Were I his attorney I would certainly raise the situation as a mitigating circumstance but I wouldn’t expect an acquital on the basis of a wrong conviction.

Imagine this scenario. A guy rams into your car in an intersection. You get out of your car and shoot him dead. If he hadn’t hit you, you would have been miles down the road instead of still in the intersection. Should you be found not guilty of his murder because if it hadn’t been for his action you wouldn’t have been there?

3

They could try him, but if the jury sufficiently sympathized they could always nullify. If they knew they had that ability, of course.

4

This has happened in real life, wherein a person who’s in prison for a crime they didn’t commit, has done a criminal act while in prison. I dont’ remember the details of any of the cases, but I think that one of the things the prosecution has looked at was the amount of time in which the person had already served and compared that to the amount of time which they could reasonably expect to serve for the act that they committed in prison. If the amount of time was roughly the same or greater, then simply gave the person a “pass” as it were, and didn’t bother to prosecute.

5

An interestng variation on this is that in many states, escaping or attempting to escape from prison is a crime.

So an innocent person, in prison for a crime they did not commit, escapes. Now they are guilty of a second crime, and even if the publicity results in it being proven that they were not guilty on the original crime, they could legally still be put back into prison for the crime of escaping.

[In reality, of course, this is unlikely. A jury would consider this a strongly mitigating circumstance (assuming they didn’t hurt anyone during their escape). Most DA’s wouldn’t even prosecute on this, or would settle for a sentence of ‘time served’.

6

Somewhere I have a newspaper clipping of just that scenario… I’ll see if I can find it.

7

Drat… Can’t find it. Anyone else?

8

I have a worse case scanario where an innocent person is being walked the Green Mile to the electric chair when he suddenly manages to kill the priest walking next to him. So the whole thing is called off, and while the trial for the second murder is being worked on, they realize that he couldn’t have commited the original murder. Then what?

When convicted child killer Diane Downs escaped from prison and was caught, the average person who did just that got an additional year in prison. The prosecuting attorney asked that she get two years. The judge gave her five years. In her book Diane states: I’m glad nobody else was bidding. Who knows how many years I could have gotten.

9

Legally speaking, each crime is considered independantly. Other crimes that may or may not have been committed are not supposed to have any bearing.

To use an extreme example, a person who escapes from custody but is later found innocent of his original crime can still be found guilty of escaping from custody.

10

HERE’S the ultimate scenario:

A man is accused of murdering his girlfreind. The body is never found, but he is convicted on the strength of the evidence of motive, intent, etc.

He is convicted of the murder and serves 20 years.

When he gets out, he FINDS the girlfriend shacking up with an old buddy, and in front of witnesses, he kills her.

Double jeapordy prevents a person from being convicted of the same crime twice. :eek:

11

Oh for god’s sake…

Must that damn “Double Jeopardy” movie scenario continually be revived despite the simple fact that it has no basis in fact or law?

Double jeopardy would prevent the person in your scenario from being prosecuted a second time on the basis of the fact pattern alleged in the first accusation. IOW, he could not be tried a second time for a murder alleged to have taken place in 1984. There is nothing stopping a prosecution of a murder alleged to have taken place in 2004, even if the dead person is the same person alleged to have been killed in 1984. They are separate allegations involving separate fact patterns. Under your scenario, a person convicted of robbing a bank could then rob that bank again as often as he wants because hey, he’s already been convicted of robbing the bank once!

12

Ah…but you see, the law recognizes a person can oly be murdered ONCE… :confused:

13

Could I please see a legitimate legal cite on that? Note that this issue would only arise in very screwy marginal cases. I can cite many cases which have contained the common sense presumption that a person dies exactly once (e.g. it has been argued in many forms in many cases where a “murder” victim is taken off life support, especially if it was done at the patient’s own request as in the case of Georgette Smith in 1999) but I am not aware of anything that rises to the level of a insurmountable black letter legal principle

“The law recognizes” is a weaselly phrase that always raise immediate suspicions if it is not followed by a cite specifying the scope and force of the “recognition” claimed. Some have great weight (e.g. legislation; a SCOTUS ruling); some have virtually none (a court ruling that explicitly says “Cars don’t start themselves and run over bystanders” in one case may have no bearing on a separate product liability/wrongful death case that alleges that a car did exactly that)

According to your argument, the girlfriend would be open game for anyone to kill, not just the boyfriend. Similarly, by your argument, a person who fakes their death could be murdered by anyone, because, having once been ruled dead, they cannot die again. I can look up cases, if you really want, where the courts have convicted people for the murder of people who were already ruled dead. It’s not all that uncommon: people who commit life insurance fraud, or fake their deaths to illicitly escape other situations often have unsavory associations,

Would you say that a mob informant whose death was faked can legally be killed by the mob? (I don’t believe this is a general practice of the Wittness Protection Program, but they might choose not to blow the whistle on an informant who used “private initiative” to enhance his chances of survival)

Heck, by your argument, any death certificate I signed for a patient who was (for example) declared KIA in WWII would have equivocal status. I had a colleague who did exactly that about 10 years ago – and the courts gave his “impossible” declaration total weight over the earlier finding.

Even if your assertion were true, the law (and common sense) still says the girlfriend in the example was only murdered once. The first conviction was an error, and countless laws and fundamental legal principles state that a conviction can be in error. (I’d be happy to provide cites, if you genuinely deny that)

The “paradox” only exists in kindergarten logic: “but you said!”

14

Now you’ve changed your argument, Enola Straight. First, the basis for your suggestion was this:

But when you get called on it, you switch to this:

Those are completely different suggestions. As KP points out, if your second position is correct, then in your scenario anyone could kill the girlfriend, since you’re saying she’s been murdered once, in law, and therefore can’t be murdered again.

Double jeopardy at least has a constitutional basis in the Fifth Amendment, although I agree with Otto that it is never sound jurisprudence to rely upon the plot of a Hollywood movie as your authority.

Cite, please, to the law or judicial decision saying that “a person can oly be murdered ONCE…”

15

Indeed, under Enola’s whacky theory, the girlfriend could be a safe victim to rob, since she can’t testify against you (dead people cannot, by law, testify, right?). She can be assaulted with impunity, it would seem, risking no more than a charge of defiling a corpse, right, Enola?

Another great example of polluting GQ with “facts” that bear no resemblence to actual reality.

  • Rick
16

Double jeopardy isn’t an absolute protection, even when it applies. Though Crist v. Bretz established that Federal standards for the attachment of double jeopardy should be considered in state cases [437 U.S. 28, 37 -38 (1978). Note, however, at id. at 40, Justices Powell and Rehnquist and Chief Justice Burger, dissenting, said that the standard governing States should be more relaxed], it’s been long established that separate prosecutions for the same offense, in state and federal court (when applicable), would not constitute double jeopardy because the states and federal government derive independent authority. (e.g. United States v. Lanza (260 U.S. 377 (1922)) Most murders fall solely under state law, but the state/federal prosecution trick is a favorite twist in TV dramas

Heck, I’m no lawyer, but one thing I know: the law doesn’t always bend the way I might idly imagine or expect.

Question: could someone knowledgeable inthe law please outline for me when double jeopardy attaches (or attached) in non-capital cases, and how it seems to have become applied only to capital offenses? Is that just a state limitation? I see that some of the major Federal precedents were for robbery, etc.

The Fifth Amendment reads: " No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. The false and real murder are separate offenses. I think Otto was quite correct that the allegations are completely distinct because they refer to different events which we happen to casually describe as"the murder of X".

17

Bricker, you’re a lawyer, right? Am I misreading you? Are you being flip, or is there actually a strong legal principle that dead people can’t testify? (and if you’re not being flip, you wouldn’t happen to know how that principle came about? It sounds like quite a tale!)

As I understand it, the tough part is getting them to reply to your questions, but testimony recorded before their death [e.g) of a victim who didn’t survive to trial has been admitted in court, over the objection that the defendant can’t cross-examine the witness, and has the “right to face his accuser” etc. Am I correct in that understanding? Or am I being influenced by some forgotten bad crime drama?

18

Does there have to be a “strong legal principle” to this effect? Doesn’t common sense dictate that a corpse, which is unable to speak or consider the questions asked of it, is not competent to be called as a witness?

Heh.

Federal Rules of Evidence

I’m not going to comment on any cases which may or may not apply this rule; I’ll leave that to the actual lawyers.

Under state law each state has its own rules of evidence which obviously I’m not going to attempt to exhaustively research.

19

Oh, and another exception to the hearsay rule which is brought to mind upon re-resading your bit about not surviving to trial:

20

Another aspect of this is that just because you’re actually innocent doesn’t nullify the court verdict of “guilty.” There must be appealable error in the trial itself in order to get the verdict overturned. Innocence itself is not grounds for a new trial.

So, essentially, if you’re in prison, you’re guilty, no-matter-what, unless you’re granted a new trial. Technically, there’s no way the guy could be “innocent” while still under sentance.