We all know the movie was wrong: you can’t kill someone and not get tried for the same murder. But none of the past threads answered this: what would really happen in that scenario?
I get (wrongly) convicted of murder
I do my time and get out
There’s the person whom I “killed”, whom I show to the authorities.
A. I don’t re-kill him. What will they do? “Yeah, mistakes were made. Sorry about those prison years…”
B. What if I do turn around and kill him? Would my previous sentence count toward “time served”? Would it all completely reset?
A. You could sue in civil court, and possibly get some reimbursement, if you could prove (by a preponderance of evidence) that the person deliberately framed you for his fake death. The state would owe you nothing, though.
B. You could argue that you were rendered temporarily insane by the revelation that your supposed victim was actually alive, and be cleared by reason of diminished capacity - but if you stewed about the situation for a week before the (actual) murder, that defense would likely fall through. Under no circumstance would your previous time served count towards the second sentence.