I sent this message to the official Straight Dope email address a while back. They said not to worry, because it would never happen.
My question is:
If a person were legally executed and pronounced legally dead, but somehow miracuosly came back to life, what would happen?
Would the be put to death again until they made sure they were dead? Would they be set free since they were sentenced to death, and did in fact die?
Please don’t talk about how it would never happen, or how there’s no chance of that every occurring due to the power in the electric chair. I don’t really care about the odds of it happening, I’m just curious of the legality of it
Perhaps someone wiser (and who has more time) than I could post something about “Half-hanged Mary”. IIRC, She was a woman in New England who was hanged for witchcraft or some other trumped-up charge. She survived the ordeal of being strung up overnight and, due to “double jeopardy” and all that, walked away.
Margaret Atwood wrote a poem about her. It was published in Morning In The Burned House.
That link is slightly relevant. It covers what happens if they fail to execute them.
What I am referring to is what would happen if they were actually pronounced legally dead and then came back to life? (As opposed to the execution going wrong and they just don’t die in the first place)
Just read snopes. I stand corrected.
I also took two seconds to break my arm reaching to the bookcase beside my computer to yank out Morning In The Burned House. Peg only makes passing reference to “double jeopardy” in the poem. It’s implied that Mary was set free because the people were intimidated and awed by her cunning ability to cheat death.
I guess Peg did more homework than I did. And why am I posting so close to midnight?
Willie Francis, a 16-year old black youth was convicted
of the murder of a white druggist in Louisiana.
Francis was strapped into Louisiana’s portable electric
chair sometime in 1946, and was subjected to a sublethal
electric shock. His case was taken to the U.S. Supreme
Court on a Fifth Amendment (double jeopardy) issue, but
his appeal was denied, and he was ultimately executed in
a properly functioning chair.
There was a case here in Ohio where the owner of a chain of stores got himself declared legally dead by subbing in another murder victim and burning the body, arranged to recieve his cut of the insurance settlement and then took off on a world tour.
To make a long story short, he and his friends were found out and eventually nabbed. He was brought back to the US to be convicted of the murder that was originally (and officially at that time), his own.
So, my guess would be that the punishment would be carried out until the party involved is truely dead and/or embalmed (from which there ain’t no coming back).
Just take the murderers out and bury them, after awhile it won’t matter.
I guess the long and the short of it is that a condemned criminal is sentenced to death, not hanging or the firing squad or the chair; i.e., the (sort of hopeful) perspective that one might be set free if they survived the initial application of the method of execution seems to focus on the sentence being that of, say, hanging. And if they’re hung and live, well, they’ve served their sentence, right?
No. The sentence is death, and if we have to hang you three times and shoot you once to get there, so be it.
I can understand that. However, what LEGAL recourse is there if they been pronounced LEGALLY dead, by the coroner (and essentially by the state, if the coronor is a representative of the state) and THEN they came back to life (30 seconds later, 5 minutes later, whatever…)
So:
Executed
Pronounced LEGALLY dead by the state
Brought back to life (either by a third party or some miracle).
Well, 'dave, it seems your core question could be asked independently of the execution question. What if you are declared dead and probate starts to roll over your life, and then you appear as a living human once again?
Does everybody have to give all your stuff back? Is your driver’s license still good? How about the credit cards?
Jesus was legally sentenced pursuant to the “standard” of Roman law at the time by Pilate, executed, pronouced dead by the executioners as per the standard, and then appeared to his disciples and others.
That’s an interesting concept. I guess by nature you would still be liable for all debts and whatnot. However, I’m not sure if there’s any civil law that covers this. I mean, what if a corporation had some provision regarding death, and you were able to provide them with your own (technically legal death certificate). Obviously, you wouldn’t be issued a birth certificate.
I remember a story on one of the news magazine shows about some prisoner who had had a heart attack in prison. As he had been sentenced to life, he tried to argue that because he was legally dead for a few minutes before the doctors brought him back, he had actually served his life sentence and should be let go. The judge wasn’t buying it.
