This may deserve its own thread, but what about cases coming from the other direction? By which I mean “attempted murder” becoming actual murder due to the death occurring after the trial. If the person was tried and convicted of the attempt, and the person dies after the trial, can they be charged with murder? I suppose in any practical matter the time and medical treatment between the attempt and the death comes into play, but imagine a remarkably efficient judicial system, where it’s a matter of mere days.
Charles Guiteau used this argument in his defense. He acknowledged that he had shot President Garfield but argued (with solid evidence) that Garfield would have recovered from the shooting if he had been left on his own and it was therefore his doctors who killed him due to their incompetence.
Yeah, and he was still convicted and executed. Haven’t seen him again lately, either, come to think of it…
But he had a hit song a while afterwards.
Guiteauzan, he’s a Guiteauman!
He’s all you can stand!
Give him a hand, Guiteauzan!
You mean it looks like this?
In my jurisdiction (not US), there was a serial killer (Leonard Fraser) charged with committing multiple murders of women. I think there were 5 of them. Not all of the bodies were found. One of the victims was a teenaged girl named Natasha Ryan.
The trial was proceeding perfectly happily until one of the police investigators received a tip off. Police went around to a house in the town where Natasha had lived, and found - Natasha. She was in her late teens by this stage, and had spent the previous 5 years hiding in her boyfriend’s house. She spent almost all of her time indoors, and if visitors came he hid in a closet. She was particularly pale. Apparently, her relationship was not popular with her family but she wanted it to continue; hence the hiding. She had not been seen for all those years by essentially anyone.
It was a particularly dramatic moment when the prosecutor told the court the trial on the count involving her would not proceed because the deceased named on the indictment was alive.
It was an even more dramatic (and heartrending) moment shortly prior to that when, after she had been discovered, the prosecutor told Natasha’s parents. They had been attending the trial. I am told the father spoke to Natasha by phone, asked her a question only she could know the answer to, and confirmed it was her.
The trial continued with one less count. Fraser was convicted of the remaining murders. He later died in prison.
The story was a defence counsel’s dream for all the bodyless murders that were being prosecuted for some time thereafter.
Hmmmm. There’s another question; the guy comes back, but he’s a zombie. Or he’s already a zombie when he’s attacked. Or his attacker is a zombie, and already legally dead! Or they are both zombies! Or the guy’s a zombie, is “killed”, and the second resurrection works right so now he’s fully alive instead of a zombie.
By chance I am listening to an audio book called The abandoned room by Wadworth Camp LibriVox . At present the plot is revolving around one of the murder victims turning up alive on tha day he was buried and what charges if any the suspected “murderer” could face.
An old, apocryphal courthouse tale:
A man is on trial for murder. The body of his alleged victim, Joe Smith, was never found, but there’s considerable circumstantial evidence of guilt.
His lawyer gets up for closing argument and says, very dramatically, “Ladies and gentlemen, I have wonderful news! Mr. Smith has been found alive, and will be walking through those very doors, into this courtroom, shortly.” He sits down and smiles. He waits ten seconds, then twenty, then thirty, and then stands again. “Ladies and gentlemen, please forgive me. I told a little fib. I don’t know that Mr. Smith will be walking in here. But I noticed that many of you looked at the doors. The fact that you looked indicates that you have some reasonable doubt that Mr. Smith is even dead, let alone that my client killed him. I suggest that you must, then, acquit him.”
The jury goes out to deliberate and comes back just twenty minutes later and delivers a guilty verdict. The defense lawyer is stunned. He says to the jury foreman afterwards, “Why did you convict? What about looking at the doors for Mr. Smith?”
The foreman says, “Well, some of us looked at your client instead, and he never turned to look at the doors.”
Scenario 1: assault with intent to commit murder
Scenario two: re-try execution or sentenced to consecutive life terms
Boston Legal did a storyline like this.