Suppose they share one set of genitals but have separately controllable arms. If one objects to masturbation (maybe on religious grounds) and the other masturbates, would that be sexual assault?
Suppose one consents to intercourse with a partner but the other doesn’t? Has the partner committed rape?
And what if the other twin does consent to let the other have sex with their partner. Is that a threesome or voyeurism?
“Impair”? You’re thinking WAY too small, kid.
You can confine someone involuntarily for medical reasons even if they are not convicted of a crime. Depending on the exact crime committed I’d imagine you could make a pretty strong argument for medical confinement instead of jailtime. It would be equivalent to involuntarily confining a schizophrenic person because of a medical opinion they might hurt themselves or others (even if they haven’t yet done so).
Of course. That’s why they’re TWINS, and not just one person with extra parts.
In the case of Abby and Brittany Hensel, if they got pulled over for speeding, Abby would get the ticket, since she controls their right leg, and therefore the accelerator.
On QI It was said that the original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng, were involved in a fight.
I can’t find any independent verification though. They did both marry and produced 21 children between them, so fighting is certainly possible.
You sure about that? What if they’re coasting down a steep hill, and they exceed the speed limit without any help from the engine?
I suppose the pedantic answer is still Abby, since you’re only supposed to use your right foot for the accelerator and the brake pedal, but there’s no law that dictates which foot to use for which pedal (people with no right leg are still allowed to drive). If they’re both in the driver’s seat, I would argue that it’s still unclear as to who is officially in control of the vehicle.
In their case, it’s no secret that Abbey controls both pedals, so she’d get the ticket. Thank god they drive an automatic.
I don’t think you can be involuntarily confined on the theory that it will prevent someone else from harming someone. This just gets you back to the same problem that arises with criminal confinement.
FWIW, this question came up in the Ellery Queen novel The Siamese Twin Mystery. (Which was written in 1933, when that term was used commonly.) There were a couple of murders and the detective found a clue (half of a jack of diamonds card) which implied one but not the other twin was the murderer. Ellery Queen (also the name of the detective) wondered what would be justice in that situation. I don’t remember who did it, but I do remember the conjoined twins were innocent.
Discussed previously in this thread.
Which higher court is that?
I defer to the Spock prosecution method
The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few…
…or the one
Yes we know.
But I think how this would apply is that the sentence might be home detention,
and perhaps with even more conditions, such as the guilty is prevented from watching TV and computer screens or something like that. Home detention may be assumed to be "well if the innocent one arranges to leave, he can leave, and the guilty can of course attend to hospital and funerals, and so on. ".
But also, If it happened there was to be a trial, the legislators might make a law that they be tried together , so the jury has to produce one verdict that applies to them both, and then the sentence is to both. The prosecutor would surely argue that the inactive one was a conspirator or accomplice.
Without a law change, it would seem most courts with the jury (of non-lawyer types ) system would have to try each separately and produce separate verdicts and separate sentences. Because the law says that.
And so allowing the crime to occur is just as bad as committing it.
A lot of states have a law which says that any charge can be tried as “conspiracy to” , with the same possible sentence as the charge without “conspiracy to”. It would seem that “accessory after the fact” aka “aid and abet” and various other offences like “assisting a felon to hide” and other charges, would never have the same range of sentences and thus require a lesser sentence than the crime that is “the fact” , the felony… There’s also “accessory before the fact” here too, but its very similar to conspiracy or aid and abet… sentencing I dont know… maybe it reaches up to the same as the “fact” crime because its similar to conspiracy ? After the fact, you may decide you are forced to help (he might not be guilty ?), but before the fact you’d be better to get out of helping… you know he is going to be guilty of a crime…
As a general rule these days, if that’s at all possible it would have already been done when the twins were infants.
Even if in the cases where both twins survive if they stay conjoined, but one (but not the other) dies if they are split? If the one who would die is the one who is set to be executed, then that option opens of.
Of course, medical professionals tend not to participate in executions, so the surgery would have to be done by a prison warden or something, lowering the chances of success.
While separations are performed when it’s known that one of the two will die, or has a high probability of death, that’s generally only done when necessary to save the life of the surviving (we hope) twin. There has been at least one case of conjoined twins deciding as adults to be separated despite a high risk of both dying, and both did in fact die, but that was a case of two adults making personal decisions with informed consent.
I think it highly unlikely you’d have a situation where one of two conjoined twins is executed by the state in today’s world.
I think it might be an argument that the other twin, by not reporting the crime at the least, may be an accessory or what ever the correct term is?
Also how is the twin conjoined?
Using the two british girls for example, one twin could simply refuse to have her arm and leg participate in the crime, therefor preventing it.
So by lending the limbs she controls to the commission of the crime, she would be equally as guilty.
For something like Chang and Eng, the siamese twins, one twin could still have refused to participate, causing the other to have to try to commit a crime while dragging around a full sized human body that refused to participate, therefor preventing or severely hampering the commission of the crime.
I believe there would be a prosecution angle that would be tried out and probably successful
As a general rule (at least in the common law legal tradition), a private citizen has no duty to prevent a crime unless (s)he has previously facilitated it, or is somehow legally responsible for the criminal (guardians, teachers, etc.) You can just stand there while somebody stabs a person to death next to you and never mention it to anyone and be perfectly in the clear from a legal perspective. If law enforcement asks you about a crime, you have to share what you know or invoke the right to silence, but there is no affirmative duty to go and tell someone or to prevent it.