# Legal issues of siamese twins **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 5, 2003, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487 "2003-11-05T04:11:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![agiantdwarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8c91f0/32.png) [@agiantdwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/agiantdwarf)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2003, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/1 "2003-11-05T04:11:00Z")
Say there is a pair of siamese twins. One has a bad temper, another is level-headed. Imagine that they could not be separated without killing them both. One day, the bad-tempered one gets angry and stabs a random pedestrian. How would a court handle that situation? Would they let a guilty man go? Or imprison an innocent man? Furthermore, could they even keep them in jail before the trial begins? ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/2 "2003-11-05T04:33:41Z")
Good question. IANAL, etc, but don’t they say that it’s “better that a guilty man go free than an innocent man be imprisoned” or something to that effect? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2003, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/3 "2003-11-05T05:12:58Z")
They might release the bad one in the good one’s recognizance. (Of course, someone might ask why the good one didn’t stop the attack in the first place.) ---
**Author:** ![Coffeeguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@Coffeeguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coffeeguy)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2003, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/4 "2003-11-18T15:02:03Z")
Good question, **agiantdwarf**! I wonder if anyone if there are any precedents dealing with conjoined twins and criminal activity? Still, **commasense** does seem to make a sort of sense. Also, what if one twin wants to take the State Funeral Directors Exam? How do they assure that the one not taking the test doesn’t help? —CoffeeGuy ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2003, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/5 "2003-11-18T16:24:31Z")
I remember watching a talk show with the conjoined twins who are connected at the top of the head when they explained how one had a college degree and one didn’t. Go figure. Yeah, not all that relevant to the OP, so sue me. ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2003, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/6 "2003-11-18T16:38:49Z")
very interesting question. How about if they are identical twins, and they know that one of them committed the crime but cannot prove which one. I assume in this scenario the case would not be tried? ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2003, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/7 "2003-11-19T14:41:34Z")
just bumping the thread up for you, _ **agiantdwarf** _. ---
**Author:** ![Coffeeguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@Coffeeguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coffeeguy)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2003, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/8 "2003-11-19T15:28:53Z")
How nice of you, **shijinn**. ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2003, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/9 "2003-11-19T16:08:15Z")
Yes, it was nice of **shijinn** And it should be mentioned that it was very thoughful of **Coffeeguy** to recognize his niceness. ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/10 "2003-12-19T17:07:37Z")
i actually am curious, are there no precedent? IMHO i think they should share responsibilities in this case, it would really suck to be the level headed one but it can’t be helped. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/11 "2003-12-19T17:55:14Z")
Let’s ask some serious questions… Suppose one gets married (with the neccessary understandings, of course) and then decides that they don’t like their spouses’ twin and doesn’t want to be intimate as long as the other one is around? What if in a right-to-die state (such as Oregon) one wants to end his life (in a case where legal to do so, of course), but the other one doesn’t? What if one goes insane and has to be remanded to an institution? What rights (if any) does the other have to prevent this? What if one wants an abortion but the other refuses consent? Can they? Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![SeekingTruth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@SeekingTruth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeekingTruth)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/12 "2003-12-19T19:58:49Z")
Zev\_, wrong on two of those. First, in a right to die situation, this would kill the other, so it would be legally murder. Second, the abortion only counts if the two share one womb, where I assume the courts would favor keeping the baby. Should they have seperate wombs, it’s a moot point. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/13 "2003-12-19T20:32:02Z")
I’m not an American lawyer, but I doubt whether you’ll find a clear and definite answer. The thing is that law generally only answers questions that have a bearing on practical problems, i.e. problems that really may occur or have occured in the past. I’ve never heard of any court case concerning siamese twins (except separation cases). Siamese twins are rare and I suspect their life expectancy is not very great. They have enough problems as it is, so it is not very likely that they will run into the kind of problems like the one described in the OP, nor the ones put forward by Zev. (although I recall that there was a siamese twin who did marry). When there has never been an actual case, and normal rules do not immediately provide an answer, I would say the law is undecided. Different lawyers will give different answers based on reasoning with general principles and/or rules, but these arguments may well be countered with the argument that such principles and rules are modeled on cases with different presumptions. There certainly is insufficient scholarly debate to have a clear view of a majority viewpoint. “hard cases make bad law”, as the saying goes. OTOH if you’re interested in such cases, the ethical literature does offer discussions on topics like these. ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/14 "2003-12-19T20:37:29Z")
What if the twins share a gluteus maximus while one is gay and the other is not? ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/15 "2003-12-19T20:46:50Z")
The “Siamese twins” who did marry were the original Siamese twins: [Chang and Eng](http://www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/gallery/twins.html). Born in Siam, “The twins became very well-known, and the use of the term “Siamese twins” to describe conjoined siblings resulted from their fame.” They married two sisters - Adelaide and Sarah Yates - and had 22 children. Chang preceeded Eng in death by 2 1/2 hours. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/16 "2003-12-19T21:37:00Z")
> [@](#): > > The best analogy to putting Multiple in jail would be imprisoning siamese twins for a murder one of them impulsively committed. We might have non-retributive reasons for wishing to incarcerate the twins: the murderer might be extremely dangerous. But to justify actually imprisoning them, rather than confining them, say, in an institution that is non-retributive, we should have to think that not punishing someone who deserves punishment is as bad as, or worse than, punishing someone who does not deserve punishment. Although some thorough-going retributivists might think this, society as a whole rejects their position-- witness the maxim that “it is better to let ten guilty people go free than to punish one innocent person.” > (nevertheless) The Supreme Court itself has held that to incarcerate a person, even in a prison, is not necessarily to punish the person. And here, after all, the state’s punitive intent is directed at Joe, not John. John is simply being burdened, so that we might punish Joe-- and, indeed, we can make prison, for John, as pleasant as possible. Burdening others so that we might punish someone else is common. For example, to imprison their parents, we subject small children to the serious deprivations of the foster care system. However regrettable this is, it is permissible–and so is putting John in jail. > To answer this objection satisfactorily would require a full-blown theory of punishment, which is beyond the scope of this article. Yet I suggest that absence of punitive intent is not sufficient to convert what appears to be punishment into non-punishment–even the Supreme Court concedes as much. U.C. Davis Law Review Winter, 1992 MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER AND CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY Elyn R. Saks 25 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 383, 414 -416 ---
**Author:** ![Ye\_Who\_Runs\_Rampit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/848f3c/32.png) [@Ye\_Who\_Runs\_Rampit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ye_Who_Runs_Rampit)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/17 "2003-12-19T21:40:40Z")
Put a straight jacket and a paper bag over the one that did it, pretend he’s not there. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2003, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/18 "2003-12-20T00:23:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by zev\_steinhardt \* > **What if in a right-to-die state (such as Oregon) one wants to end his life (in a case where legal to do so, of course), but the other one doesn’t?** Can’t they normally be separated if one half doesn’t mind dying? I’d think they might end up tipping a friendly doctor the wink, and then one of them killing himself in a way that allows the doctor to run in, be unable to save him, but separate the dead bits. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2003, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/19 "2003-12-20T02:16:17Z")
If one killed someone wouldn’t that make the other an “accomplace(sp?) to the crime.” Thus they could dole out jail time to both. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2003, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487/20 "2003-12-20T03:41:18Z")
That was actually the plot of the film [Chained for Life](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0043397/), starring the original (and best!) Hilton Sisters (Daisy and Violet, not Paris and Nicole). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-issues-of-siamese-twins/211487.md?page=2)