Hypothetically, let’s say that there is a person (we’ll call her Amelia Riddle Crater) who disappeared for a long time and was declared dead by the courts.
Sometime after her legal death, a cop walking by a building hears a woman scream and a gunshot. He goes inside and finds a woman dying on the floor with a man holding a smoking gun. The cop, of course, arrests the man and after Mrs. Crater stops breathing, he is charged with murder.
Can the assailant claim that he is innocent because the person was legally dead already? Would the original death certificate be retracted so that he could be charged? How would this be handled?
(I’m aware that statutes probably vary from state to state. I’m just looking for a general answer, so feel free to answer for any state you wish.)
He still killed a person, regardless of whether or not she was dead for legal reasons. That’s like saying I can murder someone who has no birth certificate because “in the eyes of the law” he didn’t exist. Umm…well, he still existed, didn’t he? That is, right up until I killed him? Still murder.
No, I wouldn’t think the cases are the same. People can exist legally without birth certificates. If someone kills a newborn before a birth certificate is issued, there is no doubt that he can be tried for murder.
However, in this case, the person was already legally dead. From a legal standpoint, if a person went to a cemetery, dug up a grave, took out the body and pumped a machine gun’s worth of bullets into it, it wouldn’t make a difference (as far as murder charges went) since the person was already legally dead.
When a person is charged with murder, are they charged with “murder of a person” or are they charged with “murder of so-and-so?” If the former, then certainly the person can be charged. However, I’m wondering, if the latter is true, if the person can be charged, since they’ve murdered someone who is already dead. It’s not much different than the graveyard case.
I’m certain, of course, that I’m wrong - that the person can be charged for murder. But I’m curious as to how that works legally.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the answer is going to be a homicide crime no matter what the state. Death as it pertains to homicide statutes and case law is generally defined as the cessation of body or brain function to some degree, that is to say causing actual physical death. The common law definition of death is the cessation of all bodiliy function, i.e. no breathing, no pulse, and very cold. Many states have changed this by statute to allow people who are rendered brain dead but still still showing signs of life to be declared dead so that the assailant can be charged with murder, either by entire brain death, lack of neocortical function, or the now famous persistant vegetative state. A mistaken declaration of death for the purposes of testate or intestate distribution of property or life insurance proceeds won’t be relevant to a murder charge. There may be some clerical problem in the substituting on death certificate for another, but they won’t come in to the criminal trial.
Turn it around: if a legal declaration of death was sufficient to establish death for homicide, wouldn’t the person who had them declared dead fraudulently be guilty of murder?
No, because the declaration doesn’t state that he was killed by the person making the declaration… it’s simply a finding that the person is dead. The way you put it, every doctor who fills out a death certificate should be on trial for murder!
I recall an episode of Law & Order, where they discuss the following hypothetical:
Say Person A jumps off the Empire State building (or other structure sufficient to cause death) and then is shot while passing the third floor by Person B. Can person B be charged with murder? The answer was yes, since they intended to cause the death of Person A, regardless of whether or not the person was dead (or in the process of becoming dead) at the time. It is similar to cases where someone is shot while thought to be sleeping, when the person was actually dead. Again, intent says murder.
In your specific example, a few things might happen. One, the prosecution would likely try and get the death certificate overturned. That way, the shooter could be charged with the death of Ms. Crater. In the event that the prosecution failed in this (since the defense was pursuing the “she’s already dead defense”) they might charge the shooter with death of “Jane Doe”, unidentified. If both failed, they might go for “Abuse of a corpse” which I think is a pretty standard crime, although the penalties there a likely far less than murder.
I could see this being a pretty good CSI/L&O episode…proving who shot who, whether the wound was self inflicted, who the body really was, etc.
This was, in a roundabout way, the subject of a movie not long ago, wasn’t it? Man fakes his death, woman is found guilty of his murder, serves her sentance and then gets out to find man still alive - figures, what the heck, I might as well kill him for real, since I can’t be charged with his murder a second time (I believe the movie was called Double Jeopardy.)
The Doper legal consensus was that it was a dumb movie with a dumb premise, because you certainly would be tried for killing a “dead” guy.
I think this bears close resemblance to the infamous thread about the man wrongfully convicted of murder (of someone actually not dead) who serves out his sentence and then kills the person he was convicted of murdering. I’m not sure the same logic applies here, though.
My very strong hunch, subject to an actual Doper-at-Law coming through and giving the legally correct answer, is that “legally dead” is a presumption. I.e., Amelia Crater has been missing for umpty years with no clues as to her whereabouts and no attempt to contact anyone. Therefore the courts presume her to have died, in order that her estate may go to her heirs, her husband be free to remarry, her life insurance (whose lawyer has been advocating that she’s actually been delayed at Customs all this time) be compelled to pay out the death benefit, etc.: all the incidents appurtenant to someone being actually dead.
At that point, however, her reappearance in corporate, non-spectral mode serves to effectively rebut that presumption, and she is once again legally alive.
Should, however, Sir Percival Bunthorne, who has been nursing a grudge all these years for Mrs. Crater’s having stolen away the heart of the man who became her husband, for whom Sir Percival has been carrying a torch, discover Mrs. Crater as she returns to reassume her proper place, and unbeknownst to anyone does her in with a wrought iron candlestick in the crypt below the stables, it comes close to being a perfect crime, since she is already presumed dead and no one suspects that she has returned. (Any mystery writer wanting to flesh out that scenario has my blessing, provided he/she gives me credit for the basic idea. ;))
Obviously if you’re not dead, your death certificate is not valid and can be nullified.
The guy killed a person, he will be charged with murder. His defense attorney will use the fact that she was legally dead long before the murder to poke holes in the case, but it won’t help, because the prosecutor will most likely dig up the circumstances that explain why the death certificate was issued for a living person. The minor paperwork that has to do with somebody dying twice will probably bear no impact on the case whatsoever.
But this isn’t a double jeopardy case, since no one alleges that the assailant here was responsible for his “first death” (and he certainly was never tried for it).
The problem with the movie was that the person had a mistaken impression of the fifth amenement to the Constitution. That’s not the issue here.
That’s correct (at least in my state), but I’d go one further; the presumption of death merely refers to a legal status for property division, and has nothing to do with death in criminal law. If it takes a legal challenge to have the presumption of death removed, the shooter in the OP won’t be able to argue that because she never availed herself of the courts she was dead all along. Death as it relates to homicide refers to your actual physical state, not a paper status of “alive” or “dead” in court records or state archives.
Not quite the same situation since I didn’t ask about the dead person getting killed again, but there were some interesting replies to my thread about [thread=328697]How to revoke a death certificate?[/thread]
To the extent there’s really an issue here, pravnik has answered it. But there isn’t an issue here. zev’s contention is based on an overly formal reading of the facts, and that kind of philosophy went out 60 years ago. If you kill someone under circumstances that indicate murder, it’s murder, period. The fact taht some government agency may have declared her persona non grata for administrative reasons doesn’t change the fact that you’ve snuffed the life of a living person.
What if they accidentally discharged the gun in a horrible coincidence? Some sort of manslaughter? I know from L&O that if they were shooting at someone else and hit Person A that you would “follow the bullet” and the intent towards the first target follows to Person A and maybe murder would apply?
In many states, that constitutes a concept called “felony murder” (“felony” not meaning, as usual, degree of crime, but being an adjective distinguishing that category of murder from the usual “premeditated” or “heat of passion” crime). The definition of this crime is some close variation on, “A person who, in the course of the commission of a felony, causes the death of another person, is guilty of murder.” In other words, if Joe robs the convenience store brandishing a handgun, and shoots the handgun into the air as he leaves in an effort to scare the clerk into holding off on calling 911 until he’s made his getaway, and a stray bullet in fact connects with and kills the clerk, he’s guilty of murder for having caused the clerk’s death while committing a felony, no matter that he had no intent to kill. In this case, the guy was shooting at Person B (a felony, either assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder) and accidentally shot Person A instead, causing Person A’s death. So he’s guilty of felony murder of Person A, no matter that he was shooting at Person B.
Going the other way: If Amelia disappears, and is declared legally dead, under circumstances where it appears that Belinda killed Amelia, and if Belinda is tried for Amelia’s death, then Belinda’s lawyer producing Amelia still alive and well would be pretty solid evidence against a conviction. And if Belinda had been tried and convicted of murder, then Amelia turning up alive some years later would presumably be fresh evidence to overturn that conviction.
