In the city where I live, a woman was just found guilty of killing her mother. Keep in mind that there was ONE victim of the crime, and ONE person committing the crime. The judge found her guilty of murder, first-degree manslaughter, attempted murder and first-degree assault. She was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
Can someone smarter than me explain how the woman could be found guilty of basically four crimes when in fact only one crime had been committed?
That does seem kind of strange - why charge attempted murder when the murder was successful? I wonder if the judge was trying to ensure she’d have to serve a long time before she could be considered for parole.
Actually, a given criminal act, or set of them, can constitute multiple crimes. Consider Pete the Perp. He breaks into the jewelry store, takes a selection of jewelry, slips into the back room (which is undergoing renovations) and smokes a cigarette, tossing it into a pile of sawdust as he slips back out the jimmied door.
Under New York Penal Law, which I know best, he is guilty of:
Burglary, for breaking and entering with the intent to commit a felony
Grand Larceny, for stealing goods valued at a sum over the threshold amount (it’s changed since I worked with New York criminal statutes, but say $1000).
Some degree of Arson, for setting a fire through “depraved negligence” (unless they’ve changed the language)
Same combination of circumstances, but three distinct felonies, each of which could be committed without the other two.
The other point is that prosecutors often will charge a variety of lesser included offenses – enabling a judge or jury who believes that (a) the accused did do the criminal act charged, but (b) that criminal act does not meet the legal definition for the top crime charged. For example, the capital charge may be murder, defined as taking a life with malice aforethought, with a lesser included offense of manslaughter, defined as taking a life criminally with other conditions (e.g., a “crime of passion,” killing someone in a fit of rage). If the judge or jury believes that X killed Y but did not act with malice aforethought, they can convict on the lesser included offense. A conviction on the capital charge is, I believe, automatically a conviction on the lesser included offenses, though they usually are not sentenced separately.
first-degree assault - She beat her mother
attempted murder - She attempted to kill her
guilty of murder - She was successful in the murder
first-degree manslaughter - Type of murder committed
All four are crimes and should be prosecuted as such.
Heck, in Polycarp’s example, if it were in California, they could have charged him with smoking in a public place, and then tack on the arson charge as well. Whatever it takes to get these people to serve a longer sentence.
This sounds like this case. I suspect that the sentence was only for murder. The judge’s opinion was that the homicide was with intent and 25 to life sounds like a normal sentence for that.
I remember the David Rothenberg case: A divorced father poured gasoline on his six year old sleeping son, lit him on fire, then left him to die. The child didn’t die, and all the charges added together only gave “daddy” a 13 year sentence with parole in 7 1/2. Then the monster attempted to get visitation with his son.
Sometimes the charges have to be stacked in the name of justice.