A common plot point in detective shows is that there is a murder, and for some reason 2 people each claim to be guilty of the murder. For whatever reason it’s impossible they were both involved, so at least one of them are lying. The detective works out which one, (or both) are lying and then the guilty party gets arrested for the murder. How would it work in the real world if there’s only one murder, 2 people claiming to be the perpetrator, cirumstances that clearly make their stories incompatible and no way to tell which one is lying?
In the real world, the black one goes to jail.
Less facetiously, I would assume that there would be an investigation of some kind to verify their stories.
If both are pleading guilty, there should be no problem convicting them both! If there is insufficient evidence to convict either one, they must both go free.
If each blames the other, a much more common situation, in the UK at least they could be found guilty of acting in concert.
No one can “plead guilty” unless he or she has been charged or indicted for a crime.
No one is going to be charged or indicted for a crime unless a prosecutor (state’s attorney, district attorney, or equivalent) takes action, such as to file a bill of information with a criminal court or convene a grand jury, or whatever the process is in a particular jurisdiction for initiating a criminal proceeding.
Ordinarily, a prosecutor isn’t going to take that action without conducting an investigation with the assistance of the police, the sheriff, or whoever the appropriate law enforcement agency is.
So just because two people “admit” to committing a crime, doesn’t mean anyone is going to be pleading guilty to something
So the answer to the OP is that nothing happens, without a lot of other things happening first.
You can assume all relevant investigation work has already been done and concluded, and it has been impossible to break the deadlock.
In most cases, the law enforcement and prosecutorial investigators are going to decide which one they believe and have the best evidence for and just prosecute that one.
There have been some notorious instances in which prosecutors have decided to go ahead and prosecute both of them, under the theory that in each case taken in isolation the evidence (including a confession and guilty plea) is good enough for a conviction.
There are judges who will go ahead and allow that to happen, so in theory there are people who have been punished in cases in which its impossible for both of them to be guilty in fact.
There’s no single answer to this. One of the central peinciples if criminal law is prosecutorial discretion. The prosecutor has the unchallengeable authority to decide what criminal cases to file or not file. So, the answer is “it’s up to the prosecutor to decide what to do.”
So what happens if the police & DA decide to prosecute Bob, but in the middle of the trial Bob’s attorney calls Tad to the stand, and Tad confesses to the murder? If the jury finds Tad believable, they should acquit Bob under reasonable doubt, even though the physical evidence pretty squarely points to Bob. Can the DA prosecute Tad later, using his confession at Bob’s trial as evidence?
I was under the impression that an accomplice to a crime faces the same penalties as the perpetrator. Since the nominally innocent one is obviously trying to protect the guilty one, couldn’t you prosecute them both?
To me this is the more interesting question. Say a murder occurs where it is 100% certain it was one of two people (say a fishing boat returns to shore with a dead guy and two buddies saying the other guy did it). Both have completely different stories of how it wasn’t them and it was clearly the other guy.
Do they both have to go free? Can they really both be found guilty when we’re pretty sure one of them is 100% innocent.
No, this is not generally true as a blanket statement.
There’s no blanket rule for this. The prosecutor will decide whether to continue with the prosecution. The judge will determine whether he or she will allow it to go forward. The jury will decide how to resolve the matter.
And, yes, statements made under oath in court can be used as evidence in other cases.
As I said above, there are notorious cases in which prosecutors have decided to go ahead and prosecute two different people for the same crime when it’s impossible for them both to be guilty.
On the case I’m thinking of, two or more people were involved in a crime that resulting in a shooting and murder. There wasn’t definitive proof of which one actually fired the fatal shots, and they both couldn’t have done it. But the prosecutors decided to try them both separately for the same crime.
No.
Yes, it’s possible.
In the real world they pick the most plausible one and convince him to plead guilty to about the death penalty. No trial (or at least no trial with a defense attorney trying to get the accused off) so the whole "someone else confesses to crime’ complication will never get brought up.
Also in jurisdictions with felony murder rule both could be convicted. As long as they were engaged in some kind of conspiracy together (as opposed to the more contrived whodunnit plot)
IANAL but isn’t it true that merely pleading guilty doesn’t actually automatically lead to a conviction - you can plead guilty and still be acquitted?
Yes. Which is why I say that the judge must go along with it. A judge doesn’t have to find someone guilty just because he or she had pleaded guilty.
Where would you be acquitted? If you plead guilty (and the court accepts your plea) there is no trial. Just sentencing. Pleading guilty is the conviction.
No, that’s wrong. You can plead guilty and the. The judge must first accept your plea, and then the judge has to actually find that the prosecution had proven the case beyond a reasonable doubt and then actually find you guilty. None of that is automatic.
Is it possible that someone could plead guilty, then later on file an appeal arguing that the conviction should be overturned (say, for ineffective counsel, which is why the guilty plea happened and why nothing was raised at trial)? If the appeal succeeds, that’s not an acquittal by itself, but if the prosecution decides to re-try the case the defendant could then be acquitted (admittedly with a new, not-guilty plea).
Yes, of course. This happens all the time.
But you don’t even have to go that far. A prosecutor can get a guilty plea from a defendant and a judge can look at it and say that this is bullshit and refuse to convict.
You’re not convicted until a judge says “I find you guilty” and nothing a prosecutor does can force a judge to do that.