Assume every so often my neighbour were to murder someone, and I were to spot this from my bathroom window. I didn’t find out by investigating him or spying on him, he is unawre of my knowledge and I am completely uninvolved with the killings, or any direct action to cover them up. I just can’t be bothered with the hassle of reporting it. If he gets caught and then they can demonstrate I was aware, what could I be charged with?
this is accessory after the fact:
Whoever, knowing that an offense against the United States has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact.
so I guess that would not quite apply here since you have to do something for that to apply.
Yes. For most crimes, except for crimes against children, you are under no duty to report.
I have wondered if this means for private security of a penthouse or for other staff members, if this means they are perfectly law abiding in ignoring their clients use of illegal drugs and other crimes.
Even crimes against children, I don’t believe there’s a duty to report in general. You are required if you are responsible for the child in some sense – a teacher, doctor, parent, etc.
It’s going to depend on your location, but in Texas it’s a misdemeanor. Texas Penal Code § 38.171:
Theoretically, this is a good discussion.
But there’s no way it could be proved, unless you were dumb enough to post on facebook “Today I saw my neighbor murder his wife, cut her into little pieces, and throw her away in multiple garbage bags. I opened one and kept a finger. I’m not going to tell the police. So there!”
How about the police were questioning you about the disappearance of your neighbor’s wife and started to suggest, rather intently, that you killed her. Trying to claim that you couldn’t have killed her since you saw him do the deed (and had a video of it) wouldn’t likely go over well…
To be fair, that’s a slightly different question than the OP. In this case, the passive party is demonstrating that he was aware, rather than the murderer.
I think it might depend on how blase you were about it. It would be pretty easy to claim that you thought it was fake, or that you feared for your own life, or lots of other things that would provide a reasonable explanation for why you might not have reported it. If you really really try to talk yourself into a crime, you might be able to do so.
Like, imagine that you did take that video and told the cops about it. That might not be evidence of a crime you’ve committed. But if they then ask if anyone else normally uses the video camera, and you mention that you put the camera somewhere else so your wife wouldn’t see it… well that might be a crime.
OK, for the purpose of the hypothetical,assume it goes down like this. I accidentally witness some sporadic murders. When my neighbour is eventually caught, then the police knock on my door asking if I’ve ever seen anything suspicious. At that point with no hard questioning I calmy offer up the info “yeah, I saw him shoot this guy about a year ago, and there were 2 women in July and another guy last week…”
It’s possible they might go after you in such a case even though I don’t think it would be automatic. Maybe they need you to testify. But since you don’t know what they know I’d suggest not answering their questions and getting a lawyer. (maybe the guy claimed after being arrested that he had all kinds of buddies helping him cover the crimes up and they’re trying to track those people down)
Historically, there was the common law offence of misprision of felony, but it’s been abolished in many jurisdictions.
In Ohio you would be guilty of Failing to Report a Felony:
I always kind of wondered if the “Good Samaritan” law from Seinfeild had any relation to real life. If there were places where one was required to assist an active crime victim, it would be odd not to also have to report it.
Some states, yes, impose a common law “Duty to Rescue” on bystanders.
In addition, the Driver’s License Compact, most states adhere to, imposes a statutory duty to aid a motorist hurt, etc., or it could affect your DL status. Ohio immunizes from liability those who aid, assuming the help is not so negligent in manner, it harms more than helps, etc.
You may be charged with a number of things but if there is no one to corroborate your witnessing a crime, a conviction is unlikely unless you confess.
At a Las Vegas casino in 1997, two men saw a 7-year-old girl, Sherrice Iverson, enter the women’s restroom. One of them followed her into the restroom and started molesting her. The other man initially stayed outside, but later went in too, watched the molestation for a while, and walked out again. His buddy came out and confirmed that he had killed the girl. The murderer, Jeremy Strohmeyer, was sentenced to four life sentences without possibility of parole and is still in prison. His friend, David Cash, was not charged as an accessory because he was not an active participant in the crimes and Nevada did not have a law requiring bystanders to intervene or to report crimes which they are aware of.
If David Cash could get away with considering himself “just a bystander” under these circumstances, I assume you’d be safe for merely ignoring a crime which you happened to witness through your neighbor’s window.
In response to the crime, Nevada and California passed “Sherrice Iverson bills”, requiring people to report when they have knowledge that a child is being sexually abused or violently treated. However, these bills only apply to children (under 18 in Nevada, under 14 in California) so as long as your neighbor limits himself to adult victims, you’re probably in the clear. (IANAL, IANAAmerican)
Because of that age limit, when a 15-year-old girl was being gang-raped outside a school dance at a California high school in 2009, the more than a dozen teenagers inside the school who knew that the rape was happening outside, and who did nothing to help or to alert the authorities, could not be charged under the new law.
In 2017, a group of Florida teenagers watched a man drown and taunted him while filming his death on their cellphones. They were not charged with any crime, since they did not cause his drowning and Florida does not impose a legal duty to help accident victims.
So, depending on you’re state’s laws, the nature of the crime, the age of the victim and a bunch of other details, there’s a good chance that you are not guilty of anything if you merely stand there and watch while a crime is being committed and/or a person is dying right in front of you.
How about if I witness a murder, then the killer threatens to kill me or my family if I say anything?
“Hey man, I wasn’t going to say anything anyway. Rest easy”.
For a real-life example of the scenario in the OP, look at the case of David Cash. He and Jeremy Strohmeyer went to a Nevada casino. Strohmeyer molested and murdered a seven-year-old girl in a women’s restroom in the casino. At one point, Cash entered the restroom and saw Strohmeyer molesting the girl but left before the girl was killed. But a short time later, Strohmeyer told Cash that he killed the girl. Cash, who was an undergraduate at UC-Berkeley at the time, was widely reviled for doing and saying nothing. The authorities were not able to charge Cash with anything, and UC-Berkeley wasn’t able to expel him. Since then, laws were passed in Nevada and California, but they only apply for minor victims.
Psst, see post #16 