Don’t worry, don’t need answer fast, question is inspired by a game* in which the protagonist finds the body of a murder victim, so not asking for legal advice relating to a real life case.
My first reaction was “Call the fucking police!”, they don’t but for other reasons. Then I got thinking - hang on, from a strictly legal perspective is this the best thing to do? Aren’t you incriminating yourself if you lead the police to a dead body (since the killer would know where it was as well)? Would you be best off calling first a lawyer and going to the station with them, or directing the police from an anonymous tip-off line?
Well in the majority of cases, the person who discovers the body is the murderer, but I would guess it depends on the circumstances. If your out walking your dog or jogging or whatever and find a body in the park, you’re unlikely to be the main suspect. I’d call the police right away and only get a lawyer if they took me in for quesioning. If it’s somewhere really secluded though, they are definitely going to suspect you.
I’d call my attorney. He can call the police on my behalf and inform them of the body.
I can go about my life an the police can go about their investigation. The only reason they’d need to talk to me is if they thought I had any involvement, in which case they don’t get to talk to me without a lawyer.
Can’t find anything solid. The best I can find is police guidelines saying not to rule the discoverer out.
It’s something I was told by a police officer I knew, however, he wasn’t a homicide detective so he could have been wrong. On the other hand it could be down to the fact that most victims know their murderers. If someone murders their spouse, they are probably going to be the one who phones it in. It might be different if you have no obvious connection to the deceased.
If you call your attorney, and the attorney gives the police the body’s location, is the attorney bound by attorney-client-privilege not to reveal your identity? Because yeah, sure, maybe the cops will let you go after taking your statement. Why take the risk?
If they somehow decide to “investigate” you for the crime, all they gotta do is, say, show that you were “inconsistent” in your statements about where you were when the murder occurs. Or, they can just arrest you for the crime on minimal evidence and lock you in a cage with a criminal facing major time. Offer that guy a deal to rat you out if he “overheard” you confessing to the crime. Boom, conviction.
Even if they don’t get a conviction, you’re going to have to spend every penny you have on attorneys to protect yourself from the murder charge (unless you are incredibly rich). And if the state loses, you don’t get a penny in compensation for all the money you lost.
I feel like “walk away” is a pretty good policy, though you have the problem that a witness might see you walking away and try to pin it on you.
In a similar vein I’ve heard that police are suspicious of anyone who appears to be ‘too helpful’ to them in a certain case, in that they are trying to allay suspicion. So a killer might well think that reporting the body themselves would throw the police off their scent, since the last thing a murderer would do is lead the police to their victim.
This is assuming that the death is obviously not of natural causes?
I’m speculating here, but I would think that if someone finds a body and then calls a lawyer to report it, that would be such a bizarre approach that suspicion would inevitably fall upon them. The line of thought would be “Why does this person think they need a lawyer?”.
However, this depends on where you find the body. If it’s in the park while you’re walking your dog, or floating down the river while you’re kayaking, then calling the authorities immediately seems like a slam dunk. If the body is face down on your bed perforated with bullet holes spelling out your initials and your favorite handgun is lying on the ground nearby … yeah, maybe it’s time to lawyer up.
Weird responses. Of course I would call the police. In the situations where any of us “find” a dead body, the body is going to be in the park, off the side of the road, under the bridge, or something like that. In cases like this, the police aren’t idiots. They know that a body put in a location such as this likely is going to be found by a random person. Yes, they will take your name and ask you some questions, but unless the body is of your ex-wife, or boss, or arch-nemesis, you aren’t going to be caught up in much.
Of course, if the place that the body is found is in your house, you will then be a prime suspect, but I don’t think just walking away would solve anything in that case.
I am not aware of a rash of cases where the police railroaded people who found random bodies, but if anyone knows of some of them, let me know so I know if I need to adjust my plans.
First thing you do is poke it with a stick. Then you ask your 12 year old friends if they want to see a dead body.
In 18 years of police work I have never see or heard of anyone who called in finding a body later getting arrested for the murder. Just like in Law & Order you never see them again after the opening credits.
Well there was that one guy who discovered a body that I charged as a pedophile but the was years later and totally unrelated.
Some of the previous posts already sound like 12 year olds.
Unless the body was in a house you were breaking in to, why would that be?
And how do you know it’s a dead body. Are you an M.E.? Perhaps it was just an unconscious person that needed medical attention ASAP. Either way, why screw around? Call 911.
I hope you never find me in need of CPR or defib. But even if it is actually a dead person why all the rigamarole?
Geez, children. Believe it or not folks find dead bodies all the time. Usually it’s someone who died of natural causes or from a accident.
But yeah, sometimes it’s from the result of a homicide. When it is, why make a big deal out of calling 911? Why do some of you sound paranoid about reporting something you had nothing to do with?
Because it is a big deal. You live in the biggest police state the world has ever seen. All the key people involved are popularly elected, and the general public wants to see blood. Innocent people go down all the time, and as mentioned above, there is no compensation even if you win, and you must purchase a lawyer as skilled as the ones the State will throw against you or a jury of 12 idiots will send you to prison.
It’s been danced around in the thread, but how are you making the connection of dead body equals murder victim? Is there an obvious gunshot wound? Is it hanging with a noose around its neck? And in either case, is suicide ruled out?
If murder is obvious, is the body in a place where it would be inevitably discovered by someone? Does the protagonist have any other connection to the victim?
What I’m getting at here is that calling the police is almost always the right choice, and not doing so is more likely to create suspicion on you than actually doing so. It’s some rare set of circumstances where the opposite would be true. If you can’t distinguish those cases, odds favor calling it in ASAP.
Sorry, my bad, thought I’d elaborated in the spoilered section but didn’t, idiot. Anyway, spoilers for the game Life is Strange;
In the game the friend of your friend has gone missing, you find a photo of said missing friend being buried, your friend says she knows where it is and it must be staged, so they rush to the location and discover the missing person in a shallow grave.
So I meant to specify it’s a situation where it’s obvious there’s been a murder.
Would this even be legal in of itself? Do you have any obligation to report it or can you seriously just say “Welp, not my problem!”