Wouldn’t the declaration of death be then voided, since a mistake is incredibly more likely than a resurrection???
I assume there must be some way of voiding a declaration of death, since it must happen sometimes that someone is erroneously declared dead?
Remeber when all those 500+ year sentences were all the rage? That would solve this problem.
It’s been tried. By Jerry Rosenberg in 1988. He argued that the life sentence he received in 1963 had been completed when his heart temporarily stopped during a surgical operation in 1986. The judge ruled that death is an irrevocable condition and because what happened to Rosenberg was temporary it didn’t count as death.
On a related note, how does it work when they sentence someone to 387 years in prison for something? Obviously the person is never getting out of jail, but I’ve often had this amusing mental image of cells somewhere full of skeletons, waiting for their sentence to expire so they can leave the prison to be buried.
(I know they don’t actually do this, but you do have to wonder about the logic of giving someone a multi-century sentence…)
The longer the sentence, the longer the prisoner can be held before being considered for parole. The first parole hearing comes up after 1/3 of the sentence is served. “Life” use to mean 25 years, so a prisoner was eligible for parole after 8 1/3 years–hardly life.
Now a person can be sentenced to “life without parole.”
I wonder if a person sentenced to life without parole dies, but is revived by prison doctors, could sue–You revived me to serve another 50 years? That’s cruel and unusual punishment.
Prisoners have the option of signing “Do Not Resuscitate” orders.
Dunno if Squee will ever come back to reply to a hijack answer two days later, but here it is.
I perform autopsies for the State. We do lots and lots of autopsies on people in whom the cause of death is obvious. Biggest example, homicide by gunshot wounds. You got a hole in and a hole out and a dead guy, blood leaking, you got an obvious cause of death. We still do the autopsy. Anybody still hanging around to read this hijack-reply, obscure reference trophy if you know why.
We also autopsy every prisoner who dies in custody - this includes people whom the State has put to death. I have not had to autopsy a judicial homicide yet; I’m glad, it makes me feel uncomfortable. However, I have autopsied many prisoners who died of heart attacks in jail.
I like the principle behind doing those autopsies. We serve as a check on police brutality. You break their ribs with a clever punch with the bruise hidden, we find it and document it. The family can have a copy of the autopsy report for free.
Gabriela
Are you referring to the old urban legend about the fellow who jumps off a building, and on the way down, gets shot by someone in an apartment he passes? And the guy who shot him thought the gun was empty, but was secretly loaded by the jumper, in an attempt to get a third party shot? And thus, that the jumper was guilty of his own murder.
By definition, “Dies” and “Death” are irrevocable. Dead is dead. The only alternative is near-death, which is a whole 'nother subject.
Gabriela,
Thank you for the reply! Interesting stuff indeed.
Nope, gong.
In 1992 there was a radical right-wing rabbi in New York City named Meir Kahane. He advocated removal of all the Palestinians from the disputed territories, among other unpleasant things. Wikipedia says that one of the organizations he founded, the JDL (Jewish Defense League), was formally listed as a terrorist organization by the FBI and US State Dept. I heard indirectly about him that he had a small but very loyal following, all of whom voted, so he had a little local power in NYC politics.
He was shot by Nosair Saiid (spellings vary - sometimes spelled Sayeed or Sayyid) while speaking at a large meeting. The shot went through his throat. He collapsed and died immediately.
Here is where I vary from Wikipedia. Wiki says Nosair was not convicted of the murder because no one saw him do it. I disagree. My old boss told us when I wsa a fellow in the NY OCME that he was the one who decided to perform only a limited autopsy on the wound track (not tract: bullets leave tracks, systems like the GI tract are tracts). The reason he decided this is because a large number of subordinate rabbis came to him and argued that Kahane should have no autopsy at all, as it was against their religion. My boss had the right in state law to enforce an autopsy, but also lots of discretion, and they were magnificent arguers. They argued him into a position in which he agreed only to autopsy the wound track. Which showed, naturally, fatal injury.
He told us, when we were fellows, that at the trial, Saiid’s lawyer successfully argued that because no complete autopsy was done, it had not been shown beyond a reasonable medical doubt that Kahane died from the shooting. He pointed out that you could not prove that he did not have a heart attack or a stroke instants before he was shot. This seems insane to me, but his point of view prevailed, and the jury did not find Saiid guilty. He was convicted only of gun possession.
Nosaid Saiid was part of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He was later convicted of the murder of Kahane (so much for “not witnessed”) as part of the “seditious conspiracy”. Had he not been out of jail, he would not have been able to join the bombers of the WTC.
All homicide victims receive a complete autopsy to show that beyond a reasonable doubt there is no competing cause of death. Nosair Saiid taught us so.
Gabriela
It would suck if it happened to someone serving two consecutive life sentences. 
You want to give somebody at least three life sentences. That way you’re covered if he comes back as a vampire and a zombie.