Timeline for What will happen if someone/a group can't be confirmed that they commited a crime?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 6, 2020 at 20:40 | comment | added | user91988 | @DarrelHoffman This is also one of the stupidest laws in existence. | |
| Feb 6, 2020 at 17:46 | comment | added | David Callanan | @Polygnome That might not be the case for anti-hate speech laws coming into Ireland. They are considering guilty, until proven innocent. | |
| Feb 6, 2020 at 14:15 | comment | added | AmiralPatate | @Zheer Depends. The principal (murderer) is charged with murder. Accomplices are accessory to murder, and you have to distinguish 1) accessory before the fact (you help the crime happen) 2) accessory after the fact (you help the criminal evade the law). The former is usually treated the same as the principal, and gets the same sentence. The latter usually is a lesser offence, and gets a lighter sentence. The gateaway driver likely is accessory before the fact, since they purposefully drove to the bank to commit the crime that lead to murder. | |
| Feb 6, 2020 at 4:44 | comment | added | jwenting | @ilkkachu or if not charged with conspiracy, they can be charged with obstructing a police investigation. They'll all be offered a plea bargain, and the innocent are going to reject the plea and testify against the others instead in order to clear their name. | |
| Feb 5, 2020 at 22:57 | comment | added | Zheer | @Darrel Hoffman,does the one who stays in the gateaway car be guilty of murder in that case?, Also do they all spend the same amount of time in prison? | |
| Feb 5, 2020 at 22:48 | vote | accept | Zheer | ||
| Feb 5, 2020 at 20:07 | comment | added | chepner | There was also an old L&O episode where the prosecutors weren't sure which of two defendants pulled the trigger, so they goaded an inexperienced defense attorney into making a motion to have the defendants tried separately, at which point the plan was to argue the same facts in each trial, but applied to different dependents. (I don't recall what actually happened; one of the two might have agreed to a plea bargain in order to testify against the other, since most L&O episodes seem to feature a plea bargain :)) | |
| Feb 5, 2020 at 19:42 | comment | added | Darrel Hoffman | There's a classic example that applies: If 7 people rob a bank, and one of them kills a security guard in the process, all 7 are considered to be guilty of the murder even if only one of them pulled the trigger. Even if one of them just stayed in the getaway car the whole time, they are still involved in the crime. | |
| Feb 5, 2020 at 15:28 | comment | added | Dave | Agree with @ilkkachu here. Specially in the UK under Joint Enterprise they could all be in serious trouble. Even if only 7 physically involved, it could be argued that the inaction of the 13 contributed. Interesting article on this in the Guardian: theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/09/… | |
| Feb 5, 2020 at 14:02 | comment | added | ShadowRanger | @ilkkachu: I mean, there's always the murder mystery trope where the lights go out and when they come back, someone has been killed. Everyone was there, but no one actually witnessed the crime. | |
| Feb 5, 2020 at 12:56 | comment | added | ilkkachu | All 20 in a single room? Probably seeing the homicide happen? Sounds like some lesser charge might stick, negligence at least? Or, if it was a Law and Order episode indeed, they'd all get charged with conspiracy to commit murder until one squels or they all go down. | |
| Feb 5, 2020 at 12:33 | comment | added | Barmar | The classic TV trope: The only conclusive evidence is DNA, but it leads to identical twins, and both had means, motive, and opportunity. There's reasonable doubt for each of them. | |
| Feb 5, 2020 at 9:08 | comment | added | Polygnome | @Zheer They do not need to be proven innocent, they need to be proven guilty. All modern western law has the assumption of innocence until proven guilty. A person is innocent until guilt has been proven, not the other way around ("Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat"). | |
| Feb 5, 2020 at 8:30 | comment | added | Paul Johnson | @Greendrake Hypothetically, they could all take the 5th and refuse to answer on the grounds that they might incriminate themselves. A jury might also decide not to trust anyone who does testify on the grounds that they might be lying to hide their own guilt. | |
| Feb 4, 2020 at 22:37 | comment | added | sharur | @Zheer: Yes. Or more accurately, not proven guilty. Under US law, a person is innocent until they are proven guilty, so "not proven guilty" = (legally) innocent. | |
| Feb 4, 2020 at 21:24 | comment | added | Zheer | Can all of them be proven innocent whilst knowing that 6 of them had done the crime? | |
| Feb 4, 2020 at 21:04 | comment | added | Greendrake | All the people in the room are witnesses at least. They can (and probably will) be summoned to testify whodoneit. | |
| Feb 4, 2020 at 20:59 | history | answered | Paul Johnson | CC BY-SA 4.0 |