Timeline for Standards for convicting a person of being an accomplice to a crime when the crime did not occur
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 6, 2021 at 10:07 | comment | added | gnasher729 | There may not even have been evidence against B. Until A is acquitted, and now that he or she cannot be charged again because of double jeopardy, A confesses everything, shows the evidence that the police never found, and throws B under the bus. | |
| Jun 6, 2021 at 3:44 | comment | added | David Siegel | There is no such thing as an acquittal because anything. See my answer for details. | |
| Jun 6, 2021 at 3:41 | answer | added | David Siegel | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 6, 2021 at 3:02 | answer | added | Dale M♦ | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 20:25 | comment | added | Cicero | @NateEldredge That is not what I said. In Gray's case, the defense argued that his action was not a crime because he acted in self defense and that was the instruction to the jury and was the question which they decided. So, it is not just an acquittal, it was an acquittal BECAUSE the jury decided his action was not criminal. | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 15:49 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | Basically, you seem very stuck on the idea that a particular defendant's acquittal is proof that the crime did not occur. That is just false, both as a matter of law and of common sense. | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 15:48 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | Here's an example you might like better. A is charged with a crime. There is a key piece of evidence, but the prosecutor unwisely decides not to introduce it. Then A is acquitted because the jury did not find, on the basis of the evidence presented to them, that the prosecution had proved a case against A. Now B is charged with involvement in the same crime. The prosecutor in this case does introduce the critical evidence, and B is convicted. I see no contradiction in this. | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 15:45 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | @Cicero: They do; it's called overturning a precedent. But precedent is meant to set interpretations of the law. It doesn't apply to findings of fact, because the law recognizes that the facts presented as evidence in every case are different, even if the two cases stem from a single incident. | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 15:40 | comment | added | Cicero | @gnasher729 Okay, but logically speaking a person should only be tried as an accomplice once it has been proven that a crime has been committed. If one jury has already decided that no crime has occurred, as happened in the Gray case, then a second jury should not be able to contradict that decision and decide that indeed a crime has been committed. | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 15:34 | comment | added | Cicero | @NateEldredge By that logic we should have no precedent at all. If you want to argue that it is acceptable to have different legal outcomes in same circumstances, then one court should be able to just ignore another court's decision because, hey, our laywers "argued better". | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 15:29 | comment | added | gnasher729 | ... Imagine there were three people. Now it could be quite reasonable that there is no doubt that either A or B committed the crime, but no proof which one did so nobody can be convicted. On the other hand there might be proof beyond reasonable doubt that C helped whichever of the two did commit the crime. For example if C bought the gun and ammunition that was used, but either A or B could have pulled the trigger. | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 15:27 | comment | added | gnasher729 | Nobody determined that the treatening and criminal mischief didn't happen. It's just an unfortunate situation that one jury decided that abetting the threatening and criminal mischief happened beyond a reasonable doubt, while another jury decided that the threatening and criminal mischief didn't happen beyone reasonable doubt. ... | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 14:57 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | And also keep in mind that juries in different cases see different evidence, hear different arguments made by different attorneys, may take into account different intangible factors, etc. It is a mistake to try to equate a jury verdict with absolute logical proof of anything. And even so, as mentioned above, acquittal isn't even supposed to be proof of anything; it's merely an absence of proof. | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 14:04 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | @Cicero: There aren't many situations where a court ever has to make such a determination. "Exoneration" and "actual innocence" would be the terms in that case, distinct from "acquittal". Since you're focusing on logic, keep in mind the critical distinction between "it has been proved that X is not true" and "it has not been proved that X is true". | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 13:41 | comment | added | Cicero | @phoog Then, what is a determination that no crime has occurred? | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 13:37 | comment | added | phoog | "not only was the case against Cavanaugh continued, but she was convicted even though a jury had already decided no crime had occurred by the person she was allegedly abetting": that is not correct. Cavanaugh was convicted in August 2019, while Gray was acquitted in January 2020. Furthermore, an acquittal is not a determination that no crime had occurred. | |
| Jun 5, 2021 at 12:44 | history | asked | Cicero | CC BY-SA 4.0 |