New answers tagged criminal-law
6
Ne/non bis idem doesn't apply in this case. Non bis idem covers multiple bases, but here's the basic ideas:
You cannot, if found not guilty, be retried for the same crime, no matter the circumstances. This is the equivalent of double jeopardy.
You cannot be punished twice for the same crime in the same respect. For example, if you murder someone, and you ...
1
The legislature thought of this
australia new-south-wales
Jury Act 1977 s22 provides what happens if a juror dies or is dismissed before discharge (which normally happens under s55E "immediately after delivering their verdict".
The trial coninues if, under s53C, the court or coronor is satisfied that there will not be a substanial miscarriage of ...
24
Sentences will be imposed for all three crimes (in eight weeks following preparation of a pre-sentence report, briefing and a sentencing hearing), but because they arise out of the same incident, will be served concurrently. Thus, one year in prison counts against the up to 40 years on the first count, the up to 25 years on the second count, and the up to 10 ...
1
Can you get jailed for misreporting numbers to pay less?
Possibly But any prosecution, and sentence, may depend on the level of culpability, provable guilty knowledge and of course any other admissible evidence.
Two offences seem relevant under the Canada Criminal Code:
Fraud
380 (1) Every one who, by deceit, falsehood or other fraudulent means, whether or ...
3
In the case of Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932) the hostility of the populace to the defendants was mentioned as increasing the case for overturning the verdict, but the main reason was the failure to supply counsel for the defendants, and the resulting lack of a fair trial.
The LII page on "Impartial Jury" says:
It is undeniably a violation ...
2
When the accused has not received a fair trial or due process
The right to a fair trial is guaranteed by the sixth amendment. The right to due process is guaranteed by the fourteenth. Justice Clark said in Sheppard v Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333 (1966):
This federal habeas corpus application involves the question whether Sheppard was deprived of a fair trial in ...
1
If the matter goes to trial, there is a precedent for a figure in the years, namely the McMartin preschool trial. The first trial involved 3 years of testimony and 9 weeks of deliberation, resulting in acquittal for one defendant. A second defendant was cleared of only 52 of the 65 charges but two jurors would not acquit on the remaining counts. The second ...
2
Not yet – in the US. There is no such thing as an "agreed-upon colloquial definition" of any
term (we elect presidents, not definitions), so the existence of an ordinary meaning of every word is subject to debate pro and con. Typically, if the meaning of a word is at issue and the law has not stipulated a specific meaning in some case, the courts ...
2
No
A reasonable person understands “chemical free” to mean free of artificial (i.e. man-made) chemicals.
4
If the police or other authorities of Sri Lanka do not have witnesses or other evidences supporting that this American committed the crime, there is little that can be done. The police of Sri Lanka could ask the police of whatever locality the person is now in to interview the accused, which they might do as a favor, but are not obliged to do. If they do ...
3
The title question is overly-ambitious: it is not guaranteed, and nobody thinks that it is. The law does what is practical to achieve the desired result. Actual failure one way or the other is mostly irrelevant until a clear pattern to the failure is found, then there might be a legal resolution, but it might also require a political resolution.
One ...
2
If there was, it was not in the case of a Not Guilty verdict as those are not open to appeal and thus overturning. As a matter of course, in appeals, a trial is not overturned but rather vacated or declared a mistrial. The essential effect is that that the appeals court decides that due to a matter of law, the legal system is to pretend that the original ...
1
There is no way to guarantee that a jury will not make a decision based on prejudice, or on widespread public feeling, or on the heinous nature of a crime where the evidence against the accused is weak, or on some other basis beyond the evidence in the case.
US courts have several mechanisms for handling such cases, but they are not perfect, and there are ...
1
The Thin Skull Rule is a doctrine of tort law in a lawsuit to recover damages.
The Derek Chauvin trial regarding the death of George Floyd is a criminal trial, and so the Thin Skull Rule is not applicable. The issues are causation and intent within the meaning of the relevant state criminal statute.
-1
While the answer above says technically no, in recent years, state and local budgetary constraints make escaping into the next county a real possibility, unless the police are literally in hot pursuit or you have committed a particularly heinous crime.
See this usa today story, which claims over a million fugitives nationwide are evading justice "in the ...
1
No
Laws are not "logical axioms" in the technical sense. In classic (Greek) mathematics, "axioms" were ideas thought to be so self-evidently true that no proof of them was needed or offered. In modern (19th Century and later) mathematics, axioms are the statement that serve as the basis of a given logical/mathematical formal deductive ...
1
Aren't laws actually just logical axioms?
No. That perspective is valid in fields such as physics and mathematics when referring to a small set of core propositions about systematically observed facts (examples are the laws of Newton, of Thermodynamics, etc.) on which a usually extensive body of knowledge is premised (examples: naive vs. Zermelo-Fraenkel ...
29
This is normal. It only seems imbalanced because only the prosecutor has been able to call witnesses so far.
Under Minnesota Rule of Evidence 611:
Ordinarily leading questions should be permitted on cross-examination. When a party calls a hostile witness, an adverse party, or a witness identified with an adverse party, interrogation may be by leading ...
3
The question is a false equivalence. The correct equivalent to the employee stealing from the bank's register would be the bank manager coming over to the employee's house for dinner and stealing some money from a drawer when he's not looking. Both would be prosecuted as theft in a criminal court.
Not paying your last paycheck is informally called "...
1
This issue was discussed in How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff , fist published in 1954. Huff discuses the issue in terms of medical screening tests, rather than court evidence. If a test for a disease is 99.9% accurate (meaning a 0.1% rate of false positives, Huff also mentions that it is an error to assume that the false positive rate and false ...
7
Your premise is false.
At least it is, in the normal free-market systems that have swept the world (even communist bastions like Russia and China) due to their practical effectiveness at making societies wealthy at every level. Some people don't like that system because either they are very contrary people, or because they are not competent experts at ...
1
This article on the Daubert Standard is a reasonable intro-level presentation of the relevant case law for the US. This related to "Rule 702", a rule governing the admissibility of evidence. The rule is based on, three Supreme Court rulings: Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; General Electric Co. v. Joiner; Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael. ...
0
Part of Chauvin's defense seems to be that Floyd died from drug-related complications during the use of force in his arrest. The prosecution says that Chauvin's inappropriate use of force caused the death.
From the news reports, both Hall and Floyd had some drug history. Hall might be refusing to implicate himself in some other drug-related crime by his ...
26
What do you mean by "stealing"; this matters, because "stealing" often doesn't have a formal/legal definition (and when it does, it falls under your #2 point above, where the employer's action doesn't meet the definition of the forbidden act) and can describe conduct by both parties that could fall under both criminal and non-criminal ...
3
When the suspect is being arrested for this indictable only offence, are the police allowed to then arrest the suspect for the summary only offences too whilst the police are still inside of the suspect's house?
YES, as long as the arresting officer suspects an offence has been committed and believes the arrest is necessary for any of the reasons given in s....
119
Because one is theft and the other is breach of contract
Theft is taking someone’s property with the intent of permanently depriving them of it. It has always been a crime, in fact, it’s a toss up whether theft or murder was the first crime ever.
Not giving someone something you lawfully owe them but that they never possessed is not theft because it lacks ...
39
Why is stealing from an employer a criminal act when stealing from an employee is a civil act?
The question is based on a false premise: stealing from an employee is a criminal act but a breach of contract (e.g., withholding wages) is/maybe a civil wrong so not necessarily theft. However if an employer takes and retains an employee's property (e.g., cash ...
2
Why is "conspiracy to aid, abet, counsel, or procure an offence is not itself a crime"?
Why is "to attempt to aid, abet, counsel, or procure" not an offence?
Short Answer: Because s.1(4)(a) and (b) of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981 say so.
Long Answer:
By "itself" stops short and lacks a substantive offence - aid and abet ...
6
Among the courts to address the question, there is general agreement that a false statement need not be material to support a conviction under 18 U.S. Code § 1542:
United States v. Salinas, 373 F.3d 161, 167 (1st Cir. 2004) ("That statute does not contain any materiality requirement.");
United States v. Hasan, 586 F.3d 161, 167 (2d Cir. 2009) (&...
9
See United States v. Hart, 291 F.3d 1084:
This appeal presents the question whether materiality is an element of
the crime of making a false statement in an application for a United
States passport in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1542. We have implicitly
indicated that it is not, see United States v. Suarez-Rosario, 237
F.3d 1164, 1167(9th Cir. 2001), and now ...
4
Prosecutors have discretion
The plea bargain that a prosecutor makes with an alleged criminal is up to the prosecutor subject to the limitations in Brady v United States 397 U.S. 742 (1970). Plea bargains are subject to the court’s approval but there’s nothing here that would obviously derail this deal.
However, the FBI is not the only player here. The DA’s ...
1
new-zealand
Reasonable assumptions:
The videos were recorded without the knowledge or consent of the subjects.
The videos depict at least some of the items listed in subsections (a) and (b) of the definition of “intimate visual recording” (Crimes Act 1961 section 216G).
The subjects of the videos do not include you.
In this case, the video would be an “...
1
Forensic in this context means "relating to courts of law."
Practicability includes viability, achievability and attainability among its synonyms.
One way of rephrasing the paragraph:
The non- conviction of the blameless should be a pervasive principle of substantive criminal law limited only by the need to theorize and practise criminal law as a ...
7
The reason that the right to remain silent is important can best be demonstrated in the opening set up and later trial that forms the plot of "My Cousin Vinny". In the film, the two defendants are on a Road Trip from Brooklyn, New York City, NY to L.A., California ahead of their Freshman school year. Along their way, the stop for fuel and food ...
1
In Germany, there are similar prohibitions against building a firearm or significant parts of a firearm, and also against gadgets which give the appearance of a firearm.
I expect that it would be possible 3D print something which meets neither definition, but doing so is tricky for an amateur. When a German IT publisher printed a gun some years ago, they ...
16
Overview
The "right to remain silent " is a feature of US law, inherited, like much of the basic structure of US law, from the British law of the late 1700s. The right is also retained in modern UK law, in a somewhat different form.
The laws of many countries that do not inherit their legal system from the English/British source do not include the ...
4
In the US, jurors are not supposed to interpret the conduct of the defendant's attorney as equivalent to testimony by a defendant, and attorney argumentation is explicitly not to be interpreted as testimony.
The right to silence is virtually universal in modern legal systems, though in regimes such as North Korea or Iran any nominal legal protections against ...
2
Is it legal in the UK to 3D print a firearm design if it is made impossible to fire?
Maybe, maybe not
If the result is merely a toy, trinket etc then there is no offence per se. However it will be unlawful if it meets the definition at s.57 of the Firearms Act 1968 of a firearm, or used as an "imitation firearm" to commit any number of offences in ...
5
Can the police seize your phone without a warrant UK?
YES
An arrest on suspicion of rape (an indictable offence) triggers two powers under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) to search premises for evidence without a warrant. Which power depends on where the arrest was made:
s.32(2)(b) PACE:
if the offence for which he has been arrested is an ...
0
What determines whether a mistake is fundamental and ownership passes?
Short answer: When the facts show it is a blatantly obvious error. For example: I park my car on my neighbour's driveway by mistake (maybe at night in a driving blizzard). Although my neighbour possesses the car as it's on his land, ownership does not pass to him as it's an obvious ...
1
Can you get into trouble for not answering questions when talking to the police?
england-and-wales
NO, Maybe, Yes
It depends on what, if any, legislation causes the questions to be asked whether failure to answer can get someone in to trouble.
Apart from general day-to-day conversations, there are three instances when an officer may ask someone questions:
...
0
Why can you be convicted for conspiring to project indecent images into the night-time sky, but not conspiracy to defraud a dead person?
Short Answer:
One's a conspiracy to commit an offence and the other is an agreement to do something that isn't an offence.
Long Answer:
In Nock, the House of Lords ruled that one cannot unlawfully conspire, or attempt, to ...
5
The answer is more complicated than you may think. The over riding controlling authority is the Law of the Seas treaty signed by almost all nations but not ratified by the US (mainly because the LOS requires equal distribution of mineral wealth in the oceans). A lot of what the LOS covers is what is called the COLREGS which are basically traffic laws for ...
2
There are certain situations where the law may require you to provide some information -- particularly when you've been pulled over for a traffic violation -- but it is typically limited to basic identifying information.
Beyond that, it is legally advantageous to refuse to answer questions. If you are doing so, though, you should explicitly invoke your Fifth ...
0
Get into trouble? Sure!
Get out of trouble? Maybe ...
Various jurisdictions have different implementations of the protection against self-incrimination. This may allow a suspect not to answer anything, or just not to make any statement to the facts. So if a truthful statement could incriminate the speaker, it might be wise not to say anything beyond "I ...
0
Unlike the situation in the UK, you have no obligation to answer questions posed by police, apart from some state requirements to identify during a traffic stop (which can be complied with by providing you license, as in the video), or in some states in general you may be required to provide your name. A judge may order you to answer questions, the police ...
1
The standard caution when given by British police upon arrest or questioning of a subject is:
“You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
The linked government page explicitly says (emphasis mine):
The police ...
1
Are there penalties for withholding self-exculpatory evidence during a trial?
england-and-wales
Yes A defendant may be liable to pay "costs" if convicted, or even acquitted, in certain circumstances.
The overriding principle is a fair trial and there are very few avenues for the prosecution to deny the inclusion of defence evidence - a video ...
1
This type of litigation strategy is allowed in criminal cases for most kinds of evidence, but not all kinds of evidence. Discovery rules in criminal cases are not symmetrical. The prosecution has a duty to disclose evidence in advance to the defense, but the defense obligation to make disclosures prior to trial is much more limited.
The courts have, however, ...
1
There is no way now for them to know if they came from that car
No, not necessarily.
Evidence needs to be introduced in an admissible form as dictated by the particular jurisdiction's procedural rules - usually by witness statements establishing where the item came from (its "provenance") and a chronological account stating who had control of the ...
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