Is fulfilling the duties of a &quot;second&quot; in seppuku a crime in modern Japan? Seppuku is a Japanese suicide ritual by disembowelment that was often used by Samurai to attenuate shame or avoid being captured. The ritual traditionally involves a "second" who would perform a kaishaku - a cut in which the warrior is decapitated. There are many examples of this ritual even in modern Japan. In modern Japan if such a ritual involves the traditional "second" performing the kaishaku, is this treated as a murder where the "second" could be charged, or is death treated as a suicide?
A high profile example of modern seppuku was Yukio Mishima in 1970. His second failed to behead him and committed seppuku too, with both being beheaded by Hiroyasu Koga. A contemporary newspaper article (Sarasota Journal - Jan 6, 1971, &quot;Suicidal Author in 'Hero' Status&quot;) noted that, in addition to being charged with crimes as a revolutionary, Koga was charged with &quot;murder by request&quot; (a.k.a. assisting suicide), along with two others present as accomplices. The crime against Koga is that of &quot;murder by request&quot; or &quot;assisting suicide.&quot; And, according to precedent, those guilty of &quot;murder by request&quot; receive lighter sentences than those convicted of first-degree murder. Will Koga thus receive a lenient sentence because he merely assisted in another's suicide? Actually, all three survivors will be tried on the charge of &quot;murder by request&quot; on the assumption that all were accomplices to the series of criminal acts on the day of Mishima's death, which include assault, wounding several SDF officials, forcing officials to act, and unlawful incarceration. It seems the sentence was indeed light. Koga was sentenced to four years penal servitude, but was released a few months early for good behavior. As far as I can tell, there have not been any challenges to the law since.
It is constitutional to imprison a person for committing a crime, though I suspect that a life sentence for brawling would be held to be cruel and unusual punishment. It's rather hard to tell what punishments will be held to be cruel and unusual, but 2.5 years for involuntary manslaughter is not unusual. The crime of involuntary manslaughter in Massachusetts does not require any physical aiding. It is unlawful killing unintentionally caused by wanton and reckless conduct... Wanton and reckless conduct is intentional conduct that created a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm will result to another person.... It is conduct involving a grave risk of harm to another that a person undertakes with indifference to or disregard of the consequences of such conduct Whether conduct is wanton and reckless depends either on what the defendant knew or how a reasonable person would have acted knowing what the defendant knew The First Amendment does not give one carte blanche to say anything you want. There are a number of crimes and torts which involve saying something: threatening and extortion, bribing, fraud, incitement to riot, disturbing the peace, defamation, perjury and lying to a government official, and so on.
"If it were not assize-time, I would not take such language from you." (said while grabbing the handle of sword) This is a famous conditional threat where the speaker/actor was not found to express intent to do harm; perhaps better called a negative condition. This probably confuses matters but if you are to search for more answers this could be a good place to start. One of the elements of common law assault is that the threat must be able to be carried out immediately; it must be imminent. I do not have a cite for this but I recall that this means that conditional threats are excluded from assault. So calling a politician on the phone and telling them that if they do not drop out of a race you will hurt them is not assault. So, "You cut that out now or you’ll go home in an ambulance" sounds a lot like, "stop or you will get hurt." The victim has the opportunity to avoid the danger; the threat is not imminent. But the facts here are interesting because the speaker touched the victim while speaking which might mean fear of imminent was real. But they were in a crowded room in front of cameras - could the victim really feel that threat was imminent? Plus, the "you will go home" implies a future harm. Oh, and the speaker does not say "I will hurt you," maybe she was actually trying to protect the victim from someone else's actions. Like when my teacher knew someone was waiting outside the classroom to fight me and she told me, "if you go out there you will get hurt!" I would hope that a jury would consider this hard bargaining.
All Four of them! Double Jeopardy is not in play if a jurisdiction can lay claim to your criminal action, so if you stand on the Four Corners and shoot a man in any of the four states, each state has a right to charge murder. In addition, the Federal Government can have a go at you because you crossed state lines while in comission of a crime. Plus the Navajo Nation, which controls the reservation land the border is on. So that six separate charges. That said, the state the dead body occupied at time of Murder would have the best case for action and the other three would likely let that state try you first. The Feds would only step in if each of the four states failed to convict, though they can step in whenever they want (they are just watching to see if you'll serve time first). Not sure at which point Tribal jurisdiction applies, but given that this is a fairly common Jurisdiction issue, I'm sure it's been worked out.
The official clause in question is here: Pecandu Narkotika yang telah cukup umur sebagaimana dimaksud dalam Pasal 55 ayat (2) yang sedang menjalani rehabilitasi medis 2 (dua) kali masa perawatan dokter di rumah sakit dan/atau lembaga rehabilitasi medis yang ditunjuk oleh pemerintah tidak dituntut pidana which unofficially says Narcotics addicts who are old enough as referred to in Article 55 paragraph (2) who are undergoing medical rehabilitation with at least two treatments by doctors in hospitals and / or medical rehabilitation institutions designated by the government shall not be not criminally prosecuted where the italicized part involves some interpolation – a professional legal translator could have a better English rendition. The point is that you have to actually be getting treatment, and it has to be at a facility that is approved (ditunjuk) by the government. Such addicts are not criminally "dituntut", which could cover being charged, indicted, prosecuted or sued, a minor ambiguity resolved by the fact that the prosecutor is the "penuntut umum" (same root word). Under the law, it is not sufficient to just register (report yourself), you have to actually be receiving treatment. The part about "was not sentenced" is just a mistake.
Yes Usually, whoever got their hands on the defendant first would have first crack at it. The second jurisdiction would commonly not prosecute provided that justice was done in the first but they can - double jeopardy is not in play as a bar as they are different legal systems but courts usually apply the spirit that a person shouldn’t be punished twice for the same act.
Many countries of Continental law recognize “desecration”, “deningration” or defamation of the deceased or similar civil or criminal wrongs, the special form of defamation of the deceased and it is ordinary that those who had been relatives to the subject are entitled to press charges. (e.g. Germany (See: §189 “denigration of a deceased person”), Slovakia (See: MAC TV v. Slovakia before the European Court of Justice leaving ambiguity about the extent of legality of defamation-of-the-dead laws under Community law), Greece (See: Penal Code, Article 365, “disparaging the memory of the deceased” etc.) Additionally, the prosecutors may press charges by the operation of law or as a duty of their office if certain conditions are met. One example in detail is the Penal Code of Hungary: Defamation § 226 (1) Whoever states, reports or uses an expression directly referring to a fact capable of defaming the honour of another person, shall be punished for a misdemeanour by imprisonment for up to one year. (2) The penalty shall be imprisonment for up to two years if the defamatory statement a) with malicious motive or purpose, (b) in public, or (c) by causing substantial damage to the merits is committed. Making a false sound or visual recording likely to defame § 226/A (1) Whoever, with the intent to defame the honour of another or others, makes a false, falsified or untrue sound or image recording, if no other offence is committed, shall be punished for a misdemeanour by imprisonment for up to one year. Disclosure to the public of a false sound or image recording likely to defame § 226/B (1) Whoever, with the intention of defaming the honour of another or others, makes available a false, falsified or untrue sound or image recording, shall be punished by a misdemeanour with imprisonment of up to two years. (2) The penalty for a felony shall be imprisonment for up to three years if the offence is (a) in public, or (b) by causing substantial damage to the interests of is committed. Dishonoring § 227 (1) A person who, against another person other than those specified in § 226 a) in connection with the performance of the victim's duties in the exercise of his or her employment, public office or activity in the public interest, or b) in public uses an expression capable of defaming the honour or commits any other such act, shall be punishable for a misdemeanour by imprisonment for up to one year. (2) A person who commits defamation by an act of deed shall be punishable under subsection (1). Desecration (“Kegyeletsértés”) § 228 Whoever desecrates a dead person or his memory in the manner specified in §§ 226 or 227 shall be punished for a misdemeanor with the punishment specified therein. In the case of Hungary, one, including especially a surviving relative, may also step up as a substitutive civil prosecutor and file a motion with the court for criminal charges to be filed in case the public prosecutor fails or refuses to press charges. This is true despite freedom-of-speech rights. In the U.S., some states allow for libel and/or slander claims to go forward and be brought against one who engage in such or similar conduct (e.g. Rhode Island, Texas etc.) Many Asian countries also recognize both the civil and criminal forms of such acts (e.g. the Philippines, Thailand etc.)
Since we don't have a system of robot justice, it's impossible to say whether a prosecutor would file charges in this bizarre circumstance, since filing charges is discretionary. However, this situation does fit the description of murder. It is intentional, it causes death (maybe, vide infra), it is not legally justified (as self-defense, or as an act legally sanctioned by a state executioner), the victim is a person. It is not sanctioned by any "death with dignity" statute. The one issue that might be effectively argued by the defense assuming the irrefutability of the factual claims of your scenario is that perhaps the relevant crime is assault with a deadly weapon, since it probably could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim died from the shooting, and not from being incinerated by lava. It depends on where the person is shot, and with what.