Can people who are mistaken in their beliefs be convicted of criminal attempts? For example: Self proclaimed exorcists who claim to put curses and blessings on people. If that person performs a ritual, fully believing it will kill the person they are cursing. Or some guys hanging out with various militias believing they can assist them in their plans to commit acts of terrorism. Can they be convicted with criminal attempt?
canada The fact that the chosen means could never have actually killed the target does not preclude an attempt conviction. See United States v. Dynar, [1997] 2 S.C.R. 462: The only relevant distinction for purposes of s. 24(1) of the Criminal Code is between imaginary crimes and attempts to do the factually impossible. The criminal law of Canada recognizes no middle category called “legal impossibility”. Because Mr. Dynar attempted to do the impossible but did not attempt to commit an imaginary crime, he can only have attempted to do the “factually impossible”. For this reason, Mr. Dynar’s proposal that s. 24(1) criminalizes only attempts to do the factually impossible does not help him. An example of a &quot;factual impossibility&quot; cited by the court was &quot;impossibility due to inadequate means... For example, A tries to kill B by shooting at him from too great a distance or by administering too small a dose of poison.&quot; That this man’s design is premised on a mistaken understanding of the facts does not make it any less his design. A mistaken belief cannot be eliminated from the description of a person’s mental state simply because it is mistaken. Example 1: the curse In your examples, the person who took steps to kill a person via inadequate or factually impossible means could be guilty of an attempt. Of course, this is subject to proof of the required mental state (intention to kill) beyond a reasonable doubt. Example 2: hanging out However, the actus reus of attempt in Canada is that the accused must have taken &quot;some step towards the commission of the offence attempted going beyond mere acts of preparation.&quot; You haven't described anything about the person who hangs out with a militia that would constitute a step beyond a mere act of preparation.
It is possible that someone is convicted. Destruction of evidence an constitute circumstantial evidence that a crime was committed, and other evidence, such as testimony, could pin the crime to one of the four possible suspects. A jury has broad discretion to assess the weight of the evidence.
england-and-wales Automatism If a defendant ... can show that they committed a crime as the result of an involuntary act they may be able to plead the defence of automatism. Note that: It is up to the jury to decide whether the defence is made out and that the defendant was acting involuntarily due to an external factor.
In the United States, the question that determines whether it's perjury is whether or not you believe what you said was true. Whoever— (1) having taken an oath..., willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true; or (2) ... willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe to be true; is guilty of perjury. So if an attorney asks if you saw the defendant, and you believe you saw the defendant, &quot;yes&quot; is generally going to be the correct answer. You're free to qualify your answers or answer questions that weren't put to you, but you aren't obligated to do so. Generally speaking, our adversarial system puts the burden on the defense to ask if you're sure, how the lighting was, whether you were wearing your glasses, whether you were drunk, etc.
An "inquisitorial" system is one where the Judge or Magistrate actively questions the accused and witnesses to attempt to determine the facts. The Judge may also determine, at least in part, what witnesses to call in what order. An "adversarial" system is one in which each side presents its case, and the judge acts as an umpire deciding on procedure, and possibly makes the final ruling (or directs a jury to do so) but is not actively involved in questioning witnesses or deciding what witnesses to call. I don't see anything which would prevent a common-law jurisdiction from establishing an "inquisitorial" system by statute except longstanding tradition, but as far as i know no such jurisdiction has ever had such a system in place for dealing with criminal matters. The informal procedures in some small claims courts do have judges more actively involved than in other courts. I think this is also true in some family courts as well. I think I have heard of some civil-law jurisdictions which use something like an adversary system, but i am not sure of that. Certainly a civil-law country could pass a law setting up such a system if it chose to.
They can’t But they aren’t This is the law (as amended). Section 9 contains the penalties. In any event the police don’t fine people they issue an infringement notice which is an allegation of an offense - police can issue these even if they reasonably believe they took place - they are entitled to be wrong. The person given the notice can admit the offense by paying the fine or contest the allegation by going to court.
Does the law or judge ever make exceptions for events such as this? From a legal standpoint, your friend is at high risk of being found in contempt and thus be sentenced to imprisonment. Your friend should have called 911 rather than violate the protection order under pretext of consoling her. Asking from the standpoint of whether judges ever do this or that is pointless. The answer would be &quot;yes, they make exceptions&quot; even in scenarios which are plain aberrant. However, a judge's departure of the law quite often is not a reliable standpoint for understanding the law, but the result of his/her ineptitude and unfitness for judicial office.
I haven't found a recent case like this where it constitutes evidence. Military members didn't have an express right to remain silent until somewhere in the 1950s, so one chances are there might be cases prior to that point. The present right is codified in 10 U.S.C. 831, which is Article 31 of the UCMJ. That said, there is certainly a well documented adverse inference effect. While jurors aren't supposed to take the silence into account (e.g. when a defendant elects not to testify or exercises a right against self-incrimination), it's a difficult thing to do, practically speaking.