How might a defense attorney use the fact that the accused was coerced? Examples from the movie Se7en SPOILER ALERT FOR THE WHOLE MOVIE. THIS GIVES AWAY THE ENDING. In the film Se7en directed by David Fincher, a killer, J Doe, obsessed with the seven deadly sins carries out a grisly series of murders that coerce the victim or others to be unwilling participants in their death or the death of another. In murder number 5, representing lust, Doe puts a gun in the mouth of an unnamed brothel patron and threatens to kill him unless he kills a prostitute. The patron complies to save his own life, and is released by Doe. The patron stays at the scene until Police arrive, still partially tied up, and traumatized by what he has seen and done. The officers seem sympathetic, because they have been investigating these series of murders and know that Doe has been able to coerce people into basically murdering themselves so far. The patron admits everything he did during his interrogation, sobbing despondently, but pleading that he only did it because he had a gun in his mouth. At the end of the movie, Doe turns himself in and offers to show Detective Mills the location of more bodies. He taunts and antagonizes Mills during the trip. When they arrive where Doe instructs, a delivery van shows up, and delivers a box containing the severed head of Detective Mills' wife. Doe gives a cruel, upsetting monologue to Mills, bragging self-righteously about what he has done and smirking as he informs the yet-unaware Mills that his wife had been pregnant. Mills' partner asserts that Doe has done all this to goad Mills into shooting him out of wrath, thus completing the list, and Doe doesn't deny it. Mills struggles for a few moments, then gives in and shoots Doe in cold blood. Later he is shown arrested, appearing to have offered no resistance. Both these incidents take place in New York. I'm curious to know what the legal outlook is for each of these people. I expect that they won't escape prison, but I also suspect their sentences will take into account the circumstances? How could their defense attorney potentially use these circumstances in making their case?
In the first case, under US law, you are not considered guilty in most cases where you are forced to commit a crime under duress (gun to your head would certainly qualify). Murder is a rare exception to this rule, and the patron can be tried for the murder of the prostitute. Given the nature of Doe, who uses situations of duress to force a no win scenario for his victims, a good defense would likely work to get Jury Nullification of this crime, given the circumstance. The likely defense would be to validate that the man would not ordinarily kill a prostitute and thus only under a situation such as the one presented would he. It is still a crime, but the jury could choose not to convict, but it's a gamble as the law of crime of duress is likely to come up in the course of the trial. Situation 2 is a little more grim, as in this case, Doe has already surrendered and is custody and admits to a crime that is personal to the detective. I haven't seen the movie, so I can't suggest if there was an appropriate time for Mills to be pulled from the case prior to this revelation, but if such an opportunity happened, he should have. Since Doe is not threatening Mills at the point of time and he had already carried out his crime and been captured, Mills is an officer of the law who is killing someone in his custody. This is a crime and should be prosecuted. The circumstances might serve as mitigating factors and the jury may nullify, but these are circumstances that are less likely than the above case. Mills is also the lead detective in this case (?), and thus should know how Doe functions and what he is trying to get done. In the role of prosecutor, I personally would not push the crime against the patron as the likely jury would be too sympathetic to the defense. I would prosecute Mills as his responsibilities as a law enforcer and his training would have made him well aware that what he did was a crime.
Daniel Fleetwood, and his wife who watched the movie with him, were bound by a confidentiality agreement: She can't say much more because she had to sign a confidentiality agreement. Basically, both he and his wife signed a contract, if they had said anything they would have been in breach of that contract and could have been sued. Such agreements are standard, even for actors, so presumably, the lawyers at Disney know what they are doing when they write such a contract. NDAs such as this often specify hefty fines. I am doubtful that his illness would have meant they would have lost a case against him in that situation - it would have meant a whole lot of negative publicity, but if the contract was legally binding, the health condition does not matter. Daniel himself died five days after watching the movie.
Possibly negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter. Really dependson the state where this happens and the exact elements that need to be proven. Lester has asked his wife to do something that he knows might result in her death and does not warn her. He probably has a duty to warn her.
I assume this took place in Washington state. There are a number of self-defense provisions in Washington law. The first, RCW 9A.16.110, is primarily about reimbursements for prosecutions of acts of self-defense, but includes an applicable limit on prosecution: No person in the state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting by any reasonable means necessary, himself or herself, his or her family, or his or her real or personal property, or for coming to the aid of another who is in imminent danger of or the victim of assault, robbery, kidnapping, arson, burglary, rape, murder, or any other violent crime as defined in RCW 9.94A.030. This provision is relevant, since executing a prisoner on death row is not a crime (the state Supreme Court recently struck down the death penalty, so I assume this took place before that ruling). RCW 9A.16.020 states the more classic law on justified use of force, saying The use, attempt, or offer to use force upon or toward the person of another is not unlawful in the following cases:...(3) Whenever used by a party about to be injured, or by another lawfully aiding him or her, in preventing or attempting to prevent an offense against his or her person, or a malicious trespass, or other malicious interference with real or personal property lawfully in his or her possession, in case the force is not more than is necessary; Statutory law does not define offense against his or her person. Grabbing a person and strapping them down for some harmful purpose would normally constitute battery under the common law, but in this instance it is privileged, so it is not an offense against the person). RCW 9A.16.030 says that Homicide is excusable when committed by accident or misfortune in doing any lawful act by lawful means, without criminal negligence, or without any unlawful intent. The person is under court order to be executed, and it is not lawful to resist that order. The guard, however, RCW 9A.16.040, may use deadly force pursuant to the legal mandate to carry out the court orde ((1)(b)"to overcome actual resistance to the execution of the legal process, mandate, or order of a court or officer, or in the discharge of a legal duty").
I'm not sure what jurisdiction you're referring to, but here are the state involuntary manslaughter laws. Broad brush, the elements tend to be: Someone was killed as a result of act by the defendant. The act either was inherently dangerous to others or done with reckless disregard for human life. The defendant knew or should have known his or her conduct was a threat to the lives of others. However, you're really backwards planning from a jail vs. army decision, so you might actually be after something like felony hit and run, which can most certainly result in incarceration. The elements of felony hit and run generally include leaving the scene of an accident regardless of fault (hit and run typically becomes a felony when someone was injured in the accident). Since the elements vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, it makes sense to look them up wherever the accident will take place in the book. If it takes place in the U.S. this is a state-by-state compendium. Then you can tweak the story to satisfy the applicable elements and induce the jail vs. army decision (even if army policy prohibits it, it's still pretty common fiction!).
“Anything you say can be used against you in court.” Is what the police say in the USA. “You are not obliged to say or do anything unless you wish to do so, but whatever you say or do may be used in evidence. Do you understand?” is what they say in New South Wales. “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.” is what they say in England and Wales. And so on. Whether Mark wants to mention that he was robbing a bank on the far side of town at the time is entirely up to him. If he does, and that can be verified it’s likely the murder charges will be dropped and armed robbery charges will be brought instead. Note that in many jurisdictions, if the defence intends to use an alibi defence, the prosecution must be told about it at a very early stage or it can’t be used at all.
The article seems to state the legal standard which I repeat here in a Google Translate version: The former Government delegate for Gender Violence, Miguel Lorente , defines vicarious violence as &quot;violence that, when it seeks to hurt and harm women, instead of doing it directly, seeks to harm people who have special meaning for them.&quot; Harming a child or other person with special meaning to the true target of the violence is, of course, already a serious crime in Spanish law. A finding that the crime was a form of vicarious violence is a sentencing enhancing finding of fact by the court that makes a convicted defendant eligible for what U.S. lawyers would call &quot;life in prison with possibility for parole&quot; even though Google Translate provides a more literal translation from the Spanish of the words used to describe the enhanced sentence for which someone becomes eligible if this is established. Of course, there are other reasons why some people might hurt their children, such as part of a pattern of abuse toward the children unrelated to spousal abuse, for the purpose of collecting life insurance money, as part of sexual abuse, and so forth, so presumably there exist certain criteria in the Spanish legal system to distinguish these cases. Other than the legal definition set forth above, there does not appear to be any further legal guidance for the courts in determining if this sentence enhancing fact has been established. It is merely a question of fact for the judges on the court to determine based upon the evidence presented at trial by the prosecution and reasonable inferences from that evidence. Lawyers for the defendant can argue that this sentence enhancer should not apply because one of the different motives in the quoted material from the question was the actual or predominant motive, and the prosecution can argue that it was indeed vicarious violence, and then the judges have to decide whether they think that the prosecution has met its burden of proof to establish this motive and impose the enhanced sentence (which is authorized, but not required, even if it is established). This isn't going to be the easiest point to make in a typical case for the defendant. Usually, the defense is primarily going to be trying to cast doubt upon whether the prosecution has met its burden of showing that the defendant is guilty of the underlying crime at all, and, for example, having the defendant testify that he did it because he was a pedophile, rather than to hurt his wife is not going to help him all that much. Instead, I would expect that the usual approach of the defendant's lawyer would be to argue that the prosecution's evidence, if believed, supports a prosecution theory of the case that, for example, this murder was about insurance money and not about intimidating the defendant's wife. Another way the the defense could fight this sentencing enhancing claim at trial would be to argue that the specific evidence of the prosecution offer to show the defendant's alleged vicarious violence motive isn't credible in all of the ways the one generally casts doubt on the credibility of evidence in a court case. For example, the defense might offer evidence from a different witness than one offered by the prosecution that cast's doubt on the credibility of the prosecution's witness. Or, the defense might ask (or have the judges in the case ask) questions of the witness who is the key witness on the vicarious violence motive issue, that casts doubt on that witnesses' own testimony (perhaps by pointing out contradictions in the testimony or that the witnesses couldn't have been where the witness claimed to be in earlier testimony). Also, it doesn't appear that vicarious violence has to be an either/or question. Nothing in the definition of vicarious violence suggests, for example, that a defendant can't both have a motive to collect insurance money, and a motive to intimidate the child's mother, at the same time, &quot;killing two birds with one stone&quot; so to speak.
It's happened before in real life. Here is a 1994 article describing an Illinois criminal trial where defense counsel pulled the old switcheroo and sat a different person with him at the defense table instead of the defendant. The defendant, instead, sat somewhere else in the courtroom. After a witness misidentified the perp as the person at the defense table (not the defendant), the judge directed a not-guilty verdict to settle the case but sanctioned the defense attorney instead. The appellate and state supreme courts upheld the sanction (by a one-vote margin in both cases) but dissenting opinions noted counsel and defendant technically broke no rules. From the article: The dissent said Mr. Sotomayor's intent was only to show the unreliability of the prosecution's witness. Moreover, seating a client at counsel's table is customary but not required. Nor is a lawyer obliged [...] to help a witness make an identification. Also, here is a similar but not duplicate question.