Can someone use good deeds to &quot;bribe&quot; their way to innocence? Question inspired by Yakuza Judgement. Carl, the huge rich criminal, is on trial for a murder he obviously committed. But during the trial, he looks at the 12 jurors and says &quot;if you let me go, I will donate 100 million dollars to the Red Cross. What's more important: me being in jail, or 100 million dollars to charity?&quot; Clearly, at least one of the jurors might resonate with this point, and refuse to say Carl is guilty. So what is supposed to happen in this case? Btw, please don't focus on the &quot;letter&quot; of my question, but instead, focus on the &quot;intent&quot; of my question. Maybe Carl's money gets impounded, I don't know. The point is, Carl's arrest does more harm to the world than actually letting him be free. P.S.: For those curious, in the actual game: Carl is on the brink of curing Alzheimer's, but commits a crime. But what if Carl brings up the fact that putting him in jail means millions of people suffer/die from Alzheimer's? Edit: to be clear, no actual bribery is going on. Carl isn't saying &quot;I'll give you $100 if you let me free&quot;. What's happening is Carl has so much good he can do for humanity (e.g. donate millions to charity, take care of children, cure important diseases, etc.), which he can't do if he were in jail. At which point, many jurors might consider that the world would be better off with Carl out of jail (so he could do good for the world) than in jail (solely so that Carl could suffer).
Carl may not do this, as he would be prohibited from making this argument at trial. At trial, evidence must be relevant, meaning that it makes a fact of consequence more or less likely to be true. Because the trial is meant to determine whether Carl is or is not guilty, his promises of future philanthropy have no bearing on the matter. And even if they somehow did, Carl still would not be able to tell the jury about them because they would be blocked under Rule 403, which excludes evidence because its probative value is substantially outweighed by its risk of biasing or confusing the jury. If Carl attempts to make these statements anyway, he risks a mistrial, which means he has to start over with with a new jury. In some jurisdictions, Carl may, however, be permitted to make this argument during the sentencing phase, where the court can properly consider the societal effects of whatever punishment it imposes. At this point, though, it's obviously a little late for Carl, as it presumes he has been convicted.
The purposes of criminal justice include (this list is based on the Sentencing Act 1991 in Victoria): Deterrence Rehabilitation of offenders Denunciation ('this behaviour is wrong') (Retribution can also be a purpose.) What the question is talking about is rehabilitation. As discussed in the book 'Starship Troopers', you can't expect a person to improve their behaviour if they are not shown how. Some simple examples in practice include violent offenders being sent to anger management classes, or bad drivers being sentenced to remedial training. Why aren't all offenders put into rehabilitation programs? Some reasons include: Cost. It would be very expensive to offer all the rehabilitation which would help all offenders. Often this kind of thing is court-ordered, so if the judge does not know about relevant programs or does not assess the offender's needs correctly, then the offender will not be sent to them. The offender is unwilling to participate in programs that are available, and there are limits to how much coercion a given society is comfortable applying. There is no 'one size fits all' rehabilitation. Some people need to talk about what makes them use drugs, others need to talk through their childhood issues, others need training so they can get a job and not fall back into bad habits when they are released from prison. Perhaps North Korea has a great curriculum for putting lots of people in a camp and they come out model citizens, but I'm not aware of the details. Can a person really be forced to do anything? Even the army can't do that. The army might put you in prison, but that's redundant for a person who is already a prisoner. You can always threaten to kill them, I suppose, whip them, or brainwash them with electrodes perhaps, but that depends on your principles as a society. I think it's fair to say that, these days, the trend is towards what the question suggests, which is putting as many offenders as possible into rehabilitation. In 2014 it was reported that Texas took the money it would have spent on building a new prison and used it on rehabilitation instead, and there were suggestions that that worked well.
Given that both parties have committed criminal offenses (the 'bad actor' is attempting fraud and the 'victim' has committed unauthorized access to a computer system), no court would hear a civil case between these parties. As a matter of public policy, criminals do not owe a duty of care to each other so no one can win this case.
How would this scenario play out in the legal system? Prosecutor brings charges against EQM or tries to use that conviction to enhance a subsequent conviction. Defendant EQM raises the pardon as a defense. Prosecutor responds that the pardon was intended to cover EQM Prime, not EQM. The Court holds an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the President intended to pardon EQM Prime or EQM. The Court decides who the President intended to pardon based upon the evidence presented at the hearing, and rules accordingly. The burdens of proof are tricky. Usually affirmative defenses have a preponderance of the evidence burden on the proponent of the defense, but sometimes the defense must be disproved beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't know that part of the law well enough to know without lots of research and the outcome might not be uniform across the U.S. To my knowledge, there has never been a case that got this far in which the true identity of the beneficiary of the pardon was ambiguous. It is possible, but a vanishingly rare possibility. Almost always, someone gets a pardon by asking for it and determining whether EQM or EQM Prime asked resolves it, or a reference to the crime resolves it. If the Court concludes that both asked the same President to be pardoned for the same crime (e.g. if the same crime was committed jointly by father and by son who is named after father and doesn't use Jr. day to day) and the Court concludes that the President was probably confused and didn't realize that there were two requests from different people and not one, the judge would probably give them the benefit of the doubt and treat both as pardoned as that would still reflect the President's intent.
Bribery always involves a public official or person with a legal duty (such as a witness in a legal proceeding). It is illegal for such a person to accept a bribe. See 18 USC 201. We speak metaphorically about "bribing" when we aren't actually talking about the same thing as the legal concept. Seen as a contractual matter outside the legal concept of bribery, a contract requiring a person to cover up a violation of the law would be unenforceable. However, it would be the crime of extortion to threaten to expose the criminal, so to rule that out, we would have to assume that the criminal knew that Jones could rat him out, and he offers Jones money to keep quiet. If the agreement were to "not testify", then that would be bribery. In other words, we have an almost perfectly innocent person, who acted entirely legally (did not extort, is not a public official, did not accept money in connection with testifying in court), and accepted money given for an unenforceable purpose which was breached. Their only fault was accepting payment to not turn a criminal in (and even then, they did turn him in). I can't find relevant US case law that definitely rules one way or the other. I believe though that the court would not order the money returned to the criminal – the court would do nothing to validate such a contract.
If such conversations are reported, it can place the suspect in a dilemma. Consider a man who appears to have overdosed on illegal narcotics. He is taken to the hospital, and the doctor asks what kind of drugs he took, in order to plan his treatment. If the man thinks that what he says could be used to prosecute him, he might lie to the doctor. Then he would not receive proper medical treatment, putting his health at risk. Lawmakers or police authorities might decide that it is better for society for people to always be able to speak freely to their doctors and receive proper treatment, even if it means that it will sometimes be harder to prosecute criminals. That would be one possible rationale for a rule like this.
would this be illegal in the U.S.A.? This would almost certainly fail under the US Constitutions 8th Amendment as being a &quot;cruel and unusual punishment&quot;: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted While the inmate has been sentenced to execution, they are still afforded a lot of protection and are entitled to a stay of execution at any point (which is why there is typically an open telephone line to the state governor etc right up to the point at which the execution starts). Being deliberately put in harms way to catch a killer just because they have been sentenced to execution would be both a cruel and an unusual punishment.
Yes. In 1872 President Grant was stopped for speeding (on horseback, mind you). The officer, observing that he had stopped the President of the United States, initially let him go with nothing but a verbal warning. Later the same day, the same officer stopped Grant again speeding in the same place. The officer then informed Grant that he would have to be taken in, to which Grant gave a reply encouraging the officer to do his duty. Grant was then taken to the police station where he was charged with speeding, and held until he paid a $20 fine, at which point he was released. In summary, POTUS was: Charged with an offence Deprived of his liberty for committing said offence Held until he served his punishment (paying $20) ... all without impeachment. Now, this was a long time ago. I think that today, this is unlikely, since Secret Service would (legal or not) shield the President from arrests (national security reasons). However if a state level authority did manage to arrest the President for a crime and refused to let him go, then the Vice President and cabinet would invoke the 25th Amendment (on the grounds that the President is unable to discharge his duties due to imprisonment), so that the imprisoned person would now be a former president.