Is this scenario illegal or just immoral? Imagine a sociopath (let's call him A) and has his fun by playing with depressive people, especially B. One day, B asks A if he can obtain potassium cyanide capsules for commiting suicide. A replies that yes, indeed he can get those, and a few days later he gives him crushed tictacs inside a digestible capsule. B goes into the basement of the place where A and B met, and takes the pill in good faith of dying from it. Meanwhile, A and some friends of A are upstairs and are laughing, while B sits in the basement and waits hours until the pill works. The pill was delivered freely, without any money or other goods or services or anything like that involved. This is morally reprehensible of course, but is this illegal in any way? I'd be interested especially in Germanys law, but laws of other countries would be interesting too. This is neither murder nor manslaughter as A does not kill B (or even really harm him), and also (at least in Germany) suicididal tendencies are not illegal. How would this be prosecuted?
Most states have a low barring the distribution of counterfeit drugs, which this would appear to violate. For example, the Colorado Imitation and Counterfeit Controlled Substances Act, codified at Sections 18-18-419 to 18-18-424, Colorado Revised Statutes, makes it a minor drug felony (class 4) to distribute an imitation controlled substance which is &quot;a substance that is not the controlled substance that it is purported to be but which, by appearance, including color, shape, size, and markings, by representations made, and by consideration of all relevant factors as set forth in section 18-18-421, would lead a reasonable person to believe that the substance is the controlled substance that it is purported to be.&quot; It already contains a placebo exception for medical professionals stating that it &quot;shall not apply to practitioners licensed, registered, or otherwise authorized under the laws of this state to possess, administer, dispense, or distribute a controlled substance, if the distribution, possession, dispensing, or administering of the imitation controlled substance is done in the lawful course of his professional practice.&quot; But there is an argument that the intended purposes of the use of the counterfeit rather than the real thing was to prevent a suicide, and that doing so had that effect, which might excuse the crime. The fact that B initiated the conversation by asking A and might have successfully obtained the drug if he asked someone else makes this defense particularly plausible. People who fail to commit suicide do not statistically just try again by another method, suicide is an impulsive action that if prevented is not nearly as likely to recur if someone fails to do so by one particular method. Colorado expressly allows the use of physical force to prevent a suicide. &quot;A person acting under a reasonable belief that another person is about to commit suicide or to inflict serious bodily injury upon himself may use reasonable and appropriate physical force upon that person to the extent that it is reasonably necessary to thwart the result.&quot; Section 18-1-703(1)(d), Colorado Revised Statutes. This isn't actually a use for physical force, but it informs the application of the &quot;choice of evils&quot; defense, codified at Section 18-1-702, Colorado Revised Statutes in Colorado, which provides (with nuances not reproduced here) that: conduct which would otherwise constitute an offense is justifiable and not criminal when it is necessary as an emergency measure to avoid an imminent public or private injury which is about to occur by reason of a situation occasioned or developed through no conduct of the actor, and which is of sufficient gravity that, according to ordinary standards of intelligence and morality, the desirability and urgency of avoiding the injury clearly outweigh the desirability of avoiding the injury sought to be prevented by the statute defining the offense in issue. It isn't obviously immoral either (for the same reasons), although one could make a case that the &quot;victim&quot; could bring the tort of outrageous conduct a.k.a. intentional infliction of emotional distress, against the person causing it, although again, the question would be what were the damages and was it justified. The tort remedy is a better fit as it is often used in cases of &quot;pranks&quot; calculated to cause extreme emotional distress as this one apparently was. The intent of the &quot;victim&quot; to commit suicide might also constitute &quot;unclean hands&quot; barring a tort recovery in this situation in tort law if asserted by person A.
You may, though you may have to be careful about that you say. Providing information about alternative medicine is legal in the US. You can read this article which addresses unapproved medications and therapies from a medical policy perspective, touching lightly on legislation. There are restrictions, enforced by the FDA and the FTC, on what you can sell and claim for your products, in case you sell dietary supplements or are in some other way making a business of purportedly curing people. Here is a starter page about FTC regulation of health claims. Here, for example, are some actions that the FTC took against companies for unproven CBD claims, such as an action against Bionatrol, with many kinds of purportedly false claims made &quot;In connection with the advertising, promotion, offering for sale, sale, or distribution of CBD Products&quot;. It's not the claims that are illegal, it's making the claims in commerce that's illegal. The FDA regulates drugs and devices, and this page divides the FDA regulations into functional types such as &quot;drugs&quot; and &quot;medical devices&quot;. It would be illegal to sell a &quot;brain ray machine&quot; that purports to cure cancer, but it would not be illegal to describe how to build one. There are a number of DIY treatments available on the internet, for removing ticks, slivers, for bandaging scrapes and so on, none of which have or require government approval (in the US). In some cases, such a website might infringe copyright or a patent, so that would be a way in which the website could be illegal (Four Thieves Vinegar). Without any further information on what such a website is saying, it's hard to be sure but this gives you the general limits on the legality of such a site.
Invasion of privacy and false light torts would probably not be applicable here. Very few states have adopted the false light tort because of its conflict with First Amendment principles and there was no agreement or even request to keep the text private. The copyright issue is trickier. First all, the TOS may provide that the copyright belongs to the text service provider or that there is a license. But, even in the absence of an express license, sending someone a message which is equivalent to sending them a letter, probably gives rise to an implied license that the person to whom it is sent can use the message that arises merely from the act of sending it without restriction or qualification. Implied license and fair use also heavily overlap. Publishing the text exactly as it was sent to you protects you from defamation liability because it is true. On the whole it would be extremely unlikely for there to be any legal liability for publishing a text from someone that they sent to you. Of course, one can imagine exceptions. If the person receiving the text was in an attorney-client relationship, or priest-parishioner making confession relationship, or was communicating regarding classified national security matters, or there was a non-disclosure agreement in place, among other possibilities, an evidentiary privilege and duty of confidentiality could apply and disclosing the material without the permission of the privilege holder could breach a duty of confidentiality and give rise to liability. If the picture was a nude picture of a minor, there could be a criminal and/or civil liability issue, and some states have also made posting "revenge porn" a criminal offense and/or a basis for civil liability. If the disclosure was effectively a way to facilitate insider trading that could be a problem. If the contents of the text were accurately transmitted but known to be false and were disseminated without disclosure of its falsity for the purpose of defrauding a third party, that could be a problem. But, no facts that obviously flag any exception are identified in the question. The mere fact that the posting may be embarrassing, or hurt someone's reputation, or was made without someone's express consent, in general, would not be a basis for liability.
Not necessarily. Let's say the victim delivered photos of a harm that were alleged to be done by the defendant. That's a crime in itself. But based on this item the DA orders investigation and finds evidence of a real crime. Discovering that the photo was faked can lead to dismissal (with prejudice), but even without the fake photo, there might be a strong case against defendant. Also, the photo could not even be used as evidence in the actual trial stage. A good defense attorney might manage to convince the judge, that the doctored photo should have been discovered such early in the investigation, but I doubt, that one could manage to make everything else in a proper investigation fruit of the poisoned tree unless police screwed up.
Am i going to jail? I'm so scared. No, probably not. The details depend on jurisdiction, but normally the only crime you could be accused of would be that of forgery. However, forgery by definition requires an "intention to deceive". So my personal advice would be to come clean immediately: Go to your employer, and tell them you did not understand the checkout system and accidentally signed yourself, instead of having the customer sign. If you do that, what you did would not count as forgery, because (as you explain) you did not do it on purpose to trick someone. Now, your boss may still decide to discipline you in some way, maybe even fire you, but that's out of your hand. If they are reasonable, they'll hopefully understand a minor mistake on the first day. That said, it is possible your jurisdiction has special penalties for incorrectly filling out medical documents, so there may be more to it - but I doubt it. To be sure, try asking someone you know and trust who is familiar with the legal rules around medication. Or book a single consultation with a lawyer - this is not cheap (typically around $100 in the USA, or 100€ in the EU), but will give you peace of mind. You could also try asking around if there is a local initiative which offers legal help, possibly a professional organization or trade union.
Yes. This is legal, even though it is highly unlikely. There were very few, if any, instances of the federal pardon power being used this way historically, but it could happen, and President Trump, while he was in office, intimated that he might use the pardon power in this fashion. Realistically, it would be easier for the President to prevent someone from being prosecuted in the first place if the crime took place during his term, but he might pardon someone who committed the crime under a previous administration. The fact pattern in the question: “don’t be surprised if I pardon anyone that puts to death repeat heroin and fentanyl dealers dealing in amounts larger than 50 pounds” doesn't sound very morally palatable. But consider a slight variant of it which is much more plausible. Suppose that while running for office a Presidential candidate says: don't be surprised if I pardon someone who was convicted of homicide in a previous administration for killing someone who had been using them as a sex slave in a human trafficking network, or killing someone who was in the process of raping them shortly before their divorce became final but was not allowed to assert a self-defense argument at trial because marital rape was legal at the time. Now arguably that's different, because it doesn't induce someone to commit a future crime. But the President has broad discretion to make policy to de-emphasize certain kinds of criminal prosecutions in any case while in office even without the pardon power, and generally, this is not a basis for having a special prosecutor appointed at the federal level since there is no individualized conflict of interest. Of course, the U.S. President can only pardon someone from a federal crime and can't pardon state crimes or criminal convictions from other countries. So, even if the President pardoned someone of a federal crime in this situation, the state in which the murders took place could prosecute the individual for murder unimpeded (constitutional double jeopardy considerations would also not bar a state prosecution following the federal prosecution). Indeed, the vast majority of murder prosecutions are made under state law, and there are very few murders that take place which are beyond the jurisdiction of any U.S. state and any foreign country, that are in the jurisdiction of the U.S. government and covered by a federal homicide statute, in any year. As noted by @hszmv in a comment to another answer: Federal Murder charges are a thing and can be prosecuted, but are normally reserved for murders that either involve federal government employees (especially if they are murdered because of the duties the performed in the course of their duty or the status as a federal employee) OR murders that occur on Federally Owned Property OR the Murder involved crossing state lines OR is in U.S. Jurisdiction but not in a territory or state jurisdiction (usually applies to some uninhabited territorial islands or U.S./International Waters). Further, a pardon would not prohibit the victim's family for suing the murderer for wrongful death, and indeed, probably wouldn't prohibit them from using the murder conviction that was pardoned to conclusively establish liability in a civil case under the doctrine of collateral estoppel (I haven't researched that highly specific and technical civil procedure issue, however, but even if that wasn't possible, the murder trial transcript would be admissible in the civil case). A civil judgement for wrongful death was famously obtained against O.J. Simpson by the victim's family after O.J. Simpson was acquitted in a criminal murder trial. This tactic would really only be helpful to a prospective defendant with respect to cases where there is not a parallel criminal offense under state law.
You didn't post the details of what exactly is involved with a "vampire initiation fee": is this simply the purchase of an physical object? Or the purchase of a service, such as the placing of a spell or the providing of the service of alleged protection from vampires? Or is this some form of a real "Advance-fee scam" where money and banking credentials or personal information is involved? (See link below). But in the big picture, one person's scam is another person's persuasive business sales pitch for an unusual item or service. Simply being able to pay for such an item or service doesn't make the sale - or the contract to sell it - illegal everywhere. It may be the case that selling an "vampire initiation fee" does not happen to be illegal in Nigeria. Illegal in the US, possibly yes. illegal there? Maybe not. Contract laws differ; in the US, contracting for something that is illegal voids the contract. In Nigeria, maybe not. Though the "vampire initiation fee" doesn't sound to me like a classic Advance-fee scam (Wikipedia), Google search on 419 scams and the results will tell you that it will be nearly impossible to get a prosecutor in that country to deal with anything like that, even if it is a real scam that promises lots of money for an upfront fee. Prosecutors have much better things to do. And you might have to go to Nigeria to make your case; see other answers that more fully outline the laws and legal aspects. Good luck. And it's better to spend your money on some garlic and a mirror. 7/03/18 Update re: the email transcript linked in question That's not a scam; the person is simply trying to sell you on the initiation fee. There is no crime. There is no promise of more money for a small fee (and bank credentials or personal information) like a typical 419 advance fee scam. You're not producing useful evidence for a prosecutor by engaging in the email and mostly agreeing to pay him. It's not illegal for you to send money by Western Union for the vampire fee. Even if you did send money, you're not being defrauded because you already know the vampire initiation is fake, and as a result you couldn't logically prove to a prosecutor or court that you were scammed. He's not guilty of fraud as no money has changed hands for a (fraudulent) service. Emailing with him might make you feel good by wasting his time, but that's all.
That is not a valid assumption. Many states have laws that let you presume someone is a threat to your life if they forcibly enter your house. Simple trespass on your land does not let you reasonably presume someone is a murderer. An autonomous killer drone is not a comparison you want to make: those may be illegal entirely, and are likely to seriously hurt any claim of justifiable force. “You forfeit your right to live when you set foot on my property” is not justifiable. If the dogs are trained to be a hazard to the community, that’s an argument in favor of having them confiscated and destroyed. Dogs are not people. Under normal circumstances, they cannot be protected under self-defense or the defense of others. Those doctrines only apply when a person is in danger. Deadly force is sometimes allowed to protect property, but this tends to be strictly limited. To start with, you can only ever use force to prevent illegal damage to property. If your concern is “this animal control officer will destroy my dogs within the scope of their duty,” that’s not protecting against an illegal use of force. Deadly force in defense of property is also normally limited to particular crimes that are inherently dangerous, like arson, robbery, or burglary. Even in Texas, simple theft only justifies deadly force during the nighttime. Deadly force is also not justifiable if there were reasonable other options. Shooting an animal control officer is unlikely to be the only way to temporarily stop them from destroying a dog. Threatening violence in order to influence a judge’s decision is terrorism. This hypothetical man is a terrorist. He may well find himself on death row for murder, but he’s also going to face separate charges for terrorism.