How much must a prison inmate protest against the incorrect actions of prison officials that erroneously benefit the inmate? Based (loosely) on a recent event here in Ontario: https://www.thespec.com/news/crime/2020/08/18/do-not-approach-milton-prisoner-released-by-mistake-into-community.html Sam has been correctly convicted of a serious criminal offence. He's been sentenced to 5 years, all appeals have been exhausted, and he's 12 months into his sentence. So he's surprised when the Correctional Officers tell him, one morning, that he is to be released immediately. Sam knows of no reason that he should be released. He decides to just do as he's told, gathers his possessions from his cell and from storage, and is processed out the door, and walks away. A few hours later it becomes clear that a different prisoner was supposed to be released. Much confusion ensues, and authorities explain that they are &quot;actively looking&quot; for Sam. To be clear, Sam did not take the place of another prisoner that was to be released. He did not somehow arrange for an incorrect order to come to the prison. Because of some purely internal Corrections accidental paper-work foul-up, the prison received proper instructions to release Sam specifically, and they did. So, assuming that Sam is located quickly, has he committed any additional offence? Should he have protested his release, and insisted on staying in prison?
There's only one crime that could be applicable in this case, section 145 (1) of the Criminal Code: 145 (1) Every person who escapes from lawful custody or who is, before the expiration of a term of imprisonment to which they were sentenced, at large in or outside Canada without lawful excuse, is guilty of (a) an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years; or (b) an offence punishable on summary conviction. While the term &quot;lawful excuse&quot; isn't well defined in Canadian law, and its interpretation varies from crime to crime, it certainly includes obeying what ultimately amounts to being an order to leave the prison. If there's any doubt about this being a valid excuse for the prisoner, the same doubt would apply to same excuse any prison guard would have for helping the prisoner to &quot;escape&quot;. A person has no right to be imprisoned, and so has no basis to insist remaining imprisoned or to protest their release. Being released early from prison isn't a crime, and can happen legitimately for a number of reasons. On the other hand, remaining in the prison after being ordered to leave would be trespassing at least.
As in some other jurisdictions, what most people think of as "false imprisonment" is categorized as kidnapping in Massachusetts, codified at Chapter 265, Section 26: Whoever, without lawful authority, forcibly or secretly confines or imprisons another person within this commonwealth against his will, or forcibly carries or sends such person out of this commonwealth, or forcibly seizes and confines or inveigles or kidnaps another person, with intent either to cause him to be secretly confined or imprisoned in this commonwealth against his will, or to cause him to be sent out of this commonwealth against his will or in any way held to service against his will, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than ten years or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars and imprisonment in jail for not more than two years. Whoever commits any offence described in this section with the intent to extort money or other valuable thing thereby shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life or for any term of years. Separate from the criminal offense, Massachusetts courts also recognize civil actions for false imprisonment.
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.
Defendants cannot switcheroo whenever they want. There are good reasons why this is almost never done. The lawyer in any of these scenarios is violating an ethical duty of candor to the tribunal, if it is done without court permission (which is unlikely to be granted), even if the client suggested or insisted upon the idea. The lawyer would be responsible for his or her client's actions by cooperating in it, rather than calling out his client in open court over the objections of the client to prevent the switcheroo from working, as the lawyer would have an ethical obligation to do. I would not really consider this to be a gray area. The relevant ethical rules and the related official commentaries to them are quite clear, even if they are not absolutely perfectly clear. Those rules create an affirmative duty of an attorney to prevent his or her client from misleading members of a tribunal (either a judge or a jury or both). Cooperating with this scheme could (and likely would) result in professional licensure related sanctions ranging from a private censure to disbarment for the lawyer, just as it did in the linked 1994 case. Also, while a "not guilty" verdict was entered in the 1994 case, the prosecution would have a good chance of success if they demanded that the judge declare a mistrial, and also a good chance of avoiding double jeopardy limitations in this situation, because the mistrial arose from the actions of the defendant trying to bring about the situation. On the other hand, if this trick worked so well that the prosecutors came to the conclusion that their primary witness linking the defendant to the crime was wrong and that the defendant was not actually the person who committed the crime, the prosecutors would have an ethical duty to not attempt to prosecute the individual whom the prosecutors now believed to be factually innocent (the analysis is actually a bit more complex than that, but that is the gist of it). The defendant and the attorney could (and likely would) also each be held in direct, punitive contempt of court by the judge for this conduct, allowing them to be summarily punished by imprisonment or a fine to an extent similar to a misdemeanor violation, on the spot, without a trial other than an opportunity to explain themselves to the judge in a sentence or two each, since it would be conduct in violation of the good order of the court and disrespectful of its rules and decorum conducted in the actual courtroom in the presence of the judge. Each could easily end up spending several months in jail on the spot for that stunt and perhaps a $1,000 fine each, if the judge was sufficiently displeased. There would be a right to appeal this contempt of court sanction, but the contempt of court punishment would almost surely be upheld on appeal in these circumstances. In a case where the criminal defendant faces extremely severe sanctions if found guilty, such as the death penalty or life in prison, and the defense attorney was a self-sacrificing idealist or close family member of the criminal defendant, one could imagine the defense attorney and client deciding that the professional and contempt citation sanctions were worth being punished with, in order to save the life of the criminal defendant, if they also were convinced that this trick would work so well that the prosecutors would be persuaded of the criminal defendant's innocence sufficiently to not insist on retrying the criminal defendant in a new trial. This would be somewhat analogous to an intentional foul in basketball, but with much higher stakes. But, this would be an extraordinarily rare situation in court, because the punishment for this "intentional foul" in the courtroom are much more severe, and because the likelihood of it producing a beneficial result is much smaller. It isn't hard to understand why a successful switcheroo feels morally justified. It prevents a witness whose testimony would have been much less reliable than it actually would have been from being used to convict a criminal defendant who might conceivably be factually innocent. And it might be very hard to discredit the testimony of that witness in any other way in order to prevent a wrongful conviction of the criminal defendant. Eye witness misidentifications are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions, and are especially common in death penalty cases because jurors are "death qualified" making them more pro-prosecution than a typical jury. Preventing innocent people from being convicted of crimes is one of several important values of the criminal justice system, and this is the instinct that probably motivated the dissents in the professional misconduct process in the 1994 case. But, the court system also strongly values candor on the part of attorneys, and likewise values not having the court systems be used to trip up witnesses who may sincerely think that they are telling the truth even if they are mistaken about the accuracy of their testimony, in a deceptive manner. In this situation, the latter candor consideration usually prevails, because the rules prohibiting this kind of conduct and scheme, which admits no "moral justification" or "necessity exception", are quite clear. In the same vein, a prosecuting attorney can be sanctioned (and has been on at least one occasion in Colorado) for not being truthful in communications to third parties, even when the lies are used to peacefully defuse a potentially deadly hostage situation. For attorneys, the duty of candor and truthfulness really knows no exceptions. Cops, in contrast, however, are allowed to lie in many circumstances to secure confessions or stop criminals.
Lying in itself ("of course you will get a wifi signal here") is not a crime. However, if you have proof that the lies were intended to benefit your landlord at your expense ("You won't sign the lease unless there's wifi? No problem") and that they actually did so ("You've signed the lease, it's too late to back out"), he may be guilty of fraud, which is a civil wrong and may be a crime. You would be well advised to consult a lawyer before going amy further, since there are probably ten people believing themselves to be victims of fraud for every one who actually is so in legal terms. The lawyer will also probably tell you that the best you can hope for is restoration to the state before the lies (in my example, the lease is cancelled and you get your deposit back), though the authorities will look at prosecuting the landlord.
At half a million I would expect it is qualifies as &quot;felony or other crime&quot; - the U.S. Constitution (Article IV Section 2) requires that: A person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.
It is the job of the judge to instruct the jury about the law. If Texas had pattern instructions I'd look up what the instruction is for this matter, but you don't, so I don't know what the judge would say. But it is the judge's sole prerogative to instruct the jury in the law. If the question is a "commitment question", then it is an improper question and should be disallowed, see Stendefer v. State. The question "Would you presume someone guilty if he or she refused a breath test on their refusal alone?" is such a commitment question, and is disallowed. Similarly, "If the evidence, in a hypothetical case, showed that a person was arrested and they had a crack pipe in their pocket, and they had a residue amount in it, and it could be measured, and it could be seen, is there anyone who could not convict a person, based on that" (Atkins v. State, 951 S.W.2d 787). An improper commitment question could be of the type "could you refrain...": Let us assume that you are considering in the penalty phase of any capital murder case, okay? And some of the evidence that has come in shows that the victim's family was greatly impacted and terribly grieved and greatly harmed by the facts․Can you assure us that the knowledge of those facts would not prevent you or substantially impair you in considering a life sentence in such a case (Penry v. State, 903 S.W.2d 715). One way in which a commitment question can be legal is if it asks basically "can you uphold the law?", for example "can you consider probation in a murder case?", or "are you willing to consider mitigating circumstances". The wrong answer to those questions will lead to a for-cause dismissal. The third question is flagrantly improper, the first is rather improper, and the second probably is. If the question can be framed in terms of a candidate's willingness to follow the law, then it should be legal.
also, what is &quot;cannot be punished on account thereof because they lacked criminal responsibility due to the intoxication or if this cannot be ruled out&quot;? I can not understand This means that if a person, while drunk, does soemthign that would otherwise be a crime, but the person cannot be charged because s/he was too drunk to know that s/he was committing a crime, such a person can insted be charged with having become intoxicated, and given up to the same punishment that would have been given for conviction for doign the unlawful act. For example, if a person damaged property while under the influence of alcohol (drunk), it might be impossible under German law to prosecute for the crime of intentionally damaging property, because one could not prove that the person knew what s/he was doing, and knew that it was criminal. In such a case the person could be charged with having intentionally or carelessly become drunk, but the penalty can't be more than the penalty for having damaged property would have been, nor can it be more than five years. As a practical matter, I think it very unlikely that the police would seek to impose a fine if they didn't issue any ticket or other paperwork at the scene, nor mention any such intention. However, they might be legally able to do so.