Can someone be punished with death penalty for other reasons than murder? In the states that have the death penalty, can Jon Doe be sentenced to death if he did not commit murder or a national security crime? I'm not asking if he could be wrongly sentenced. Let's say Jon Doe commits a crime like the theft of one trillion dollars and that money is gone for good (he lit it on fire), could he be sentenced to death after being found guilty?
In the US, only crimes that involve death or crimes against the state can be punished with death, see Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (this was a child rape case and execution was held to be unconstitutional). There is a consideration of "proportionality" whereby execution is not an option for all crimes involving death. The court doesn't include or exclude non-death cases, they explicitly kick the can down the road ("We do not address, for example, crimes defining and punishing treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the State"). Therefore, there is no ruling that bars execution for treason, but there is for rape and burning someone's stack of hundreds. This is a list of 2008 pre-Kennedy non-murder "surviving" state capital offenses (most of the cases listed in the article are for rape, which was ruled unconstitutional): Treason (Arkansas, Calif., Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Washington) Aggravated kidnapping (Co., Idaho, Il., Missouri, Mont.) Drug trafficking (Fl., Missouri) Aircraft hijacking (Ga., Mo.) Placing a bomb near a bus terminal (Mo.) Espionage (New Mexico) Aggravated assault by incarcerated, persistent felons, or murderers (Mont.) However, in Washington the death penalty is now unconstititional. The Missouri penalty for treason has been since reduced to a maximum of life imprisonment. On the other hand, Florida still has a "capital drug trafficking" penalty if you import 300+ kg of cocaine, knowing that "the probable result of such importation would be the death of any person" (death does not have to actually result). Here is a list of federal crimes that allow execution, which includes only large-scale drug trafficking, espionage and treason in the non-death crimes.
A punishment is basically a harm to someone's person, liberty, dignity, or property imposed primarily for the purpose of harming someone, rather than to accomplish some non-punitive end such as apprehending a suspected criminal, securing compliance with a court order, exchanging truthful facts, or compensating someone for harm legally attributable to the person upon whom the act is imposed. If a police officer shoots and kills a person while they are in the process of committing a crime, that is not a punishment, because the officer is not trying to punish someone for committing the crime, but to prevent the crime from continuing and/or to apprehend the suspect. If the use of force is justified by a law authorizing it under the circumstances, then it is legal and there are no civil or criminal consequences. If the use of force is not justified by a law authorizing it under the circumstances it might be a crime, it might be a &quot;tort&quot; (i.e. a civil wrong for which you can sue someone, especially if it arises at common law), or it might be a civil rights violation. Law enforcement officers generally have broad absolute immunity from common law tort liability incurred the course of their duties in carrying out their jobs, and have &quot;qualified immunity&quot; from liability for civil rights violations which limits their liability to cases of intentional violations of clearly established constitutional rights. In a case arising from an excessive use of force against someone who is not in custody, generally speaking, the constitutional right violated is the 4th Amendment right to be free of unreasonable seizures and to be free from seizures that that are not supported by probable cause. Generally speaking, the law does not recognize an excessive use of force in connection with the criminal justice system as a &quot;taking&quot; for which there is a right to both due process and fair market value compensation (to somewhat oversimplify). Generally speaking, an 8th Amendment analysis involving the use of force (as opposed to taking of money or property in the criminal justice system which are subject to the excessive fines clause of the Bill of Rights), begins, and the 4th Amendment seizure analysis ends, when someone is in custody. A police officer who arrests someone and then beats them up or rapes them and then releases them, might be entering into 8th Amendment, rather than 4th Amendment territory, although the dividing lines are not always clear.
Yes When you enter the jurisdiction of a country, you are subject to its laws. You are not, in general, subject to punishment for things you did before you entered its jurisdiction but if possession of bitcoin (or anything else) is illegal in that country, then possessing that thing makes you subject to prosecution.
There is usually a law that could be stretched to cover such a case. In Washington, RCW 9A.28.030 says A person is guilty of criminal solicitation when, with intent to promote or facilitate the commission of a crime, he or she offers to give or gives money or other thing of value to another to engage in specific conduct which would constitute such crime or which would establish complicity of such other person in its commission or attempted commission had such crime been attempted or committed. The "intent" of the law is to punish people for saying "I'll give you $5000 to kill Smith". But just looking at the text, if you give someone money to encourage them to engage in a specific kind of criminal conduct (e.g. beating people up), then you've violated the law. So, handing a guy $5,000 and saying "I think you should be rewarded for your act" could easily be construed as promoting the future commission of the same or similar crime.
Defendants in the US would be charged with racketeering, not bribery, since government officials were not bribed. The DoJ indictment against Webb et al. is here: most of the defendants are not citizens of the US, though none are listed as being government officials. DoJ could certainly seek an indictment of ministers, senators or presidents of foreign countries. If said official were in the US on an ordinary passport, they could be arrested. They also might be arrested by e.g. Argentinian policy and extradited to the US, but whether that would be legal depends on the country (some countries don't extradite their own citizens; there would have to be an extradition treaty between that country and the US). It is inconceivable that any nation would hand over a sitting president because of an indictment by the US, and generally unlikely for any government official, but the official could be locally deposed first. But whether a government would do this is basically a political question, not a legal one.
I do not know what actually happened to anyone in the aftermath of this incident, but it is unlikely that there is a basis for civil or criminal liability in this case. Criminal liability does not generally attach to negligent conduct except in cases of homicide or criminally negligent motor vehicle operation. But, this case appears to have involved mere negligence. It appears that somebody made an honest mistake rather than acting recklessly or intentionally to cause harm. Governmental entities and officers of governmental agencies acting in their official capacity have immunity from liability for negligence except in some vary narrowly defined areas (e.g. failure to maintain government buildings, medical mistakes in government hospitals, and car accidents) which seem unlikely to be implicated here. But, it seems likely that the responsible parties were all governmental entities or officers of governmental agencies acting in their official capacities. So, it is unlikely that there would be civil liability either. Needless to say, however, this does not look good on the job performance record of any civil servant below the Governor (who doesn't get evaluated in that way) when being considered for promotion, demotion, unfavorable transfers or even termination of employment. Obviously, if new facts were uncovered and this was actually more nefarious than it seems, and this hidden truth was discovered, there could be a basis for civil or criminal liability. But, if this was the case, it would have made headlines.
You're wrong in the first sentence So I agree, that a hung jury is in fact reasonable doubt by lack of concurrence, the defendant should be acquitted. No. A hung jury just means they can't decide on any item they should decide about, for whatever reason. Maybe they all want to see the defendant guilty but can't decide if it is murder 1st or 2nd degree, or one of them is just trying to stay out of work and just is contrarian to whatever the jury deliberates, wether guilty or not guilty. In either case they can not tell the judge what they can't agree about. They can only tell the judge that they can't agree on a verdict. Since the judge can't assume anything about the deliberations, he can only reset trial and swap the jury for one that actually might be able to decide. The whole Jury is tossed out, their deliberations don't matter anymore - their hung state does not influence the re-trial.
One of the conditions for a contract to be enforceable is that its undertakings must be legal. This would mean that you cannot, contractually, be indemnified for murder - at least, not in any jurisdiction where homicide is illegal.