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How long is it murder?

How long after an incident occurs can a person live and it still be murder?

  • 1 year

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 10 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 20 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    9

Kreton

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NY woman dies after 21 years in coma - CBS News

Reading this story brings a question to my mind. If I inflict harm on you how long should you be allowed to live before complications of the harm I inflicted are no longer considered murder?

For instance, person A stabs person B and punctures a lung. Person B lives and is released and lets even say living a normal life. 5 years later person B does of complications due to the stabbing. Is person A still on the hook for murder? Even after serving time for the assualt? If not 5 years, what about 10? 20? 2? What does everyone think?
 
year and a day iirc

but that's not legal advice and ianal
lol

I had never heard of that and good to know. However, from the article

The rule's status in the United States is less clear: many states have abolished it completely, and in 2001 the Supreme Court held that a Tennessee court's retroactive abolition of the rule was constitutional.[2] However, the rule's common law status has been successfully used by defendants to overturn convictions as recently as 2003: the Supreme Court of Wisconsin upheld the year and a day rule in the case before it, but simultaneously abolished the rule for any later cases, noting the modern circumstances of homicide cases, in which there is "the specter of a family's being forced to choose between terminating the use of a life-support system and allowing an accused to escape a murder charge" and the court's finding that it is "unjust to permit an assailant to escape punishment because of a convergence of modern medical advances and an archaic rule from the thirteenth century".[3]

In California, the "year and a day" rule has been changed to a "three years and a day" rule.[4] If a death occurs more than three years and one day after the act alleged to have caused it, there is "a rebuttable presumption that the killing was not criminal", but the prosecution may seek to overcome this presumption

Out of curiosity do you think a year and a day is the correct way to go with it?
 
NY woman dies after 21 years in coma - CBS News

Reading this story brings a question to my mind. If I inflict harm on you how long should you be allowed to live before complications of the harm I inflicted are no longer considered murder?

For instance, person A stabs person B and punctures a lung. Person B lives and is released and lets even say living a normal life. 5 years later person B does of complications due to the stabbing. Is person A still on the hook for murder? Even after serving time for the assualt? If not 5 years, what about 10? 20? 2? What does everyone think?

Forever- assuming that it's proven absolutely that the resulting death was caused by the initial incident. The only thing that changes between someone dying instantly or 20 years later is time. The causal relationship still exists. The person will have lived longer, but their life was still cut short by the incident. How short it was cut is obviously irrelevant - homicide of the elderly and of the young is still homicide, just as punishable. The victim getting the opportunity to live longer does not make him less of a victim of murder.
 
Out of curiosity do you think a year and a day is the correct way to go with it?
I would want to talk to a Dr. to find out more info.
It says she died of pneumonia. The proximate cause of the pneumonia two decades down the line is certainly not the beating she took.


Perhaps we need to revamp the laws about putting people into certain medical conditions?
 
Provided that evidence can be presented beyond a reasonable doubt that the initial assault was directly responsible for the death of the individual in question, there should be no time limit. Murder has no statuette of limitations. However, sentencing should have a number of mitigating factors. Since the attacker was likely charged with attempted murder, the sentence should be reduced for time served. There should also be a significant reduction if the perpetrator has managed to successfully re-integrate with society in the intervening time period.
 
If the death was a result of the initial assault then yes it is murder. If the stabee were hit by a bus and died then it would be on the bus driver and not on the stabber.
 
However, that doesn't mean that if someone dies years later of totally unrelated causes that the person can be charged. If i get stabbed, live 5 years, and then die of a heart attack then I wouldn't want the person to be charged (if only I could have a say in it)
 
If one is convicted of a crime, a new charge for the exact same action that one has already been convicted of would appear to be a violation of double jeopardy. A single shot fired by a criminal cannot be both attempted murder AND murder on the same individual. I would think that double jeopardy would also apply to sentencing.
 
If one is convicted of a crime, a new charge for the exact same action that one has already been convicted of would appear to be a violation of double jeopardy. A single shot fired by a criminal cannot be both attempted murder AND murder on the same individual. I would think that double jeopardy would also apply to sentencing.

But he wouldn't be retried for the same crime. He would be tried for a different crime, just on the same person
 
If one is convicted of a crime, a new charge for the exact same action that one has already been convicted of would appear to be a violation of double jeopardy. A single shot fired by a criminal cannot be both attempted murder AND murder on the same individual. I would think that double jeopardy would also apply to sentencing.

That is a fair point. However, I would consider this situation to be a legitimate exception to double jeopardy, provided that credit is given for time already served.
 
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