Is it a practical impossibility to try two people for the same crime?

[MarkG]

I just watched the better half of Presumed Innocent with Harrison Ford.

basically the story is that a prosecutor is tried for the murder of a sexy blonde colleague and it ends up that it was his wife that did it (yes she hit her in the head with hammer )

in the epilogue, the voice of the prosecutor is heard saying

The murder of Carolyn Polhemus remains unsolved. It is a practical impossibility to try two people for the same crime.

i dont get the impossible part. any law experts out there?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100404/quotes

[Darius871]

Ask this guy, he's only done it about a dozen times

[Imran Siddiqui]

I think what he's saying is that it ends up being impossible ("practically impossible"), but you can try. Why is it practically impossible; because you had all the evidence and proof focusing on one guy... but he was found innocent, so to try to fit it to another guy... well, that's pretty damned tough. There had to be a reason he was eliminated as a suspect before the first trial... and that's still there.

But I don't know the movie, so maybe its simpler than that.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Darius871
Ask this guy, he's only done it about a dozen times

now that you say it, this guy is changing crimes, accusations and guilty people every 5 mins

"ok we cant try the wife for the murder but we can go after the husband for not stopping her from doing it"

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
But I don't know the movie, so maybe its simpler than that.

It is, he's not gonna turn in his wife. He, in fact, cleans the murder weapon of blood and prints when he finds it,


ACK!

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Tuberski
It is, he's not gonna turn in his wife.

that he (the character) also says, but the impossibility line remains. of course one can argue he is making excuses for himself...

[Darius871]

Originally posted by MarkG
now that you say it, this guy is changing crimes, accusations and guilty people every 5 mins

"ok we cant try the wife for the murder but we can go after the husband for not stopping her from doing it"

Yeah, make it about fifty dozen times

[MarkG]

meanwhile the old guy will say for every one of those fifty dozen times
"heh, that's going to be tough. good luck with ya"

i love that show

[Wezil]

nm - misread a post

Happy 4/20 everyone.

[SlowwHand]

No, it's not impossible, to answer the original question.

[Dr Strangelove]

I don't see what the problem is. There are lots of crimes committed by groups of people. Groups of people can rob, burgle, vandalize, rape, and so on. In some states only one person can be given the death penalty for one person's murder. This is particularily common in the South, where laws were passed to prevent the state from executing groups of peole for single murders. These laws were conceived in response to the famous Scottsdale case, in which a group of black men were executed for the murder of one white woman. In Virginia, if the prosecution is considering asking for the death penalty it must establish one of the accused to have been the ultimate cause of death of the victim. Obviously there are circumstances under which this would be difficult to do. In cases where there were clearly more than one person directly involved in the murder of a victim the person with lesser responsibility can still receive a lesser sentence.

[asleepathewheel]

DrS-I don't think Mark was referring to a conspiracy scenario, more a didn't have the right guy the first time scenario.

[SlowwHand]

It depends on he circumstances. In Texas, you commit a crime with a gun, your ass is grass. That goes for one or ten. I think that's how it should be. You run with that crowd, you knew what you were doing.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Does this stuff make sense in your head, Sloww?

[SlowwHand]

Yes, it certainly does.
Let's talk gang rape. Are you just going to convict the first guy? 10th guy walks? Bull****.
Ditto armed robbery. Don't sit there thinking someone didn't know what might occur. You use a gun, your ass is toast. The clinching point, is that they know it. Do it anyway? Screw them.