The premise
The premise of that she can't be convicted for murdering him again is completely wrong because the law sees it as two different crimes... this was a load of huey
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MovieChat Forums > Double Jeopardy (1999) Discussion > The premise
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Are you sure the law sees this as 2 crimes? Wouldn't they see it as "Murder of Mr. X"? I'm not sure here.. just asking.
Plus she didn't kill him cuz she wanted to. She had justifiable reason to do that.. even without her history she wouldn't go to jail.
By your logic, I can steal someone's car today, serve my time for it, and feel free to take his car whenever I want afterwards because the law merely refers to it as the "vehicular theft of Mr(s) X"
shareIt's not wrong becuase if you've already been convicted of murdering the person and he or she is not dead you can't be convicted of killing them twice. No one would believe that killing the same person twice is possible because it isn't.
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The Double Jeopardy law does state that you cannot be tried for the same crime twice. Say you kill John Smith and are found guilty/not guilty. No matter what, you cannot be tried for the murder of John Smith again. You CAN be tried for the murder of Jane Smith of you decide to kill her afterward. What it basically does is protect you from being tried of the exact same crime again. Not just murder, but the murder of one specific person. Hope that clarifies it.
shareBut if the crime for which you were originally tried never happened, that negates the first trial.If you were acquitted of killing John Smith on January 18th, 2003, but if he wasn't killed, that acquittal essentially never happened. If you then kill him on January 18th 2004, that is a different crime and double jeopardy doesn't apply. Roger Ebert pointed that out when this movie came out.
Otherwise, it may be a good movie, I don't know. I just saw that it was on CBS tonight and was curious if anyone had pointed this out. Now, if as someone said she only killed him "because she had to" and if by that the person meant it was self-defense, then she wouldn't go to jail, but not because of double jeopardy.
Actually you're a little bit off. First off the legal concept of double jeopardy is that if you are aquitted of a crime, the D.A. has 3 months to file an appeal, afterwards you can not be tried. For instance O.J. could hold up the bloody knife on national T.V. and admit he killed his wife and he can not be tried for it. A lot of people are tried for the same crime twice but normally they get convicted the first time and are granted an appeal. Obviously appeals have to exist otherwise a person wrongfully convicted could not get out of jail until their sentence is up.
So for instance if Libby's husband was proven to be alive when she was in prison she would have been released.
Now the legal concept of this film is unique: Murder is the only crime that you can only do to a particular person once. Libby does eventually kill her husband which is murder. But of course she was wrongfully convicted of murder six years earlier so one would conclude that her wrongful conviction gets cancelled out by murdering her husband and she would be a free woman. But that may not be true:
First off Libby violated her parole by leaving the halfway house and if she were caught and unable to prove Nick was alive she likely would have been sent back to prison for the remainder of her term.
Libby could argue that had she not been wrongfully convicted six years earlier, she never would have eventually killed Nick (although this is a weak argument).
Now one could simply argue that the simple solution is to send her back to prison to serve the remainder of her sentence since she did in fact commit murder although was not convicted at the right time (essentially they could apply her murdering Nick to her initial conviction). The flaw in this is that all we know is that she was originally convicted of killing her husband but we don't know what the official conviction was (ie. first degree murder, second degree murder, or manslaughter). I'm not sure the way it works in the united states but I know in canada you can not apply for parole after only six years of a sentence for first degree murder. Currently you have to wait at least 15 years (although it used to be ten). When she really does kill Nick it is first degree murder because she had it planned for quite some time.
My solution for what likely would have done if this case were real life would be to have a new trial for Libby on her recent murder of Nick. If convicted and not sentenced to death (again I don't know whether the state she was in had the death penalty), she would get six years knocked off her sentence since she served six years as an innocent person. If she was aquitted for killing Nick then presumably she'd get financial compensation for her time in prison.
Oh, okay. I haven't seen the movie and assumed she had been acquitted the first time, but, yeah, if she was convicted that is a different situation.
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I know this is a bit off topic but is there a book?
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Elizabeth: "You like pain? Try wearing a corset"
Ok, I'm not sure how the law works in America, I'm not sure how it would work here in the UK either. This has to be a really unique situation, I doubt anything like this has ever happened. I haven't seen the film for a while either so I may be wrong about some things. If she is convicted of killing her husband, and it is later found out that is was never killed and that he staged it then she must be released.
However, she had breached the terms of her parole, this is before it was known to anyone else that her husband was still alive. Technically, while she was on parole she can be summoned back to serve the remainder of her sentence at any time. One of the strange things with law is that if you're in prison and you were guilty you can show remorse and be released early from prison. But if you're wrongfully convicted and you're innocent and you plead your innocence and show no remorse because there's nothing to be sorry for then you will never ever be released on parole. Ever. By escaping it is obvious that if she is captured then she will be returned to prison to serve out the rest of her sentence.
If you cannot be convicted of the one same offence twice, then that means it is because it has already happened. So she cannot be charged with the murder a second time because she was charged with it the first time. But she hadn't fulfilled her sentence the first time. So for it to be the same offence, they can't adjust the punishment. For the court to look at it again and say 'ok, well this time it was self defence, we'll let her go' would be wrong. Because that means they are treating it as a DIFFERENT offence. For the double jeopardy rule to apply then the actual murder would have to be the same standard of offence as the first murder, ie the same sentence. So she must be summoned back to prison to serve out the rest of her sentence.
She can't argue the self defence thing either. Although that would make it 2 incidents. She would be let off with the first 'murder' but then how can she argue that the second was self defence when she intended to kill her husband anyway?
No, it means a specific crime, meaning locale, weapon used....despite the fact that you cannot die twice, it would be a separate case. And you would most certainly be convicted due to your boldness in committing the act.
If you people would stop to think what you were saying, you would realize that you're basically saying after being acquitted of a crime upon somebody, you could perform the same crime on that person legally because the law only recognizes the crime as the specific crime against that person and does not take into account the date and method of occurrence.
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It wouldn't be double jeopardy.
It's like being falsely convicted of robbing a bank and then going back when you get out and robbing it again. The second robbery would be considered a separate crime. It's a separate instance of the same crime.
Being falsely convicted of killing someone who wasn't actually dead would be unusual, but the concept is the same. You don't get a pass to commit murder because you were wrongly convicted the first time - even though you're killing that person.
Yup. The first crime would be tossed out since someone can't be murdered if he is still alive, but it doesn't matter even if they didn't toss it out. The second "murder" would be considered a separate case altogether.
To all the dumbasses saying things like "you can only die once" and "the law only views it as the murder of Mr. X", by your own logic, I could beat you with a lead pipe one day, get arrested for it and tried, and then afterwards, I could feel free to beat you with a lead pipe daily and not be arrested due to the fact that the law only views the crime as the "lead pipe beating of Mr. X".
All the law means is that you can't be found innocent in a case involving a crime you committed (not including appeals of course), and then later on down the line, be tried for it AGAIN...
No matter the fact that you cannot die twice, it would be a separate crime. The weapons, the time, and the location it took place were different. The argument that you can only die twice is stupid. If you are found guilty you can be re-tried under new evidence turning up. I would say a living form of a man thought murdered would suffice, wouldn't you? Besides ,if anything, the original case would be invalidated.
The premise of this movie is baloney. Look up the legal definition of double jeopardy.
To summarize:
1. The fact that a human being cannot die twice is irrelevant. It is still treated as two separate cases because whether the event happened or not, a case involving a certain (alleged) incident was opened and tried for that specific occurrence. Murdering the same man at a later date is a different occurrence, and a different case altogether, and "double jeopardy" would not apply. It doesn't matter that logically speaking, you cannot die twice. The law is recognizing the "cases", not the amount of times the subject allegedly died.
2. The law does not just recognize the crime as "the murder of (insert name here)". It refers to a specific case. Otherwise, repeat crimes in any category against the same victim would be legal.
3. The screenwriters probably were asleep when this concept was explained to them in ninth grade, or they simply didn't care, in hopes of procuring heavy profits at the box office.
4. Gimmicky movies suck.
Of course (and I just realized this, although I slept through most of the movie and consequently have no idea what happened), what the story could be about is her ignorant husband believing that she can't be tried again....
But I don't know. I guess I'll have to pay attention to it next time :)
Join my new political party, the Anti-Death Party, and remember... Death is dead
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so if the person is legally dead, yet can be charged themselves for comitting crimes as John Doe, are you saying that anybody can kill them any get away with it because the victim is legally dead? wouldn't it be possible for their original "killer" to be charged as murdering a john doe?
or are you saying anybody else could kill john doe and get charged, but the original "killer" could not?
presusming (as you say above) that they legally dead and the person can not be tried a second time, they could drown "john doe" in front of a police offier but expect to get away scott free?
i'm sorry but you are wrong. anybody who beleives this film could actually happen is blindly misinterpreting the law.
and the film is rubbish too.
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ok, this has to be the final word!
http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/auntie/questions.cfm/ObjectID/638246E7-4BF0-4682-8E6D678F03E59EA1/catID/9084D9CE-7259-4AC7-ABAC23333466322C
check out the above link and see for yourself! i'm not saying double jepoardy doesnt exist, as it does in the 5th ammendment of the US constitution, i'm merely saying the film leads you to beleive that she could not be charged with murder for killing that man at the end of the film. the above link proves she could.
where in aus are you anyway mate?
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I'm in Melbourne. Lived here two years, leaving in 6 months to return home to England. My mother lives in France - small world!
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excellent post heckles.
share"You all are missing the obvious. Libby wasn't given the definition of double jeopardy by a judge or a lawyer - she was given it by a prisoner."
Maybe you should watch the movie again. The prisoner she got the advice from used to be a lawyer!
The prisoner/lawyer's grasp of how "double jeopardy" works may be part of the reason she USED to be a lawyer...
In fairness to the movie, though, when she tells her husband "I could shoot you in the middle of Mardi Gras," she's only trying to intimidate him; it doesn't matter whether or not it's true, she just needs to make him believe she's willing to do it. The Tommy Lee Jones character's comment "I can assure you she's right" is just backing up the threat to support her; he knows that this wouldn't actually fall under double jeopardy, but he's not going to mention that to the husband.
Exactly. She would go to prison for life but would at least get a few $100k in compensation for her first prison sentence.
shareTo all of you who say that the premise is misrepresenting the meaning of the double jeopardy law, read the definition of double jeopardy here: http://www.lectlaw.com/def/d075.htm
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So if i robbed a bank, served time for it and then when i got out, robbed the same bank again, would i be prosecuted or not??
~Fact is, i defended you; They said you weren't fit to sleep with pigs, i said you were!~
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Willow, this only applies to murder, not other crimes.
Ginger
You are completely wrong. Murder is not treated differently than other crimes.
If I throw someone off a boat and am convicted of killing them, but it turns out they survived, I wouldn't be able to really kill them and get a pass from the legal system. That's just stupid. I can't believe how many people believe this is possible.
It is two different crimes.
Plus two different states. Murder is a state offense, not a federal one.