Siamese Twin Imprisonment Puzzle

[Marat]

Suppose one of the Siamese twins, without the cooperation of the other, murdered someone in a jurisdiction where the punishment for murder was life imprisonment. Since there is no way to imprison just the guilty twin without also imprisoning the innocent one (since they were medically inseparable when they lived, in the 19th century,) it would seem that the state would have a legal problem in trying to impose a just sentence. Since the requirement that the murderer be imprisoned for life is only based on a statutory authority, while the rule that no innocent person can be imprisoned is a sacred constitutional right ultimately deriving from habeas corpus, I guess the solution has to be to let both of the twins go free. If the state were to try to imprison the guilty twin, a writ of habeas corpus could always get the innocent one out of prison again, taking the guilty one with him. Even building a special prison which was a hotel room on one side for the innocent twin and a prison cell on the other for the guilty twin would not solve the problem, since the freedom of association of the innocent twin would be unconstitutionally restricted.

 

Perhaps a lesser punishment could be inflicted on the guilty twin, such as flogging, but even then, since both of the Siamese twins shared a liver, the injuries to one could have negative side-effects on the other, which would amount again to an unconstitutional use of state power. But since the twins did fight each other on occasion, throwing punches, this suggests that they at least regarded physical harms as not flowing from one to the other.

 

Their major intersection of the law was their marriage to two sisters, which violated the then very strict laws against fornication and the cohabitation of non-married people, since all four slept together and they could not help but have sex in the presence of the others. But since everyone has a right to marriage and procreation, could the state have constitutionally imposed the penalty on them of forbidding those activities because they would violate a statute? Presumably not.

 

Any suggestions for escaping these dilemmas?

[tomgwyther]

Hmm tricky.

In the murder case you mentioned: under UK law, it might be considered a case of 'Joint enterprise'

Lets assume one twin fatally stabbed an individual. The other twin would share liability in that he/she did nothing to prevent this from happening.

Although the unarmed twin may not have had an intent to kill, their complacency at the time would mean they were guilty of the same crime as the armed twin.

 

This law of joint enterprise was in the news recently in the UK, where a gang of youths harassed another boy, the gang all knew that some of its members carried knives. The boy was fatally stabbed by one gang member, but when it came to trail, all of them (About 5) were prosecuted for the same crime.

Similarly, if a group of people rob a bank at gun point and one of them kills the bank teller, the whole group - getaway driver and all - would be prosecuted for the same crime(s) i.e. robbery, murder etc.

[Marat]

The general common law rule is that you require both a criminal act and a criminal intent before anyone can be convicted of a crime. Many jurisdictions have the type of 'criminal enterprise' statutes to which you refer, but they have to hang the guilt of each member of the group on some guilty mental state, which is usually their having participated in the common planning of the crime or their knowledge that one of the members of the gang had a potentially lethal weapon for the plot intended in common. In the Siamese twin case, it seems that the innocent brother would be more accurately described as an innocent by-stander or even a kind of hostage, since the common law doesn't impose an affirmative duty on an ordinary citizen to prevent crime, even if he knows it is about to happen and could prevent it.

[tomgwyther]

I think if I were the judge, I'd seek to prosecute both twins. Although joint enterprise would require that both twins were involved in the planning of the crime, I would put the burden of proof on the 'innocent' twin to prove that he had no foreknowledge of his brother's intent whatever. That the innocent twin showed consent for the actions of his brother.

If I were the prosecuting lawyer, I might bring up either a case of Inadvertent negligence or Passive negligence against the non-stabbing defendant.

Either way, I think I'd err on the side of caution and prosecute a potentially innocent but negligent individual, on the grounds that his conjoined twin was a danger to the public.

 

It's still a very tricky case and has seen me with my nose in a big fat law dictionary this evening. Without more specifics, it's difficult to make a good judgement.

BTW. Is the a real case Marat as your post infers? I'd love some more info on it; it sounds fascinating.

 

 

Inadvertent negligence. Negligence in which the actor is not aware of the unreasonable risk that he or she is creating, but should have foreseen and avoided it

 

Passive Negligence. Negligence resulting from a person's failure or omission in acting.

 

From Black's Law Dictionary: 8th edition

[Marat]

In criminal charges, the positive burden of proof is on the prosecution to demonstrate that the defendant had the properly guilty mental state and committed the guilty act. If the Siamese twin simply says nothing, he can still win his case if the prosecution fails to prove that he was somehow complicit in both action and intention in his brother's crime.

 

Negligence resulting in harm is usually just a tort law concept in which the guilty party has to pay for the damages he causes, but it only rises to the level of a crime in criminal negligence. Criminal negligence requires the violation of some prior duty which the person was obligated to fulfill, but here there is no prior duty to ensure that the brother did not harm someone.

 

The law generally gives the state a right of preventative detention, which allows dangerous lunatics, people with serious communicable diseases, and similar persons not guilty of any crime but just a threat to public safety to be locked up. However, in this case, the innocent twin is not himself dangerous to society, but his brother is. A lawyer acting for the innocent twin could easily get him released on a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that the state was depriving him of liberty without having demonstrated that he had committed a crime or was a danger to the public. The twin pair was certainly a danger to the public, and the twins could not be separated without killing them, but the innocent twin per se was not a danger, though if he were free he would always be part of a danger caused by someone else.

 

The Siamese twins really did exist in the 19th century, but it was never the case that either one of them committed murder. However, they did fight each other, so one of them could have been prosecuted for hitting the other, and they did violate the morality statutes of the time since they married sisters and cohabited with them in the same bed at the same time.

[tomgwyther]

Under UK law, a person's silence can be used to infer guilt in some cases. You're not allowed to 'take the 5th'.

i.e.

Prosecution: Would you disagree that the CCTV footage of you running down the street waving a sword and shoughting, looks like you and was indeed you?

Accused: Remains silent

Prosecution: Then I take it from your silence that you do not disagree.

 

If twin A knew that twin B was intent on murder and simply went along with it whilst twin B obtained the knife, went to the victims house and committed the act, and he didn't take any action to prevent this from happening; he failed to exercise the standard of care that a reasonably prudent person would have exercised, then Twin A is negligent. Moreover, criminally negligent.

Clamming up or prevarication wouldn't do him any favours either. I'd also argue that by allowing such acts, Twin A was a danger to the public.

 

Then it would be up to the jury to decide

 

woe betide any conjoined twins who come near me wielding cutlery!

[Marat]

Proving twin A's foreknowledge of the intent of twin B might prove difficult. "I thought he was just going off on another one of his wood carving expeditions," says twin A, smiling at the pretty young pair of female Siamese twins in the jury.

[tomgwyther]

True, it could go either way. I'm leaving up to the (hypothetical) jury to decide. The above would be the case I would put forward if I were the prosecution. I would also have put your case forward had I been arguing for the defence.

It's an interesting case; I enjoyed the discussion very much. I've also been reading some of your other postings. it's nice to lock horns with a good intellect whom forces me to think and/or rethink ideas.

Any other thought experiments you have knocking-about would be fun to discuss too.