Just for fun: Siamese Twin commits murder

[JustCurious1982]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Connecticut

My insomnia plus my love of randomly browsing the internet has brought up this non-urgent legal question into my head...

Just for fun here:
What if someone who has dicephalic parapagus (a siamese twin) commits a horrendous crime that legally mandates jail time? How would the punishment be enforced (assuming the siamese twins cannot be seperated for medical reasons)? It is obvious that any punishment required of one twin will have to be endured by the innocent twin as well. How would this play out?

 

[sandyclaus]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Connecticut

My insomnia plus my love of randomly browsing the internet has brought up this non-urgent legal question into my head...

Just for fun here:
What if someone who has dicephalic parapagus (a siamese twin) commits a horrendous crime that legally mandates jail time? How would the punishment be enforced (assuming the siamese twins cannot be seperated for medical reasons)? It is obvious that any punishment required of one twin will have to be endured by the innocent twin as well. How would this play out?

Please take your morbid curiosity elsewhere. We don't do hypotheticals here.

 

[Proserpina]

Please take your morbid curiosity elsewhere. We don't do hypotheticals here.

Want some tea and a hot buttered crumpet, sandy?

 

[sandyclaus]

Want some tea and a hot buttered crumpet, sandy?

That sounds lovely. Do we have any jam or preserves to go with that? Perhaps a nice marmalade?

 

[Proserpina]

That sounds lovely. Do we have any jam or preserves to go with that? Perhaps a nice marmalade?

Got all of 'em!

(And Marmite for the purists amongst us )

 

[Sloop John D]

Please take your morbid curiosity elsewhere. We don't do hypotheticals here.

What if it's not a hypothetical? What if he's actually a conjoined twin who's concerned about a murder being plotted by his other half?

 

[sandyclaus]

What if it's not a hypothetical? What if he's actually a conjoined twin who's concerned about a murder being plotted by his other half?

It actually IS a hypothetical, because to date, it's never come up, justice-wise. Google it, and you'll see the question has made the rounds for years in circles of legal debate.

 

[Sloop John D]

There's a few anecdotes of questionable reliability that offer some insight.

Some people claim there have been instances where a conjoined twin who was sentenced to jail time for non-serious crimes was released so that the innocent twin would not have to spend time behind bars. This is apparently supported by legislation in certain states that offer leniency in situations where prison time might create a detriment to an innocent party.

There's also a story floating around about a conjoined twin who committed a murder in Brazil and was sentenced to death. The twins shared several major organs, and it was decided that the twins would be separated, with the innocent twin receiving the necessary vital organs for survival and the guilty twin being allowed to die. The surgery was a failure and both twins died on the operating table.


So to answer your question, I don't know.

 

[dave33]

The state would charge the other twin with conspiracy. Jail time for everyone, problem solved.

 

[CavemanLawyer]

While there's no clear answer on what the State could do, there are clear answers on what the State cannot do. You absolutely could not force them to be surgically separated. The law is clear that you cannot force even the accused/convicted person to undergo life endangering surgery to accommodate a prosecution so you surely can't force the innocent half to do it. I believe you also clearly could not just incarcerate them. In the US at least, the civil rights of the innocent "half" would clearly trump the State's rights to incarcerate the other "half." I cannot possibly see it going any other way without violating the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. It may be possible that the sentence could be commuted to some form of probation because forcing the innocent one to accompany the guilty one to the restrictions of probation might not be considered excessively cruel. I still don't see how the probation could ever be revoked though because you just can't incarcerate a citizen if they clearly have committed no crime.

Actually dave33 did raise a valid point. An innocent conjoined twin is at a minimum a witness to the other's crime and beyond that has some control over the other's half of their body. Depending on the circumstances they could also be attributed with a legal duty to prevent the other's crime. (lot of factors.) Depending on the crime and what the innocent half did or didn't do they could easily make themself a party to the crime, but that still leads you to the same dilemma because each twin would still be considered a separate person under the legal definition of a life. Unless each one were given the exact sentence you'd still run into the problem of one twin being punished beyond what they are personally responsible for.