Question about court law for my screenplay

[harmonica]

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

I'm writing a screenplay and I could use some advice. A judge decides to have someone legally taken off life support, for reasons I'm still yet to come up with. Someone doesn't want it to happen so he decides to kill the judge. But would killing a judge, change the decision to take someone off life support? How long does it take for that decision to become legally unchangeable once a judge declares it?

 

[FlyingRon]

Killing a judge does nothing about changing the permanency of his decisions. It neither invalidates it nor does it much change the options to get it further changed.

 

[harmonica]

Yeah but there are re-appeals and different processes before a decision is final. What stage of the processes could you kill a judge and that would change it?

 

[Zigner]

You're writing a screenplay revolving around the legal system and you have no access to legal professionals to give you advice? Bad idea...

 

[CavemanLawyer]

I can't think of a scenario where a judge could himself/herself order that someone be taken off of life support. The more likely, and common scenario, would be that a judge could order that some third party had the authorization to make that decision. The closest thing to a judge ordering someone taken off life support would be if they ordered that the person be declared a ward of the State knowing that the appointed guardian intended to take them off life support.

Killing a judge even the same day as their ruling on such a matter would have absolutely zero effect on the ruling regardless of what later happens on appeal. If that decision were overturned or forced to be revisited then another judge would simply step in and either rule based on the record or they'd just conduct an entirely new proceeding if the facts required it.

The only time (that I can reasonably think of) that killing a judge would have an impact after their ruling would be if that judge intended to amend their ruling but was killed before they had a chance.

I don't know New York law but I am sure every state has the concept of plenary power which refers to a certain amount of time after a court's ruling where the court retains jurisdiction over the matter to change or correct something about the ruling. A judge literally has the discretion to make the exact opposite ruling after the fact after further consideration, so long as they do so in enough time.

So perhaps a scenario that would work would be if the judge ruled one way and then your killer got some inside information that the judge was going to reverse their ruling, so he/she kills the judge to prevent this from happening. That would actually lock the court into its original ruling.

 

[ENASNI]

only a comment

Columbo would figure it out. be careful of Columbos. we have a few on site here.