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Double jeopardy is a procedural defence that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same charges following an acquittal and in rare cases prosecutorial and/or judge misconduct in the same jurisdiction. A variation in civil law countries is the peremptory plea, which may take the specific forms of autrefois acquit or autrefois convict. These doctrines appear to have originated in ancient Roman law, in the broader principle non bis in idem.
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison either for the rest of their natural lives or until pardoned, paroled or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for which, in some countries, a person could receive this sentence include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, apostasy, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, child rape, espionage, treason, high treason, drug dealing, drug trafficking, drug possession, human trafficking, severe cases of fraud, severe cases of financial crimes, aggravated criminal damage in English law, and aggravated cases of arson, kidnapping, burglary, or robbery which result in death or grievous bodily harm, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and in certain cases genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, certain war crimes or any three felonies in case of three-strikes law. Life imprisonment can also be imposed, in certain countries, for traffic offenses causing death. Life imprisonment is not used in all countries; Portugal was the first country to abolish life imprisonment, in 1884.
The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania is a South African national liberation Pan-Africanist movement that is now a political party. It was founded by an Africanist group, led by Robert Sobukwe, that broke away from the African National Congress (ANC), as the PAC objected to the ANC's "the land belongs to all who live in it both white and black" and also rejected a multiracialist worldview, instead advocating a South Africa based on African nationalism.
The rule of felony murder is a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions that broadens the crime of murder: when an offender kills in the commission of a dangerous or enumerated crime, the offender, and also the offender's accomplices or co-conspirators, may be found guilty of murder.
Dietrich v The Queen is a decision of the High Court of Australia.
In the English law of homicide, manslaughter is a less serious offence than murder, the differential being between levels of fault based on the mens rea or by reason of a partial defence. In England and Wales, a common practice is to prefer a charge of murder, with the judge or defence able to introduce manslaughter as an option. The jury then decides whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of either murder or manslaughter. On conviction for manslaughter, sentencing is at the judge's discretion, whereas a sentence of life imprisonment is mandatory on conviction for murder. Manslaughter may be either voluntary or involuntary, depending on whether the accused has the required mens rea for murder.
Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982), is a United States Supreme Court case. It was a 5–4 decision in which the United States Supreme Court applied its capital proportionality principle, to set aside the death penalty for the driver of a getaway car, in a robbery-murder of an elderly Florida couple.
Henry Byrne and John Morley, two officers of the Garda Síochána, the police force of Ireland, were murdered on 7 July 1980 by alleged members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) during a pursuit in the aftermath of a bank robbery near Loughglynn, County Roscommon. The officers' deaths provoked national outrage. Three men were apprehended, convicted, and sentenced to death for capital murder. Two of the sentences were later reduced to 40 years imprisonment while the third was overturned.
On October 15, 2008, United States Marine Corps Sergeant Jan Paweł Pietrzak and his wife Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak were tortured, sexually assaulted and murdered by four American Marines.
Philip Haynes Markoff was an American medical student who was charged with the armed robbery and murder of Julissa Brisman in a Boston hotel on April 14, 2009, and two other armed robberies. Markoff maintained his innocence of all charges and pleaded not guilty at his arraignment. A grand jury indicted Markoff for first-degree murder, armed robbery, and other charges.
In Australia, murder, like most criminal law, is defined by State legislation. In any jurisdiction within Australia, the maximum penalty for murder is life imprisonment; this is the mandatory penalty in Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory.
Responsibility for criminal law and criminal justice in the United States is shared between the states and the federal government.
Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51 (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court considered whether a prosecutor's office can be held liable for a single Brady violation by one of its members on the theory that the office provided inadequate training.
S v Mshumpa and Another was a South African case with special significance for the law of persons and succession.
South African criminal law is the body of national law relating to crime in South Africa. In the definition of Van der Walt et al., a crime is "conduct which common or statute law prohibits and expressly or impliedly subjects to punishment remissible by the state alone and which the offender cannot avoid by his own act once he has been convicted." Crime involves the infliction of harm against society. The function or object of criminal law is to provide a social mechanism with which to coerce members of society to abstain from conduct that is harmful to the interests of society.
Criminal procedure in South Africa refers to the adjudication process of that country's criminal law. It forms part of procedural or adjectival law, and describes the means by which its substantive counterpart, South African criminal law, is applied. It has its basis mainly in English law.
In S v Benjamin en 'n Ander (1980), an important case in South African criminal procedure, the two appellants were brothers who had been charged with both attempted murder and robbery with aggravated circumstances.
S v Dlamini was a South African court case. The central question was of duplication of convictions.
The Tommy Zeigler case refers to the murders of four people in Winter Garden, Florida on December 24, 1975, in which thirty-year-old Tommy Zeigler was charged for the quadruple murder of his wife, her parents, and another man at his family owned furniture store. He was tried and convicted on July 2, 1976. Zeigler was sentenced to death for two of the murders, in addition to life imprisonment.
Between 8 and 26 August 2000 in Singapore, a group of three men, who were armed with firearms with an intent to commit robbery, had robbed and killed two adult men in midst of a planned crime spree. The first victim was a 42-year-old taxi driver named Koh Ngiap Yong, whose taxi was taken by the trio as an escape vehicle for future robbery crimes and whom the three men killed by using a bayonet to stab him to death. The second and last victim was 39-year-old moneychanger Jahabar Sathick, who was killed by one of the three men shooting him at close range.
References
- S v Moloto 1982 (1) SA 844 (A), on appeal from S v Moloto 1980 (3) SA 1081 (B)