Posted on 08/09/2014 2:15:47 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The death of James Brady, President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, at age 73 earlier this week has been ruled a homicide by a medical examiner. Brady was injured during an attempt on Reagan’s life in 1981. Let’s assume that the government can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that, but for the shooting, Brady would have lived longer (pretty much the legal test for causation in this sort of situation). Could the shooter, John Hinckley Jr., be tried for murdering Brady, even though he has already been tried for attempting to kill Brady, and found not guilty by reason of insanity?
The answer is no, likely for two different reasons.
1. The year-and-a-day rule: At common law, a murder charge required that “the death transpired within a year and a day after the [injury]” (see Ball v. United States (1891), and this apparently remains the federal rule (see United States v. Chase (4th Cir. 1994)). Many states have apparently rejected this rule, given the changes in modern medicine that make it much easier to decide whether an old injury helped cause a death; but though the Supreme Court in Rogers v. Tennessee (2001) held that a court could retroactively reject the rule without violating the Ex Post Facto Clause (which applies only to legislative changes to legal rules) and the Due Process Clause, any such retroactive rejection of the year-and-a-day rule seems unlikely in this case (given that for the rule to be reversed the case would likely need to go up to the Supreme Court, and that in any event the rule had been applied relatively recently, in Chase).
UPDATE: But wait! Hans von Spakovsky points out that D.C.’s highest court rejected the year-and-a-day-rule in United States v. Jackson (1987)....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Did they even try him for the attempted murder of Brady?
I don’t think they can double jeopardy
Ridiculous...I suppose the anti gun lobbyists paid for the autopsy.
Yes, as they state further on in the article. He was found not guilty due to mental defect or illness.
He was found insane and sent to a psychiatric hospital. I am flummoxed by the new charge. Murder? Delayed by 33 years?
Doubtful. Too much time in between and there are causation issues. There are several cases out there which do put a time limit on when someone dies and when someone can be charged.
Double jeopardy does not apply as the murder charge would only now arise.
BUT ... for other reasons a murder charge would probably not survive a court challenge.
Read the whole column, they can’t and won’t try him unless it’s just a huge publicity stunt.
The man was 73 years old and lived for 33 years after the shooting.
To declare his death as a homicide is nothing more than a blatant political move by liberals to gin up more hate.
I’m pretty sure it was the gun’s fault.
This has to be one of the Most craziest (ridiculous) things that I have ever heard. This man lived many years after the incident. His wife seems to be so driven for gun-control; she and her friends are driving this insane suggestion for any political mileage. The news people who are printing these stories are showing a side of real stupidity, again.
It’s not double jeopardy. Hinkley was found not-guilty due to insanity for the attempted murder of Ronald Reagan, James Brady, et al. Now that James Brady has died, there is a new fact that he has died from the effects of the injuries he sustained in 1981. It’s a new crime.
Talk about a whole big pile of wasted effort.
Found not guilty by reason of insanity. A prosecution would run into the Ex Post Whacko clause.
Well, if they can prove causation and thereby maintain a semblance of law and due process I hope they hang Hinckley to the tallest and closest tree!
He too has lived 33 years and he shouldn’t have. Shooting the elected leader of 300 million people is as serious as murder. He should have been shot by a firing squad within 90 days of firing the rounds that grievously wounded three people, not walking around today as a free man!
The jury ruled him insane 33 years ago. How can you rule him sane 33 years later? No new crime, just a continuation of the same crime.
They should just sue GOD and be done with it.
The “murder” term seems to be something being floated by a bunch of reporters who don’t understand what a coroner’s findings mean. “Homicide” as used by a Coroner doesn’t mean murder, it just means death at the hands of another. A self-defense death, for example, would be categorized as a homicide. All the finding means is it wasn’t suicide, it wasn’t an accident, the cause is known, and the coroner has concluded it wasn’t solely due to natural causes.
Fair enough. At the same time, with this admin, you know darned well they would claim they would use the exercise to prove they were strict followers and upholders (no pun intended) of the law, never mind F&F, the IRS, and a hundred other examples of crass lawlessness. If they get that value out of the exercise, I’d rather they not do it at all.
I’m quite sick and tired of governmental attention being drawn to single-item examples that really do not affect anything other than ephemeral symbolism while ignoring the eleven or so freight trains of tangible, predictable disaster bearing down upon us.
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