# Quick Question



## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 17, 2016)

Quick question: If my criminal kills one of her pursuers while attempting to escape arrest, what crime would she be charged with? Murder? Manslaughter? I'm not sure what it would be called.


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## Malik (Sep 17, 2016)

Anything they want to charge her with. 

Here's the thing. Justice is an artifice. The laws and even the values that we take for granted exist only to make our society function. They don't exist in the world that you're writing in. You need to build the laws and values for your world, and determine what your society holds as true. This is where you have to buckle down and do your worldbuilding. This is also where most fantasy authors half-ass it.

Generally, in worlds where Plato's _Republic_ wasn't written (i.e., every fantasy / parallel universe ever, and a number of countries on Earth even today where the concepts are not acknowledged; I'm looking at you, Zimbabwe and Sudan) the concept of individual justice doesn't exist. Laws are what the rulers say they are, and "justice" is dealt by their auxiliaries at their whim. This is the natural order of things. Understand that when we stood up in 1775 and said that all men are created equal and are entitled to life, liberty, and happiness, the idea was so radical that it caused a war against the world's strongest empire, who set out to crush us under their boot and make an example of us. And by some accounts, _over half of the colonists were on England's side. _Look it up.

What you'd need to do, is determine a legal system and a basic set of laws for your world. This is one of the places where 99% of fantasy falls flat; most authors assume that since _we hold these truths to be self-evident,_ everyone else does, too. It don't work that way. 

TL;DR: They'll likely be charged with anything anyone in power feels like charging them with.


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## ThinkerX (Sep 17, 2016)

1 - Setting?  Contemporary?  Fantasy Medieval?

2 - Is said pursuer a duly recognized law enforcement official? 

That said, I believe it would be a plethora of charges (in contemporary US society).  'Resisting Arrest' and several variants thereof for the 'escape arrest' part.  The 'death' part...not manslaughter, not without a very good plea deal.  If the death was intentional and planned, that's premeditated (first degree murder).  Otherwise, second degree murder, though the prosecution might try for first, at least initially.    

Also a factor, both in contemporary US society and fantasy type societies - ones social class.  That plays a huge difference in outcome.  Following is satire, but unfortunately, not that far off:

Judge Rules White Girl Will Be Tried As Black Adult - The Onion - America's Finest News Source


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## Malik (Sep 17, 2016)

What I seriously don't get (a little drunk, here), is why more authors don't take advantage of having an entire fictional world to build from the ground up, and use it as an opportunity to examine moral-ethical relativism and the whole nature-vs.-nurture argument. 

I.e., if we were human and raised on another world with a totally different history, would we have the same values? What part of the values and norms that we (you) hold sacred are innate to us as human beings, and what part is learned and/or expected from being in the society that we're in? How does history affect our values?

Also, this.

This is, like -- seriously -- half of the allegory of my series; meta-ethical moral relativism (the idea that right and wrong are relative to the traditions, beliefs, and practices of a group), and later, the impact on a society when its leadership has a completely disparate and alien intellectual history than the people do, and the disconnect when that leadership thinks they're "doing right."

It stuns me that so many fantasy and sci-fi authors just take our American way of life for granted. It's insanely racist, really; assuming that our way is best and the "only" way that people can live.


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## Malik (Sep 17, 2016)

The flip side to this (drinking more) is when we have an "evil" antagonist by our standards -- which, to be fair, would happen a lot -- but there's suddenly a scrappy young hero / heroine who stands up for these ideas that we modern-day Americans take for granted, and then somehow sticks it to the man and restores "justice." Hey, great idea. But pump your brakes. 

Where the hell did he get these ideas from?

Somebody has to have written down what "justice" means, somewhere in history, and it has to have been A.) widely accepted enough that the majority of the populace would see it the protagonist's way (and if so, how come no one else has stood up and overthrown the evil antagonist?); and B.) laid down or passed on in a form that scrappy young hero/heroine is familiar with. Because if they overthrow the evil overlord, and evil overlords are just the way that things have always been done, then they better have a good explanation that not only appeases the entire populace, but that sets a new precedent . . . and then enforces it. Because otherwise, they're going to swing from a gallows for killing the rightful ruler.

And if you're the progenitor of this revolutionary new concept of right and wrong, you're still in a position where you have to socialize and then enforce an unpopular opinion (remember that percentage of colonists who thought that the Revolutionary War was a bad idea?) So, even if it's for the Greater Good, does that now make you the bad guy?

BTW, ten years after this all happens -- young magician from Earth discovers he's a lost prince from another world, defeats a badguy and becomes a sorcerer-king -- is where _Dragon's Trail _starts, with the neighboring kingdoms losing their shit over the alien ruler of the country next door who's doing all these insane things that they don't understand.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 17, 2016)

I...actually do not know the setting. I'm figuring this story out as I go along. It's like an urban fantasy, gives me a dystopian/post-apocalyptic vibe...modern technology, like, 90s maybe? No smartphones or tablets or anything like that.  but very dark and brutal.

Having her get charged with murder would change the story somewhat...or not...I don't know. I'll have to figure out some variables. Like, is the pursuer human or one of the genetically altered half-animal humans? Does she kill him, or only injure him? Would anything change for her if she merely injured him?


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## Malik (Sep 17, 2016)

Your world, man. Your laws.


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## skip.knox (Sep 18, 2016)

I would think that what she was charged with would matter only at the point when she came to trial. If that doesn't happen, then you can play fast and loose with the charges. 

More specifically, if she's being pursued by the authorities, then you could craft a charge to suit the circumstance. It won't matter because she gets away in the end. However, the general population might simply call it murder. People are generally fairly sloppy about specific criminal categories. Few, for example, could tell you the difference between assault and battery. (Sure I can! Battery is what my phone needs!)

More interesting, what does your hero herself think? Does *she* call it murder? Self defense? Accident? Whatever her own assessment, it may not correlate to the legal charge at all.


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## psychotick (Sep 18, 2016)

Hi,

Likewise, your world your rules.

But in America I believe there's a sort of statute law that says that those involved in crimes - say gangs and getaway drivers - are complicit in whatever badness goes down. So you have young kids only peripherally involved in the crimes, being charged with murder because someone else in the group carried a gun and used it and they didn't know.

So the other relevant question is - is she guilty of the original crime? Think of The Fugitive. If Doctor Richard Kimble isn't guilty of the original crime is he guilty of all the other crimes he committed to escape and remain free and track down the actual killer? Or is that just self defence or its equivalent? Can the state even prosecute given that by its very actions in bringing about a false arrest it forced the good doctor's hands in to this life of crime?

Cheers, Greg.


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## K.S. Crooks (Sep 18, 2016)

In the real world Canada and United States consider the killing of an identifies officer of the law (police, RCMP, FBI) First Degree Murder. The killing of authorities is usually set at a much higher level to deter someone like a common thief from committing murder when they maybe apprehended. For your world and story it might be different.


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## Russ (Sep 18, 2016)

If you give a few more details about how the killing takes place and who is killed, I can get you a reasonably accurate answer for contemporary North America fairly quickly.


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## TheCatholicCrow (Sep 19, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Quick question: If my criminal kills one of her pursuers while attempting to escape arrest, what crime would she be charged with? Murder? Manslaughter? I'm not sure what it would be called.



Of course your world building is really key here but I would say it sounds like *FELONY MURDER*.




> It applies when someone commits a certain kind of felony and someone else dies in the course of it. It doesn’t matter whether the death was intentional or accidental—the defendant is liable for it...
> 
> Unlike most murder charges, felony murder doesn’t require the intent to kill, only:
> *the intent to commit the underlying felony (the “predicate felony”), and
> ...





> Federal law classifies felony murder as first degree murder. It lists *the felonies that can form the basis for a felony murder charge in a prosecution by the U.S. government:*
> 
> arson
> *escape*
> ...


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## skip.knox (Sep 20, 2016)

Once again it is demonstrated that there are few things in this world slower than the quick question.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 20, 2016)

So, this world is full of genetically engineered human-animal hybrids created for different jobs, so the guy she killed might not have been human and might not have been counted as "murder"...

Would it be different if she only injured him?


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## Demesnedenoir (Sep 20, 2016)

Totally up to you. A genetically modified being might count as nothing, destruction of property, murder, or some new class of crime altogether. Same goes for injury, except the murder part might become attempted... and in some cultures attempted is as bad as successful... off with their head!



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> So, this world is full of genetically engineered human-animal hybrids created for different jobs, so the guy she killed might not have been human and might not have been counted as "murder"...
> 
> Would it be different if she only injured him?


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