if they turn up alive? I’ve been thinking about this since the McCanns were declared to be suspected of murdering Madeleine, how can the police change a missing person investigation into a murder investigation without a body? I mean whatever happened to habeas corpus?
The English Law of Habeas Corpus has nothing to do with a dead body, or the dead body of a murdered person.
Habeas Corpus is as follows : -
Habeas Corpus Act 1679 – An act for the better securing the liberty of the subject, and for prevention of imprisonments beyond the seas. …http://www.constitution.org/eng/habcorpa…
The legal term you are looking for is, Corpus Delicti.
Legal Definition of Corpus DelictiIt was a general rule not to convict unless the corpus delicti can be established, that is, until the dead body has been found. Instances have occurred of a …http://www.lectlaw.com/def/c338.htm
These next sites are American, so the rules/laws may not necessarily apply here in UK [English/Scottish Law]
JSTOR: Murder without Corpus Delicti: A Brief Excursus on …Onufrejczyk2, in which he said that “unless the body can be found or an …. the victim is not an insuperable bar to finding the accused guilty of murder. …http://www.links.jstor.org/sici?sici=002…
A jury found Leisha Hamilton guilty of murder Friday and sentenced her to 20 … The absence of a victim’s body was addressed by both sides in Friday’s …http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/051797…
Finally, unsolved murders UK : -
Unsolved murders in the UK – Wikipedia, This is a list of unsolved murders in the UK. Victims believed to have been murdered … He stood trial, but was found not guilty of murder, thanks to the …http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolve…
As they say in CSI – the evidence doesn’t lie.
Excellent ‘what if’ question. There are many cases that illustrate that it is possible to convict a person of murder without the body of the victim ever being found.
Haebus corpus is a remedy which allows a person who has been detained to challenge the lawfulness of the detention. Bearing in mind that the person would have been convicted by due process of the criminal law including any appeal it is unlikely that application for a writ of haebus corpus would be successful.
If the dead person turned up alive then the person convicted of murder would have to receive an immediate pardon. He or she would almost certainly claim a massive financial compensation. I suspect there would be demands for an enquiry into the police investigation as well. Such events can also trigger a change in the law.
You need a lawyer, but as far as I understand it, if there’s no body then a conviction for murder of the dead person [body] seems unlikely, even if a person confessed to such. This happened in the case of the Moors Murders. There are still unfound bodies thought to be buried somewhere on the Yorkshire Moors.
The McCanns have been named as formal suspects as far as I know. That changes their legal status under Portuguese law. It is if they are charged with murder they become murder suspects.
There was the case of John Haigh in the UK in the 1940′s who killed women and dissolved their bodies in acid. He was executed for the murders in 1949.
There are many cases where a conviction has been secured without a body – it’s just a lot easier if there is one.
Hypothetical questions mean we refer to past cases, and as each case if different we really have no basis to rely on. If you read some of the above answers they are based on episodes of fictional TV serials – drama is just that drama – (although sometimes based on fact – but elaborated to become entertaining). It would be heaven to have that child found, and have an end to all the hypothetical questions.
habeas corpus,…..is a legal term in the United States,…..the McCanns, incident is not here in the Untied States,…..
In UK you need a body to be charged with murder.
conviction without the body- this is the law. And the one charged for the murder is still alive ( paying for his crime) All reasonable people think a retrial ( or revision)has to take place with new evidence which could prove other wise. refer to cases of the DNA test where hundreds of prisoners convicted for crimes they did not commit- released !
With todays technology, the police don’t actually need a body to launch a murder investigation (Don’t you ever watch Forensic Detectives on the Discovery Channel?)
The Portuguese police have found blood in the back of a rental car, and it is believed they have found traces of more blood in the apartment. If it is a large amount of blood, then the police can assume that the victim is dead, even without a body.
u get a bloody load of compensation but u will still b a conficted criminal
Habeas corpus has nothing to do with bodies…it is to do with detention of people for crime….You do not need a body to prove murder or indeed manslaughter…but you do need a lot of circumstantial evidence in order to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the victim is indeed dead. Just harder to prove that’s all, which is why there as so few convictions.
It has been done several times, the evidence must suggest the person is dead…..