Can a Dead Person be Charged with a Crime

My question involves criminal law for the state of: Hawaii or anywhere else in the U.S.

I was reading some old news articles and came across this http://mauitvnews.com/blog/2015/08/1...rial-unlikely/....

Made me wonder, is there ANY point in bringing criminal charges against a dead person? A search of the Hoohiki Court System for info on the case/deceased turned up nothing criminal, so the charges either never existed or were dropped.

I can think of one possibility in the case you read in that article.

The authorities want to forestall a wrongful death lawsuit by convicting the perp of a crime. A conviction would make it more difficult for dependents and/or relatives to pursue a lawsuit.

You cannot convict a dead person of a crimes so, whatever the motive for filing a charge, it's no surprise that it amounted to nothing.

Is it unethical to charge someone when there's no chance of a conviction? Or just stupid and a waste of public funds. ��

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Quoting midnightsnack

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Is it unethical to charge someone when there's no chance of a conviction? Or just stupid and a waste of public funds. ��

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That might depend on whether there is a lack of probable cause or not. If there is no probable cause to sustain an allegation, then a judge would probably dismiss the matter early on. If there IS probable cause, the DA can still pursue it even if there might be little chance of a conviction for some reason. It might be a waste of resources to pursue a case with such flaws that a jury might never convict, but by itself that is not sufficient to say that the prosecution is "unethical."

But, if the defendant is deceased, then there is no one to bring to trial, so the issue is moot.

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Quoting midnightsnack

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Is it unethical to charge someone when there's no chance of a conviction? Or just stupid and a waste of public funds. ��

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I believe that attempting to file charges would indeed be unethical in most states as well as pointless. Most states base their rules of professional conduct on the American Bar Association (ABA) model rules of professional conduct. Rule 3.1 states:

A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law. A lawyer for the defendant in a criminal proceeding, or the respondent in a proceeding that could result in incarceration, may nevertheless so defend the proceeding as to require that every element of the case be established.

Knowingly filing charges against a dead suspect would be frivolous and a waste of the court’s time (and that of the prosecutor) because as Mr. Knowitall points out, it is impossible to convict (or even arraign or put on trial) a dead defendant. The rights guaranteed a defendant in the Constitution alone make that legally impossible, and the practical problems also make it impossible as well. Moreover, Model Rule 3.8 imposes special ethical responsibilities on prosecutors that again would be impossible to meet with a dead defendant. All this taken together, I think it would violate the prosecutor’s ethical obligations to do this. How severely the state’s disciplinary body would sanction a prosecutor for it is another matter. It might not draw a very severe consequence. The particular facts would matter.

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Quoting Taxing Matters

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I believe that attempting to file charges would indeed be unethical in most states as well as pointless. Most states base their rules of professional conduct on the American Bar Association (ABA) model .....r

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just wanted to take a moment and say: no matter how many times I butt heads with you, I enjoy reading your articulate and thorough responses.

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Quoting jk

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just wanted to take a moment and say: no matter how many times I butt heads with you, I enjoy reading your articulate and thorough responses.

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Thank you very much. I enjoy the debates I have with people here; I don’t agree with everyone on everything, but I respect considerate disagreement and thoughtful comment.

If the prosecutors brought the charge just to inhibit some other legal process, would that be an abuse of process?
If it was a technical/innocent mistake, seems like the prosecutor is completely inept and in the wrong profession.. Not sure how innocent the mistake could have been though since the same office charged another dead person in the same year (2015).

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Quoting midnightsnack

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If it was a technical/innocent mistake, seems like the prosecutor is completely inept and in the wrong profession.. Not sure how innocent the mistake could have been though since the same office charged another dead person in the same year (2015).

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There are two other possibilities here. One is that the article you linked simply got it wrong. When I did a search on the Hawaii court system's public access site it did not turn up any cases against that dead suspect. I also looked at a number of other news articles about that incident and not one of them mentioned any charges actually being filed. The other is that if charges were filed, that may have occurred prior to the prosecutors being informed the man was dead.

From the other articles on the incident, the deceased lived approximately 5 days after being shot. So the DA could have rushed an indictment before the weekend and the guy dies on Monday, maybe after business hours? Then the DA has to get the charges dismissed.

We had a case like that where I worked. A case for fraud was pending and the suspect died. A party to a civil suit against the deceased was fighting to keep the case going because he felt that it would bolster his suit against the deceased's estate. It took the better part of a week to finally get the dismissal before the court and drop the matter. SO, technically, the county had a criminal case for four more days against a deceased man. Ultimately, the civil suit was dropped as well since the plaintiff was but one in a line of potential creditors and he stood very little chance of being compensated.