there are lawyers on my flist, right?
I'm thinking about writing a Boston Legal/Chuck crossover in which there is a trial. So it's set in America - in Massachusetts - and naturally, I don't know the first thing about American law. I know, like, "Right, so they've got juries..." ;) I've watched all of Boston Legal, which has supplied me with basic vocabulary, and that's that.
I would be very grateful if somebody could answer the following questions:
(for reference, both BL and Chuck are set in cracky universes, so off-the-wall answers are just fine as well)
I'm still trying to figure out how to outline this, so I've got two scenarios.
Scenario #1
I've got a guy. He's in a mall. He bursts through a door from some maintenance corridor into a public hall full of people and children. He's naked, and he carries a gun. While it'll later show that shots have been fired from that gun just before, and that it's loaded, he doesn't aim it at anybody, but tries not to scare anyone and hands the gun over to security as soon as he's asked to do so. His version of the story is long, convoluted and hard to believe. It involves a jealous girlfriend stealing his clothes and him finding the gun by accident.
What would he be accused of?
If he's accused of multiple crimes (like being naked and running around a mall with a gun... though I'm not sure if the latter would be illegal in the USA?), would there be different hearings/trials for each crime or would it all be done in one go? Would he only be accused by the district attorney or would it be possible, on top of it, that a private person tries to sue him for exposing himself to the kids and traumatizing them with the horrible sight of his penis?
What kind of punishment would he expect? (prison, money and so on)
Scenario #2
Same scenario as the first. Except this time around, two hours after our guy is taken into custody, the mall closes for the night and somebody finds a dead body in an entirely different part of the mall. It belongs to a member of the security staff who was shot and hidden in a closet approximately at the time when nude guy was running around the mall. Nude guy was coming from a different direction, not the direction of dead guy. It cannot be proven that he was killed by the gun of nude guy, either.
Obviously, he'd be accused of murder anyway (or maybe not so obviously, but I say so). Again, would the various crimes be dealt with in the same trial? Or would there be one for murder and one for indecent behavior? Or would nobody bother with the indecent behavior anymore?
I would be very grateful if somebody could answer the following questions:
(for reference, both BL and Chuck are set in cracky universes, so off-the-wall answers are just fine as well)
I'm still trying to figure out how to outline this, so I've got two scenarios.
Scenario #1
I've got a guy. He's in a mall. He bursts through a door from some maintenance corridor into a public hall full of people and children. He's naked, and he carries a gun. While it'll later show that shots have been fired from that gun just before, and that it's loaded, he doesn't aim it at anybody, but tries not to scare anyone and hands the gun over to security as soon as he's asked to do so. His version of the story is long, convoluted and hard to believe. It involves a jealous girlfriend stealing his clothes and him finding the gun by accident.
What would he be accused of?
If he's accused of multiple crimes (like being naked and running around a mall with a gun... though I'm not sure if the latter would be illegal in the USA?), would there be different hearings/trials for each crime or would it all be done in one go? Would he only be accused by the district attorney or would it be possible, on top of it, that a private person tries to sue him for exposing himself to the kids and traumatizing them with the horrible sight of his penis?
What kind of punishment would he expect? (prison, money and so on)
Scenario #2
Same scenario as the first. Except this time around, two hours after our guy is taken into custody, the mall closes for the night and somebody finds a dead body in an entirely different part of the mall. It belongs to a member of the security staff who was shot and hidden in a closet approximately at the time when nude guy was running around the mall. Nude guy was coming from a different direction, not the direction of dead guy. It cannot be proven that he was killed by the gun of nude guy, either.
Obviously, he'd be accused of murder anyway (or maybe not so obviously, but I say so). Again, would the various crimes be dealt with in the same trial? Or would there be one for murder and one for indecent behavior? Or would nobody bother with the indecent behavior anymore?