Temporal Law

[jotasbrane]

If you kill somebody and go to jail for it for a while, and then -- via time travel -- you kill the younger version of them, should you be sent to jail again for it, or would that be double jeopardy

Comments

[hwrnmnbsol]

I think the law as applied to time travel would require significant changes for consistency to apply

[jotasbrane]

Please do! I'm happy to inspire other people to do the hard work of actually writing up complete stories.

[dolohov]

I'm not sure I can give an answer to these questions, but I have a few thoughts.

First, if I tried to kill someone, went to jail for it, served my full sentence, and then discovered that they were alive, I could not then kill that person with impunity. It would not be double jeopardy to be convicted again of it, though a jury might not convict.

Second, if you traveled back in time to commit a prior murder, then you would be committing a slightly graver crime by robbing that person of even more of their life than before. If the younger you committed the crime according to the setup, that younger you still committed a crime, I think.

Here's another question: what if you went back in time to have someone else kill the person first? Can the younger you be held responsible for the crime, or do prosecutors have to wait until objective time catches up?

[jotasbrane]

Ooh, that's an excellent twist.