MovieChat Forums > Fracture (2007) Discussion > No body ever thought of this...

No body ever thought of this...

posted 11 years ago by victorchen1023
6 replies | jump to latest

OK, I am not a smart ass nor an expert in the law relating business, but I got the following weird thinking, please correct me if I am wrong...

I do think that Crawford will not be held for the 2nd trial, here are my thinking:

Everyone on this board keep arguing about "Double Jeopardy", but everyone seems to forgot that Crawford did only 1 crime, and 1 crime alone, which is "shoot his wife, and caused the wife in coma condition". And he WAS actually released due to insufficient evidence.

Now when he unplug his wife leads to her death, this is totally through legal process, he has the right to do so. Hence, her wife's death is due to the legal process not due to the gun shot!!

Then, how can anyone trial Crawford for the 2nd time with the same crime (shoot his wife)?

In another word, in the movie, he was going to be trial again for murdering his wife to death, but keep in mind that his wife was not dead due to the gun shot, but due to the legal process of unplugging the life support system.

No man will be trial 2nd time for the same crime!

Am I making sense here?

[–] kfckid-365-296572 11 years ago

'Double Jeopardy' is mostly a myth. New evidence of that sort would open a new murder trial..for the shooting.

[–] Ryan-lindsey1 10 years ago

You're also forgetting the fact that when he was found not guilty of attempted murder, they had no murder weapon. They couldnt find the gun he used. But after he pulled the plug on his wife, with the cops also having his prior confession, evidence, and then finding the gun, they had enough to charge him for a seperate charge, murder. Which supersedes the legality of him pulling the plug.

[–] vque 10 years ago

Yes I think you put it well, putting a bullet in someones brain supersedes just about any other right one could possibly have.

A charge of attempted murder is not the same as a charge of murder. In the first case there is not a dead body, in the latter case there is a dead body. Pretty significant difference there.

Finally it was all new evidence. He was not tried with the same evidence.

The technicalities are rather moot though, since the movie should not be used to study law. Instead it was a study in how a cold and clever murderer was undone by his cleverness and obsessive need for vengeance.

[–] Arseweb 9 years ago

Your final paragraph sums it up nicely. And not only was he undone but he caused the awakening of another's conscience. It's a thriller and very much a morality tale, that simplifies a legal device to create a twist. It's hardly unusual for a story to simplify things or portray them slightly differently to the real world for narrative purpose.

We also have to hope that no-one's using the plot of "Double Jeopardy" as part of their exam revision.

[–] SaliceMcD 8 years ago

If he'd been found *guilty* of attempted murder, he could have been tried for first-degree murder after his wife's death, as the plug was pulled as a result of the bullet having done egregious damage to her brain; if this weren't true, its being pulled wouldn't have happened. But not guilty of the actions the first time around means there's no second time around prosecution for those same actions, regardless of a change in their result and new evidence surrounding them.

[–] SaliceMcD 8 years ago

(In other words, double jeopardy does attach, he can't be tried again - and you did a good job of putting it in layman's terms. You can't try someone twice for the same act.)