On 3/10/2021 12:18 PM, S K wrote:
On Wednesday, March 10, 2021 at 9:57:36 AM UTC-5, Mike Anderson wrote:
On 3/3/2021 6:08 PM, S K wrote:
"deceased" is absurd. they were killed. do many judges refuse to allow the victims in a murder case to be called "victims"?
I think it's mainly a way to prevent prejudicing the jury. I.e. the DA
saying in his opening or closing statement "I will prove/have proved
that the defendant shot the victim" is more prejudicial than "I will
prove/have proved that the defendant shot the deceased" (using the word
"victim" makes the jury more ready to assume that there was actually a
crime without even yet hearing/seeing any evidence where-as using the
word "deceased" allows for the shooting to be accidental or self-defense
and makes the DA have to actually present evidence showing otherwise.)
Think of it as a lesser case of implying the conclusion. "Have you
stopped beating your wife?" If you don't even *HAVE* a wife, you
couldn't have been beating her in the first place but the way the
question is posed implies that not only do you have a wife but that you
did beat her at least once at some time in the past. Saying "the victim"
preassumes the conclusion that there was a crime ("No crime? No
victim.") without yet showing the evidence for it.
If natural death/suicide is ruled out - the deceased is nothing if not a victim.
The deceased *IS* the victim of an untimely death, yes. But did the
defendant illegally cause it? That's the question that can become
prejudicially influenced. If it's a case of self-defense, you still have
a "victim" but the deceased was a victim of his own actions, not the defendant's (and thus no crime.) What about something that was
definitely accidental? That's not "natural causes" but again, no crime.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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