Okay, damasa, just for you...
This only applies to the question about whether someone can be charged with attempted murder when the victim is already dead. I'm not getting into the "crime of passion" stuff because I am still scarred from sitting through criminal law classes where we would read case after case where the guy kills the wife and her lover and gets acquitted or goes to jail for about 5 minutes, and case after case where a woman, after being tortured and abused by her husband for 20 years finally snaps and kills him and gets a life sentence. Ugh.
ANYWAY... according to the Illinois statute:
A person commits an attempt when, with intent to commit a specific offense, he does any act which constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of that offense.... It shall not be a defense to a charge of attempt that because of a misapprehension of the circumstances it would have been impossible for the accused to commit the offense intended.
So yes, you can be charged with attempted murder if the victim is already dead (i.e., murder was impossible), if you intened to commit murder. In the factual scenario presented, there may not be intent to commit murder, but the fact that the victim was already dead does not preclude such a charge. Of course, in other states the law may be different.
At least that's my understanding, based upon 2 minutes of research. Criminal law can be very odd, and common sense does not always prevail.
Hybrid Mode
