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Speak Up! - View Question #322 |
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Question: What are the consequences that the Washington DC sniper will be facing for all of the killings that he has done? What could he be tried for?
Answer: For each of the killings, the sniper could be tried for First Degree Murder (ARS 13-1105). All of the killings would be considered 'intentional' killings, meaning that he meant to kill the victims. And, even despite the fact that he may not have known his victims, he picked out that person and killed them.
First Degree Murder is punishable by either death or life in prison. That means that if the sniper were convicted for any one of the killings, he could either be sentenced to death would spend the rest of his life in jail. This is true of each of the killings. Sometime serial killers are convicted of many killings and you'll see them sentenced to '400 years' or 'multiple-life sentences'. The person can't actually live longer than their natural life, but a sentence for many hundreds of years, means that the person will never be eligible to be considered for parole or early release.
The sniper could also be charged with a number of other crimes, such as aggravated assault for injuring some of the victims and perhaps weapons charges, but the penalties for these crimes would be somewhat meaningless if he were already sentenced to death or life in prison for the killings.
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On 01/26/08
alek from WI said:
I think that they should be charged with every murder they commited. They should have to do a life sentence for every person they killed.
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On 04/07/03
toni from TX said:
one of the people was a minor. how will they treat that??
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On 10/29/02
Joe from AZ said:
[Attorney / author commentary]
Now that the sniper suspects are in custody, the state and federal governments are sorting out which of them will try the sniper suspects.
This is because murder is a crime that generally falls under the jurisdiction of the states, rather than the federal government. The murders will be prosecuted in the states where the murders occurred. And, since the murders occurred in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, all of them want to prosecute the suspects for the murders that happened in their territory. This means that there could be multiple tria
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