If an illegal person within the United States is killed by a legal can the legal go to jail?

Question

I mean the illegal has no rights, right???? He/she is not protected by this nation.

Answer 1

Homicide is (in most states and the Model Penal Code) defined as "causing the death of another person." Notice that there is no mention of the status of the person who dies, or the person who causes the death.

What makes homicide first degree murder, second degree murder, manslaughter, etc. does not have to do with these sorts of circumstances- it has to do with the mens rea of the attacker. That is, the state of mind the person who caused the death had. Was it premeditated? Was it provoked? Did they act with extreme indifference to human life? Did they do it purposefully, or just recklessly?

Really, you're just wrong when you say that an illegal "isn't protected by this nation." Criminal statutes dont take into account the status of the victim, instead they are designed to punish the morally blameworth acts of the actor.

Answer 2

I think you'r not looking at this correctly. The legal person has to abide by his country's laws and if I'm not mistaken, you do go to jail for killing somebody here in the US. The legal person killed someone when he should have been following the US laws.

People have a right to live regardless of where they are in the world or their legal status.

Look at it this way, if you were on vacation in Canada, and a Canadian kills you, then you would think that's f...ked up, right?

Answer 3

Wow. That really is an interesting question.

If the person wasn't here illegally, they wouldn't have been
murdered.

The same line of thinking goes when you are in the wrong in an accident with an unlicensed driver.

Of course, murder is much more extreme than a car accident.

Hmmmm....I'd bet that the murderer would get a much lighter sentence, like manslaughter or something along those lines.

This really is a good question!

Answer 4

Of course he will go to jail. Just because he is not protected as a citizen does not mean our laws dont apply while in this country. Can we rob all the tourists in Orlando also and not be punished since they are not citizens? Of course not. Evryone in this country legally or illegally has rights, just not all of the rights granted to citizens.

Answer 5

Yes they can, since the law of murder does not make a difference between legal and not legal.

Next yes even illegals are protected under the constitution, once they step on US soil, no matter how, they are protected.

Answer 6

Of the illegal had attacked a legal and had gotten killed because of self-defense then it's legal but if he killed him without reason then he is going to jail.

Answer 7

What kind of a question is that! You know if you kill someone you are going to jail. What the heII difference dose it make if they are here illegal. But if you don't think so then go ahead and do it see you in about 30 years

Answer 8

WRONG! Any person in this country is protected from violence under the law. The police are not the immigration service..they intervene when a crime is committed without regard to the nationality of the victim or the perpetrator.

Answer 9

Yes the murderer can go to jail. All human life is protected in this nation no matter what category you fall into.

Answer 10

technically the illegal one isn't protected by our laws, but the legal one is. the legal one still has to follow the law. we can't let people in our country, legal or not, run around killing other people. the killer would be punished regardless of citizenship.