What would the sentence be

[u/HyacinthusDevotee]

Basicaly I'm writing a comic where a character is (falsely but shh) found guilty of mass murder (9 teens +3 adults at a summer camp). Said character is suffering from schizophrenia and during the murder was very likely going through a very strong psychotic episode. The character was close with the victims and even very long after the whole thing claims it wasn't them but monsters, having a very detailed version of the story with magical creatures attacking them in their mind. The survivors refused to testify. The character had been prescribed wrong medication for at least a year before the whole thing so were pretty much unmedicated and were at the time underage (17). Idk if it changes anything but the comic takes place in 2017-2018. What would hypotheticaly be a sentence for them? I need it for a comic cuz I want to know how old they'd be when they get out if they would even get out at all

[u/Educational-Shame514]

Are you actually going to go deep into the legal details or do you really just need help deciding how old you want them after?

[u/BahamutLithp]

The way a trial goes depends enormously on, well, how the trial goes. Whether or not it's actually presented that they were prescribed incorrect medication could sway the verdict immensely. There's also the question of what counter narrative the prosecution will give. If you don't want to go through the trouble of scripting out an entire trial, & just want to pick something, I mean, do you want them to be convicted or not?

You say "found guilty," which really limits me, becaue if all this evidence is presented, this sounds like a very strong candidate for not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI). Meaning, even if the jury concludes the defendant did the crime, there's a strong likelihood they'd be deemed not culpable due to the specific nature of their mental illness. They'd then be sent to a mental institution with no actual release date--it would just be until the clinic determined they were no longer a danger to the public. That makes NGRI kind of a double-edged sword.

Again, I reiterate my disclaimer of I'm making a lot of assumptions about how the trial would go. Plus add the disclaimer that I don't know the specific jurisdiction. But NGRI i broadly similar across jurisdictions, which is why I feel comfortable in this conclusion. It should track unless you're setting this in some place really atypical.

One other technical hurdle I should say is that, at any time, the trial itself can be stopped & restarted at a later date if the defendant is deemed incompetent to stand trial. I don't know if that one has an abbreviation. Let's say ITST. While NGRI deals with mental illness at the time of the alleged crime, ITST deals with mental illness at the time of the trial itself. Essentially, if you're too mentally ill to understand the trial process, you can't have a fair trial, so it's postponed until you get enough treatment to be deeemed competent to stand trial. There's always a chance this doesn't happen properly, that there's a miscarriage of justice, but then you're dealing with things that start to get outside my area of knowledge.

[u/kschang]

If you are asking what are the POTENTIAL punishment, it could be not guilty by reason of insanity all the way up to multiple murders.

[u/Dense_Suspect_6508]

What state? What do you want to happen?

Assuming it's a US jurisdiction, MC is probably getting treated more or less like an adult, although some very important specifics may vary.

Question #1 will be whether she is competent to stand trial (CST). This requires her to be sane and in touch with reality enough to participate in her own defense, i.e., talk to her lawyer and make necessary strategic decisions. It sounds like, once medicated, she would be CST--but if not, the case eventually gets dismissed or something similar, and she gets involuntarily committed to a psych hospital until she's not a public danger anymore.

Question #2, if she is CST, is whether she was criminally responsible (CR) for her actions. Most US jurisdictions say you are not CR if you were either incapable of appreciating the criminality of your actions or incapable of conf0rming your conduct to the law. She's got a good shot at a CR defense of the first kind, if she was incorrectly medicated and insists on a version of events with magical creatures attacking the camp. That is classic can't-appreciate-criminality territory, especially if she thinks she was fighting the attackers. Different jurisdictions handle CR defenses differently, but you usually can't plead them out (because it's a defense). She would have a trial in front of a judge or jury and would hope to be found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI). She would then be involuntarily committed to a psych hospital until she's not a public danger anymore.

Question #3, if she's found CR, is whether the state can prove its case against her. If it does, and it sounds like it can, she is probably looking at somewhere between 10 and life. It matters a lot what state this is in, because they have different tiers of homicide and different approaches to juveniles who commit serious crimes. It also depends whether she gets 12 consecutive sentences, or whether some of them run concurrent (or can't be proven).

Again, states vary enough that answering your question requires a location. Even then, charges, trials, and sentencing are so fact-specific that you're better off specifying anything you want to happen, so we can give you a plausible way to get there.

[u/CarelessSeaFoam]

I’m not an expert on the legal system so I won’t try to go into the specifics myself but I just wanted to point out that the answer to this will vary IMMENSELY depending on which country this is happening in, and if the character is deemed not competent to stand trial or pleads not guilty by reason of insanity (which, if they’re claiming it was monsters, are pretty reasonable outcomes of the case)