A Prisoner Who Briefly Died Argues That He’s Served His Life Sentence

I see a lot of people playing language lawyer with what it means &quot;to die.&quot;<p>I think another fruitful thing to think about what &quot;for life&quot; means. It is not unreasonable to interpret &quot;for life&quot; as &quot;while living&quot;, instead of &quot;until dead.&quot;<p>Indeed, the sentence if &quot;life in prison&quot; is logically equivalent to &quot;no life outside of prison.&quot; No one debates the fact that this man is alive now. If his sentence is to live only in prison, then there is no issue.<p>The interesting case is whether declining to honor his DNR counts as cruel and unusual punishment by extending his term in prison.

Before you comment about the judge getting it wrong, do your due diligence and at least get familiar with the plain text of the law.<p>In Iowa, &quot;death&quot; is defined in Iowa Code §702.8 as &quot;an irreversible cessation of spontaneous respiratory and circulatory functions&quot;.<p>It says &quot;irreversible&quot; right off the bat. IANAL but legally speaking this is an easy and uncontroversial case.

It’s the DNR that makes this one tricky. His lawyer should have made the argument that keeping him alive against his will instead of letting him die constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

It seems to me that the Ship of Theseus is relevant [1]. A temporary loss of heart beat&#x2F;breathing in a body receptive to resuscitation - and which is resuscitated - shouldn&#x27;t really be considered dying. We don&#x27;t consider the continual loss and replacement of bodily tissue over the course of several decades to result in a new person, or that waking after sleeping is classified as a new birth.<p>And anyway, if the guy was declared dead, should he have expected a new birth certificate and to have his age reset to 0? Would he really suggest someone could be &quot;born&quot; into someone elses body? In that case, perhaps he should be &quot;exorcised&quot;, or is he claiming he&#x27;s now a zombie? Do zombies have legal rights? If not, what was he proposing was the relationship between his pre &quot;dead&quot; personality&#x2F;identity and his new one?<p>You can see why the judge went the way he did...<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ship_of_Theseus" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ship_of_Theseus</a>

I think the biggest claim here was the clear violation of his due process rights, re DNR.<p>Judgement sidestepped this by saying there was no ruling in lower court so we can&#x27;t rule on it, I think.

I&#x27;m currently reading the book &quot;Fall, or Dodge in Hell&quot; by Neal Stephenson. Speaking in general terms to avoid too many spoilers, there&#x27;s a scene where it&#x27;s strongly implied one character is responsible for the death of another. Both end up having their brains scanned and uploaded to a simulated afterlife. (The other dying of natural causes soon after.) Not addressed (at least, not yet) in the book, but something I couldn&#x27;t help wondering, is how or should this crime be punished? Perhaps the killer shouldn&#x27;t have been allowed to be uploaded, but that had already occurred.

Perhaps the easiest patch would be to make all life sentences “life plus 500 years”. Methuselah can work around it this way; it should cover everyone else...

It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There&#x27;s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.<p>- Miracle Max

There are all kinds of interesting implications and questions here.<p>1. What is the meaning <i>and intent</i> of a &quot;life sentence&quot;, or other punishment?<p>2. Does it apply to a singular life, or all lives a prisoner might have?<p>3. What (if any) legal definitions for &quot;life&quot; and &quot;death&quot; are there, in relevant jurisdictions. And how are they treated in sentencing laws?<p>4. Is clinical death the same as legal death?<p>5. Is there legal precedent for obligations lifted (or privileges revoked &#x2F; denied) on the basis of temporary clinical death? E.g., lifetime obligations for debt, etc.?<p>6. With advances in medical technology, what are the implications of <i>either</i> induced death (e.g., the film &quot;Flatliners&quot;) <i>or</i> extended &#x2F; eternal life (Singularity, cryopreservation) on future legal matters -- not only sentencing but contracts and the like.<p>6a. If a convict were sentenced to death and were clinically but reversably killed, would that sentence be considered fulfilled?<p>6b. What of eternal or lifelong benefits or obligations -- government pensions, wills, property ownership, etc., in the case of immortal or resurrected individuals.<p>7. Is a resurrected individual the same or a different person? Clinically? Legally? (Ship of Theseus, as @nprateem notes.)<p>8. Is a person who dies naturally but is resurrected against medical directives (as in the Iowa case) considered discharged? If so, or if no, on what legal basis?<p>It&#x27;s worth noting that the law is <i>not</i> a system that&#x27;s consistent either externally (as with science or public opinion&#x2F;sentiment), or internally. It is based <i>somewhat</i> on legislation, precedent, and gloss. But also on argument, persuasion, judicial temperment, and political and power relations. It kinda works, but is awfully creaky in parts.

At some point, artificially extended life spans may become feasible and common.<p>It seems to me if&#x2F;when that happens, a life sentence should be considered cruel and unusual.

If he is now alive then he has never been dead.

if he was serving only one life sentence and had DNR order, then it&#x27;s fair to say he served his sentence if they resuscitated him against his will<p>if he would be serving multiple life sentences than he would just fulfill first one, otherwise what&#x27;s the purpose of multiple life sentences in US? we don&#x27;t have this nonsense in Europe

This story reminds me of an old movie called Flatliners (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt0099582&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt0099582&#x2F;</a>) where medical students experimented with near death by intentionally inducing cardiac arrest. If you get a life sentence you could hire the Flatliners to come and kill you for a few minutes and then bring you back. hehehe

It seems to me that defining clinical death as the loss of heart beat and breathing is outdated and it should instead be defined as the cessation of higher brain activity.[1]<p>Alternately, it seems to me like referring to that as death is playing semantics. It seems to me that the defining feature of death is that you cannot come back from it[2].<p>I&#x27;d be interested to hear other perspectives or if I might be overlooking something.<p>[1] I&#x27;m guessing there might still be a place for the current definition of clinical death in situations where its not viable to monitor brain activity such as triaging disaster victims.<p>[2] As a Christian I would see an exception for a case where someone dies and and God violates the laws of nature to bring them back. However, I realize that Atheists don&#x27;t believe that&#x27;s possible and even from a Christian perspective it&#x27;s exceedingly rare (I can think of 4 times where it potentially happens in the entire Bible) so I don&#x27;t think that really impacts practical discussions of death.

Jon Snow used the same logic to get out of the Night’s Watch.

I&#x27;m not fully convinced the courts got this one completely right.<p>This is a very interesting legal argument and lays emphasis on the need for legislators to express their intentions in writing more fully as opposed to writing laws with such loose and widely applicable terms such as &quot;Life&quot; without giving the term or their intent in using it more context.<p>If, as the Judge argues, that &quot;he did not legally die as his presence in this courtroom indicates&quot;:<p>1. He&#x27;s indicating the existence of a written law stating that a person may only die once.<p>2.Additionally, there are actually legal provisions that delegate to the medically accepted definition of &quot;Death&quot; instead of deciding it themselves.<p>3. The Judge indicates that ruling in the plaintiffs favor would cause chaos for situations where medically induced resurrections would confuse laws from insurance to banking. That is not the plaintiffs burden to bear. That does not sound like a valid reason to rule on the interpretation of a law.<p>Finally, and i believe the most important part here: The US Constitution lays liberty and freedom at the heart of individual rights conferred upon people from God or a superior force. All laws enforced by the Government must be explicitly legislated within these bounds since it prevents the default case moving from &quot;Individual God given rights, unless expressly regulated within constitutional boundaries&quot; to &quot;Rights conferred by the Government discretion&quot; -&gt; The second case is explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.<p>The burden of legislation (And clearly elucidating intent) is upon the Legislative body. By leaving ambiguous the part within the letter of the law that regulates individual liberties for individuals found guilty of a crime, the Legislative has &quot;given up&quot; their jurisdiction in the edge case scenario which is in front of the court since it is &quot;undefined&quot; - This would have been a great case for the courts to weigh in and restrict legislative over reach and force more clearly written laws.<p>For those who think this is picking on too many nits - it sets precedent. A better example for argument might be the tax code and the popular saying that there is no living person capable of declaring that they are fully operating within the letter of the tax code due to the many levels of discretionary interpretation it allows.

Life sentence means life in prison. If he had gotten the death sentence, then maybe he has a argument.

If the court finds that he is dead, the prison should follow standard procedure and have the body buried or cremated immediately.