Interpreted this way, a slayer statute will not prevent the killer from acquiring title to the property by other means. ![]() Such laws have sometimes been construed narrowly because the relevant statutes are criminal in nature, and serve to take away someone's rights that are otherwise afforded by law. In the United States, most jurisdictions have enacted a slayer statute, which codifies the rule and supplies additional conditions. Forty-eight states have enacted laws that strip a slayer of any inheritance benefit he would have gained from his unlawful act. ![]() In 1969, the Uniform Law Commission included No Profit theory language in its first promulgation of the Uniform Probate Code (UPC). Wade proposed a No Profit theory statutory fix to promote uniformity amongst the states in dealing with slayer cases. The slayer statute applies to both real and personal property that would have been acquired by intestacy or by will. ![]() Such an action is brought by a successor, or other party of interest (e.g., life insurance company, bank), on behalf of the victim's estate. Slayer statutes provide a right of civil action to a victim's successors for the purpose of directing the victim's testate/intestate property away from the slayer. Slayer statutes codify the public policy principle that a murderer cannot profit from his crime. In Judge Gray's opinion, the court could not simply create or imagine such statutes so as to obtain a morally pleasing result. Judge Gray argued that this was not something the court was permitted to do without an express, written statute. A court denying the estate to a slayer was to, in effect, add significant further punishment to what a slayer received under the criminal statute. Judge Gray argued that the criminal law already established punishment for slayers. originated from Judge John Clinton Gray's dissent in Riggs v. Hansen in an effort to distinguish early common law cases that dealt applied a similar outcome when disinheriting slayers). The Strict Construction theory (the term "Strict Construction" was coined by legal scholar Adam D. Other courts were reluctant to disinherit a slayer in absence of a legislatively codified statute directing the court to do so (Strict Construction theory). public policy justification of slayer statutes saying: "It would be a reproach to the jurisprudence of the country if one could recover insurance money payable on the death of the party whose life he had feloniously taken." ![]() Hansen in an effort to distinguish early common law cases that applied a similar outcome when dealing with slayers). Armstrong (1886), the first American case to consider the issue of whether a slayer could profit from their crime, the US Supreme Court set forth the No Profit theory (the term "No Profit" was coined by legal scholar Adam D. Some courts would disinherit the slayer because of the public policy principle that a slayer should not profit from his crime (No Profit theory). Hence, even a slayer who is acquitted of the crime of murder can lose the inheritance by the civil court running the estate.Īt common law, American courts used two different theories when dealing with early slayer cases. While a criminal conviction requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the slayer rule applies to civil law, not criminal law, so the petitioner must only prove the murder by a preponderance of the evidence, as in a wrongful death claim meaning on the civil standard of proof of the balance of probability. law of inheritance, stops a person inheriting property from a person they murdered (so that, for example, a murderer cannot inherit from parents or a spouse they killed). Murderer cannot inherit from their victim
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |