Immortal characters in the modern day: what can legally happen to them?

[Isamu Dyson]

Let us suppose that, for whatever reason, an immortal slips up and is recognized to be unaging.

Realistically speaking, what can law enforcement/a government (local or otherwise) do to them?

[Forrestfire]

I would imagine that it'd be the same as with any citizen, assuming they're citizens. If the immortal was pulling a faked death/inherit own stuff cycle, there's definitely some legal issues there.

I wonder if killing someone who can come back to life is murder or attempted murder.

[TheCountAlucard]

Forged legal documents could very well be the least of their worries. At the very least, they would earn the enmity of any fellow immortals for tearing down the curtain, as it were. I imagine that fellow immortals would watch the situation like a hawk, in case whatever becomes of the immortal sets a dangerous precedent.

How old the immortal is might be an important factor.

What if, for example, a court rules that an immortal isn't human?

[molten_dragon]

Let us suppose that, for whatever reason, an immortal slips up and is recognized to be unaging.

Realistically speaking, what can law enforcement/a government (local or otherwise) do to them?

Legally, they'd just be on the hook for any crimes they committed. Most likely something related to fraud as others have mentioned. Life in prison could take on a whole new meaning.

Outside the courtroom, expect agents of every government who knows about it, and probably major corporations too, to be trying to get hold of that person and figure out the secret of their immortality. They'd never have a moment's peace the rest of their lives.

[TheStranger]

Well, the first question is, what does the government *want* to do to them? Arrest them? Execute them? Torture the secret of immortality out of them? Employ them as an unkillable superspy?

Not surprisingly, there aren't any laws (at least that I'm aware of) that deal with immortality. So, assuming a U.S.-like legal system, it's not like the government can just arrest the guy for being immortal. But they can presumably arrest him for anything else he might have done.

The first thing that comes to mind is the likelihood that this guy has created a cover identity, which probably involves some criminal behavior. So that's a perfectly good reason to lock him up for a handful of years. Now, one issue that comes up is that this guy doesn't have a "real" identity, or at least not one that can be verified. Which means he's not a U.S. citizen, and is pretty much a non-person (depending on his exact history and how good his lawyer is), so he has substantially fewer rights than most people. Standard U.S. practice after arresting non-citizens is to deport them back to their country of origin. Which doesn't necessarily apply here, but let's play what-if and delve into some things that aren't "legal" in the strictest sense of the word, but which the government might well be able to pull off.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that our immortal has been arrested and convicted of being in the country illegally, using a fake ID, etc. Now the government might normally locate his country of origin and deport him, but we know that can't really be done. But it's not like this is the only guy in U.S. custody who isn't a U.S. citizen and can't prove his identity, so it would probably be trivially easy to "determine" his country of origin, which would conveniently be a friendly developing nation with poor record-keeping. At which point you can do all the paperwork to deport him, close his file, and make him disappear into Guantanamo, Area 51, or wherever you want him. Assuming the government was smart enough not to call attention to this guy's immortality, nobody is likely to notice, or to do the follow-up work to find the one guy out of thousands of deportees who didn't actually get where he was going.

So that's the extreme example, but I think the government could probably pull it off, unless the immortal could somehow stop it from happening. In this case, his best option might be to go to the press - intense scrutiny makes it much harder for him to fall through the cracks.

[Gavran]

While I'm not a lawyer and it'd of course depend on the governments involved, there are weirdly specific legal definitions for many things, not only "citizen" but also "person." It's possible that such an individual would be, in effect, outside of the legal system. Not that any hands would actually be tied by this, since laws can be re-written and even ignored. If aliens started kidnapping people, nobody would care that there aren't laws forbidding aliens from doing that.

[AKA_Bait]

As some have noted, there are really two questions here:

1. What could a government/law enforcement do to them within the boundaries of the law?

2. What could a government/law enforcement do to them as a matter of fact?

The former would be nation specific and vary with their conduct. It's possible they will have broken no laws, if they are "off the grid" so to speak. This isn't as unlikely as it sounds if you consider how much things have changed in the past 200 years. A Bronze Age person might have a very very difficult time adjusting to modern society and actually prefer to live off in the woods or something.

The latter is, as it is for everyone immortal or no, pretty much anything they want.

[Slipperychicken]

Life sentence, no parole*. While in prison, experiments and interviews are conducted on him, against his will. Prison ought to break his spirit (particularly if he happens to be uneducated and/or ignorant. Double bonus points if he's a member of an already-persecuted minority), hopefully science gains something from the experiments.


*If he hasn't done anything wrong, you could just "disappear" him to some overseas secret prison. Say it's a national security thing. Assuming they don't have money, power, and influence (i.e. vulnerable) you can put pretty much anyone in jail if you use the words "national security". Maybe you could say that he was lying on his birth records, and is therefore a suspect for terrorism. An immortal person should have a bunch of inconsistencies in his paperwork.

Alternatively, say he's a lunatic for claiming to be immortal, then lock him up in an asylum "for his own good" while you do the experiments.

[veti]

The first thing that comes to mind is the likelihood that this guy has created a cover identity, which probably involves some criminal behavior. So that's a perfectly good reason to lock him up for a handful of years. Now, one issue that comes up is that this guy doesn't have a "real" identity, or at least not one that can be verified. Which means he's not a U.S. citizen, and is pretty much a non-person (depending on his exact history and how good his lawyer is), so he has substantially fewer rights than most people. Standard U.S. practice after arresting non-citizens is to deport them back to their country of origin. Which doesn't necessarily apply here, but let's play what-if and delve into some things that aren't "legal" in the strictest sense of the word, but which the government might well be able to pull off.

Tricky...

If he was born anywhere in the territory that currently comprises the US, then (a good lawyer could argue) he's got every bit as good a claim to the title "US citizen" as, say, George Washington had. And if he's been accumulating investments for any significant length of time, he can probably afford a very good lawyer indeed to make an argument on those lines. Heck, he's had time to become such a lawyer himself, if he wants to.

But the question is what could 'legally' happen to them. For me, the toughest part of that question is - the baseline assumption, in most civilised countries, is that legal proceedings are public. So any charges, trials, arguments relating directly to someone's longevity - would mean that the secret is out.

If the government doesn't want to publish that (for obvious reasons), and it doesn't want to go to the other extreme of just having the guy disappear - which as you point out, is distressingly easy, but I like to think a government would be reluctant to resort to it, unless provoked - then really, it's limited to prosecuting him when he steps out of line. Charges along the lines of identity fraud probably aren't going to make it into court, because of the publicity angle; but other crimes, like, e.g., tax evasion, won't get any such immunity.

[Icewraith]

How immortal is the character in question? Are they invulnerable? Do they heal wounds? Can they regenerate limbs? Are their memories immortal?

If they simply don't age, there's quite a lot of nasty things a government can do to them, and they're still subject to death by injury or illness.

[TheStranger]

The ability to manage publicity is kind of the wild card here. A man claiming to be immortal could become a celebrity, or he could be dismissed as a lunatic (or both). He can probably go public at any time, and the government can't stop him, unless it bypasses the normal transparent court system completely (which isn't impossible, even "legally"). But he needs some kind of proof, and there's just no guarantee how anybody will respond to that sort of thing. Unless and until he knows for sure that his cover's already blown, he won't want to play that card. And unless he's taken the time to set up his proof in advance (which in itself risks discovery), claiming to be immortal won't do him much good. I mean, imagine that you were on a jury and the defendant raised that as his defense - I can't think it would go well.

This assumes that the immortal has slipped up, but his secret isn't widely known. Now, if you have an immortal who has already gone public and convinced the world, you have a different situation. People will be watching, so it's much harder to just make him disappear. You can probably convict him of something (tax evasion is indeed a classic), but putting him in prison for a couple years doesn't accomplish any major goals, because it's still fairly open and people will keep an eye on him - you need him to disappear from the system completely so you can get him into your secret lab and run some tests. And prosecuting could raise his profile even further if the government plays it wrong.

In that case, the best solution might be to throw a pile of money at him in exchange for his cooperation in some minimally-invasive testing and a promise to stay quiet about it.

[Slipperychicken]

Tricky...
If he was born anywhere in the territory that currently comprises the US, then (a good lawyer could argue) he's got every bit as good a claim to the title "US citizen" as, say, George Washington had.

Not if his paperwork doesn't check out (If someone's records indicate that he's 200 years old, then they don't check out). If they do, then someone can doctor the records, so they don't check out, so he can be held suspect for that reason.

Also, indefinite detainment is, technically speaking, legal. All you need is the right justification. At least in some countries, anyway. In any case, as long as you can get the right judge to sign off on it, it's legal.

And if he's been accumulating investments for any significant length of time, he can probably afford a very good lawyer indeed to make an argument on those lines. Heck, he's had time to become such a lawyer himself, if he wants to.

This is actually pretty reasonable, assuming that our immortal has high socioeconomic status and good education. The OP should clarify on this, however.

[MonochromeTiger]

Let us suppose that, for whatever reason, an immortal slips up and is recognized to be unaging.

Realistically speaking, what can law enforcement/a government (local or otherwise) do to them?

depends on the type of immortality.

"invincible" immortals like in highlander or certain comic book characters would likely be locked up and studied/experimented on so that some pharmaceutical company in cooperation with a bureaucrat can get the fame and fortune of "curing death"....and considering the reasons for that are usually magic that means entire generations of people trying this with the immortal never being seen in public again.

fixed age immortals would be about the same as invincible.

non fixed age immortals, meaning ones who will live forever until either killed or sickened but will still age physically (just not enough to kill them) would likely become famous and become the focus of several advertising and publicity campaigns for insurance companies as they suffer through an eternity of uncomfortable old age.

[Grim Portent]

Legally? Not much that actually relates to their immortality, eternal life isn't a crime after all. At worst the actual legal trouble an immortal would be in is fraud, although depending on how they kept their longevity a secret even that might not be a problem.

People would certainly try to ascertain (and copy) the nature of their immortality but if the existence of the immortal was publicly known of then trying to do anything to them against their will would be very difficult.

[Kadzar]

This blog post presents a lawyer's view of the legal issues of immortality (The rest of the blog also contains lawyers' opinions on how various things that happen in comic books would work out legally). Not only is there the secret identity thing, but apparently property laws would also get involved if they don't want to spend an eternity working for a living.

[TheStranger]

This blog post presents a lawyer's view of the legal issues of immortality (The rest of the blog also contains lawyers' opinions on how various things that happen in comic books would work out legally). Not only is there the secret identity thing, but apparently property laws would also get involved if they don't want to spend an eternity working for a living.

There is a definite challenge to passing wealth between your successive alter egos. (I'm also a lawyer, FWIW, but with no particular expertise in this area.) Moving lots of money around does tend to attract government attention, at least in the U.S. Not that the government is opposed to people having money, but it likes to know where it's coming from and it wants to take its cut. One potential solution is to keep your money in a country that doesn't pay as much attention to those things, or where officials can be bribed relatively cheaply. This may also make it somewhat easier to swap identities.

Another solution is to accept a certain amount of attrition with each identity and move the remainder of your wealth outside the legal system. Essentially, bury a pile of gold somewhere (not necessarily literally), establish your new identity, then go dig it up. Then build back up to a large amount of money before you have to do it again. Or, just keep the bulk of your money off the books entirely for a few identities in a row. Probably not an option if you prefer the Bruce Wayne lifestyle, but the average person can probably sneak some extra cash into their budget without attracting too much attention if they're smart about it.

To a large extent, it depends what you're doing with your immortality. Are you trying to take over the world? Just kind of living under the radar for a prolonged period? Partying like there's no tomorrow? What kind of standard of living are you looking for? Do you have any family? New family with each identity? How long do you want to spend in a given identity?

[Slipperychicken]

Our immortal could push it in the opposite direction, if he was so ambitious: Acquire enormous wealth (through investments and other such activities), then come out as immortal and start a cult worshiping himself as a messiah (probably marketing himself as a reincarnation of a well-known religious figure to pull followers off of major religions), or prophet, or something like that. Mortals do this kind of stuff all the time, and it works pretty well even when they have only scant evidence of immortality. Just imagine the money he could get from book sales alone!

After that, he might try to (non-violently, maybe) gain control over at least one state (hopefully a powerful one, since he has infinite time to build up his resources. Ideally he might get multiple states under his thumb) using his massive power, wealth, and influence. Then if he's actually good at running his theocracy, he can gradually expand it and try to become the god-emperor of mankind.


tl;dr: Become a religious figure, take over the world, become the WH40K god-emperor.

[SiuiS]

Let us suppose that, for whatever reason, an immortal slips up and is recognized to be unaging.

Realistically speaking, what can law enforcement/a government (local or otherwise) do to them?

Depends on the country and regime.

[Re'ozul]

Unless they specifically want to do something to the Immortal there really isn't a lot they can do unless said immortal has done something that any other person could be prosecuted for.

And with the USA as an example, the statute of limitations would probably make anything that has happened as a result of the immortality unlikely to be brought to court:

Although the majority of federal crimes are governed by the general five year statute of limitations, Congress has chosen longer periods for specific types of crimes – 20 years for the theft of art work;10 years for arson, for certain crimes against financial institutions, and for immigration offenses

Now murder on the other hand (assuming relevant evidence is even on record somewhere) could always be prosecuted and if we go by Highlander Immortals then theres probably a lot of that. Of course figuring out which ones can be attributed and getting enough evidence for it to be considered substantial enough for a court case could be hard if the immortal had been peaceful for a few decades.

[Slipperychicken]

Of course figuring out which ones can be attributed and getting enough evidence for it to be considered substantial enough for a court case could be hard if the immortal had been peaceful for a few decades.

If our immortal had large amounts of wealth from centuries of investment, then he could afford teams of good enough lawyers (and otherwise influence the justice system) to crush most allegations anyway*. This goes double if he had used his time and wealth to build/maintain connections with powerful friends.

*Even if his legal defense wasn't sufficient, he could try to force a settlement through the ability to "outlast" the prosecution's willingness to dump money into legal expenses.


The trick for an immortal is to avoid life-without-parole sentences.

[TheStranger]

Our immortal could push it in the opposite direction, if he was so ambitious: Acquire enormous wealth (through investments and other such activities), then come out as immortal and start a cult worshiping himself as a messiah (probably marketing himself as a reincarnation of a well-known religious figure to pull followers off of major religions), or prophet, or something like that. Mortals do this kind of stuff all the time, and it works pretty well even when they have only scant evidence of immortality. Just imagine the money he could get from book sales alone!

After that, he might try to (non-violently, maybe) gain control over at least one state (hopefully a powerful one, since he has infinite time to build up his resources. Ideally he might get multiple states under his thumb) using his massive power, wealth, and influence. Then if he's actually good at running his theocracy, he can gradually expand it and try to become the god-emperor of mankind.


tl;dr: Become a religious figure, take over the world, become the WH40K god-emperor.

Interesting scenario, though probably not as easy as you make it sound. Building enough of a following to become god-emperor is a very long game - probably on the order of centuries. And you're pretty vulnerable for most of that time, unless you have powers other than simply being immortal.

The better solution is probably to gain power first (in the normal way of wealthy and connected individuals), develop a cult of personality, and go from there. You wouldn't actually announce that you were the immortal god-emperor, you'd just stick around until you were a permanent fixture atop the government. Actually... do we have any proof that Vladimir Putin *isn't* immortal?

OTOH, half the internet would immediately march on Washington if Chuck Norris declared himself emperor. So there's that, too.

[Slipperychicken]

The better solution is probably to gain power first (in the normal way of wealthy and connected individuals), develop a cult of personality, and go from there. You wouldn't actually announce that you were the immortal god-emperor, you'd just stick around until you were a permanent fixture atop the government. Actually... do we have any proof that Vladimir Putin *isn't* immortal?

That's more or less what I meant. I guess the order would be: Get rich -> Acquire political influence (up to and including direct control of at least one state) -> Come out as immortal -> Attempt to convert people into worshiping self.

I'm sure that once he's had enough years in power, and still looks like he's in his 20s, people would widely believe the immortality stuff.

[Mr Beer]

Depends on type of immortailty as stated above.

My guess is they'd get locked up for intensive study about the nature of their immortality and how it can be extracted/duplicated for use by the correct people.

[Tanuki Tales]

Interestingly enough, this is what happens in the light novel series Baccano! to one or two different character.

Anyways, it also depends on the immortal, along with the type of immortality. If he's the kind of guy who can Solomon Grundy through military grade arms and has training (through experience) that would put Batman to shame, I'd like to see any world government do anything that he doesn't want happening to him in the first place.

And this is all assuming he's not well connected enough to make his slip up be covered up.

[Beleriphon]

The trick for an immortal is to avoid life-without-parole sentences.

It would probably qualify as cruel and unusual punishment as the presumption is the person will die in custody not stay there until universe finally reaches heat death. The Law and the Multiverse blog (linked up thread) probably has the most complete discussion on the topic I've ever seen.

You could take the Futurama method and just dump some money into a low interest savings account in year X wait and arbitrary amount of time and have millions/billions. As I recall the episode of Futurama that deals with that idea even has the correct amount of interest based on Fry's initial bank balance.

[veti]

You could take the Futurama method and just dump some money into a low interest savings account in year X wait and arbitrary amount of time and have millions/billions. As I recall the episode of Futurama that deals with that idea even has the correct amount of interest based on Fry's initial bank balance.

The problem with that is that real interest on an account like that is - if you're lucky - approximately zero, and often actually negative (as now, for instance, in many countries).

So by the time your 93 cents has grown to 4.3 billion dollars, it'll cost 4 billion dollars (at least) just to buy a can of Coke. Sure you'll be a billionnaire, but you'll be no closer to "rich" than when you made the deposit.

[MonochromeTiger]

The problem with that is that real interest on an account like that is - if you're lucky - approximately zero, and often actually negative (as now, for instance, in many countries).

So by the time your 93 cents has grown to 4.3 billion dollars, it'll cost 4 billion dollars (at least) just to buy a can of Coke. Sure you'll be a billionnaire, but you'll be no closer to "rich" than when you made the deposit.

especially taking into account that the best way to actively save that money up would be to never touch it, that might mean purposefully limiting what you can do with money for years on the promise that it will net you slightly more if you wait long enough. it's like saying you can eat a feast now or you can increase the size of the feast by 0.00001% every year if you hold off.

[Beleriphon]

The problem with that is that real interest on an account like that is - if you're lucky - approximately zero, and often actually negative (as now, for instance, in many countries).

So by the time your 93 cents has grown to 4.3 billion dollars, it'll cost 4 billion dollars (at least) just to buy a can of Coke. Sure you'll be a billionnaire, but you'll be no closer to "rich" than when you made the deposit.

Yeah, I know that but Futurama clearly doesn't work that way.

[Slipperychicken]

The problem with that is that real interest on an account like that is - if you're lucky - approximately zero, and often actually negative (as now, for instance, in many countries).

So by the time your 93 cents has grown to 4.3 billion dollars, it'll cost 4 billion dollars (at least) just to buy a can of Coke. Sure you'll be a billionnaire, but you'll be no closer to "rich" than when you made the deposit.

The immortal would (I hope) be smart/well-informed enough to use real investment strategies (which would yield actual ROI/growth), instead of naively dumping it in the bank.

And also, you know, keep track of his account so he can tell when the fund manager/investor is trying to rip him off.


Of course, all this is assuming quite a bit about our immortal, his understanding of the financial system, and also his general intelligence and education.

[Isamu Dyson]

My guess is they'd get locked up for intensive study about the nature of their immortality and how it can be extracted/duplicated for use by the correct people.

It seems that laws wouldn't matter.