형사피고인 자살의 효과-로마법의 경우

Roman Law has long adhered to a doctrine that all the proceedings of a criminal case comes to an end when the accused commits a suicide. In the middle of the classical times of the Roman jurisprudence the imperial enactments began to regulate the suicide of the accused. For the civil persons only a completed suicide was relevant. The main point was to distinguish between the excusable and the unexcusable suicide to decide whether the will of the deceased was to be nullified (testamentum irritum) and the property of the deceased to be confiscated to the fisc. For the soldiers a committed suicide without effect was also disciplined with penal sanctions. The legal rules which continued to be the current law to the late times are as follows: 1. A suicide with just cause as motivated by being tired of life (taedio vitae) or unable to bear pains or ill-health (impatientia doloris, morbi), etc. is distinguished from a suicide without cause (sine causa) motivated with the consciousness of having committed a crime (conscientia criminis). 2. A confiscation is prescribed only in the case of a suicide without cause. It is, however, not a penalty for a suicide. 3. For a confiscation is restricted to the case of a crime of which the penalty amounts to death or deportatio and which would itself bring about a confiscation if convicted guilty. 4. The main argument for the confiscation is that a suicide may be equivalent to a confession or a self-judgment admitting guilt. 5. However, an heir is allowed to defend the deceased and to prove his innocence.