Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Roanoke Times throws down on thirteenth-century English common law

In this editorial, the Roanoke Times opines that the Virginia General Assembly should abolish the year-and-a-day rule, which means you can't be charged with murder if it takes the victim more than a year and a day to die.

They say: "The practice of medicine has advanced since 1278, when the year-and-a-day rule was established in Gloucester. So, too, has English law evolved: Parliament abolished the rule in 1996."

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