Dead Man Indicted

(Birmingham, Alabama) A grand jury in Tuscaloosa has indicted a corpse for the murders of two people in 2003. The dead body of Steven Kyle Kimbrell was charged with two counts of capital murder for causing the deaths of Clay Stanton North and Lindsay Brooke Whatley. Prior to his suicide last year, police didn't have enough evidence to charge Kimbrell with the murders, but now they do. He has avoided arrest because he's dead and not a flight risk.

It's not clear why the authorities are going through the motions of charging a dead man with crimes. I presume it has something to do with paperwork. One thing seems certain, though. Any enterprising lawyer could easily get the charges against Kimbrell dismissed in court. If Kimbrell can't understand what he's being charged with, which he can't because he's dead, and he can't confront his accusers, which he also can't because he's dead, it's inconceivable that he could be convicted by a court. Um, well, it should be inconceivable. Unfortunately, American courts sometimes do strange things.

There should be a statute of limitations on formally charging someone with a crime - death of the accused.

[Update] Based upon a different report, it seems that Kimbrell was not indicted by a grand jury nor were formal charges filed. The grand jury appears to have been asked to function only in a consultative capacity to add credence to the determination of police investigators that Kimbrell was the killer. It's unclear why it was believed to be necessary, however, it does explain why there was confusion in the reporting. Nevertheless, I still question whether it's appropriate for a grand jury to be used as a catch-all forum for determining the acceptability of an investigation.