Dealing with a real Death Note

[robvalue]

This is an imaginary fantastical scenario question. For those not interested, please drive through!

For those not familiar, Death Note is a brilliant manga/anime series about a titular magic book, which has the power to kill anyone whose name is written in it. (There's a bit more to it, but I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen the show yet.)

Pretend this happened for real; or at least, it appeared to. A series of unexplained deaths all happened to be recorded in a book this guy had. Further observation of the guy shows that people continue to inexplicably die shortly after he writes more names (minimum 40 seconds in the show).

What would be the legal implications? If there was no physical evidence that connected him to the murders other than writing their name, could he be held accountable? Would anyone even have grounds to confiscate the book? Would the law eventually have to change, or special consideration be made, assuming he just continued to "kill" people?

Innocent until found guilty.
How would a court declare a bunch of names written in a book any more than circumstantial evidence?

I agree, if things were done by the book, I don’t see how he could be convicted.

[Edwardo Piet]

I’m thinking that the best hypothesis would be that this guy somehow knows who is going to die and when.

But to be able to know when someone is going to die by the second I think you'd pretty much need magical powers, lol. We by no means have to technology to do that yet.

[The Grand Nudger]

Innocent until found guilty.

Hehehe, great ion theory, not how it works in practice. Show up charged with a dozen murders, you'll have an uphill battle convincing the jury you didn;t commit them. That's just how people work.

How would a court declare a bunch of names written in a book any more than circumstantial evidence?

Possessing an exhaustive list of victims isn;t circumstantial, not that it would matter..,mimd, because we can and do secure convictions on circumstantial evidence...most of them, in fact. What would be circumstantial, for example..is someone overhearing someone saying the defendant mumbled about killing all those sons of bitches, while scribbling in his book. Or a slew of witnesses that testify that they thought the defendant had a grudge against each and every name in there. That Sally Jane Rottencrotch said no to the dance and turned up dead, that his dad wouldn;t buy him that playstation and turned up dead, that the gas station employee carded him on his wine coolers and turned up dead.

No one would believe that he just knew everyone was going to die...-or- that he killed them by writing their names in the book. The prevailing theory would be that this book was his twisted little trophy. The only thing the defense could say was that he wrote them after the fact, but if the list was substantial enough they'd find at least one person whom he shouldn;t have known was dead, and that discredits that theory in the case of all the others. Honestly, a guy with a book full of dead names gets picked up and put under suspicion in our system.... is gonna fry.

[robvalue]

I've just watched the show through a second time, and I think I enjoyed the last third of the series way more this time. I was a bit thrown by the events the first time round and so didn't properly appreciate the characters and plot. I'm now fascinated by various questions surrounding the series of events.

Anyhow, after browsing online, I saw someone mention something relevant to my question. In the show, each death note has a corresponding Shinigami (a virtually unkillable being from another realm) who is responsible for the book. People who touch the death note are able to see and hear the Shinigami. So in a trial, the jury could all be made to see it.

The problem is that there's no way of obligating the Shinigami to answer particular questions, or to tell the truth if they do. But it at least confirms that the death note has powerful links to things beyond our understanding. I wonder whether this would tip the scales. It would be reasonable to assume the person who used the death note has seen and talked to the Shinigami already.