What reasons can exist for legal impunity?

Answer 1

I don't know how is it in the U.S. criminal law, but in the European continental law sistem immunity and impunity causes are not the same thing! Immunity means that someone comites a crime and escapes with it in the country were it was done, because it cannot be prosecuted there, in according to the law (example: foreign diplomats, leaders of state visiting, foreign military in mission with the accept of that state). This does not mean that he or she cannot be accountable for that crime into their own country. In general, immunity is granted due to international law obligations taken on by state governments, and does not relieve guilt in general for the criminal (offender), but assures a good maintenance of foreign politics between different states. In that spirit, the state onto who's territory was the offense committed cannot rend countable the person which committed that crime, but it can send him or her away into the state where he/she belongs, where it is possible to apply a punishment for the crime.

Impunity causes are institutions of criminal law according to whom a person (any person) cannot be convicted and punished (anywhere) for a crime (offense) he/she has committed, because of some legal disposition inserted into the national law system of a certain country in order to obtain a certain behavior from the offender and if that behavior was obtained. For example> in some legal systems the one who attempts to kill someone, but after shooting the victim, from his/hers own will, does something to save the victims life, is protected from the punishment deserved for attempting murder. Instead, the criminal will receive only the penalty for harming the victim, offense that would of been taken over into the attempt of murder if the perpetrator wouldn't have voluntarily saved the victim's life! In this way the law encourages and rewards the act of preventing the biggest harm (result) of the crime, transmitting the message to the offender that is still not to late to stop, not all is lost, encouraging him/her to actively implicate themselves into preventing the worst to happen. In exchange, they have a legal disposition that imperatively prevents them to be prosecuted for the criminal act committed (attempt to murder), but, if the act committed until that moment has on its own a criminal relevance, than only that smaller punishment will be inflected to them! In similar way, in some country's, the cooperation of offenders accused of committing certain crimes (like drug traffic), meaning that they disclose to the authority's where the loot is, or who are the people with whom they committed that crime, or the recognition of a false testimony before producing effect (determining a conviction due to it's contents) grants the perpetrator impunity = he/she will not be convicted and receive the penalty for that crime. This is not a decision of the judge or jury, but a mandatory prescription of the law and the magistrate has to apply it or the case will be considered a miss-trail.

MY QUESTION WAS IF ANYBODY CAN HELP ME IDENTIFY IN U.S LAW OR OTHER COUNTRY'S LEGAL SYSTEM SOME OF THOSE IMPUNITY CAUSES, AND HELP ME DISCOVER AS MANY REASONS AS POSSIBLE FOR THEM TO EXIST! WAT DO YOU THING THE LEGISLATOR WANTED WHEN HE CREATED THOSE INSTITUTIONS???