The reports of my death were greatly exaggerated

The issue for Ohio’s Hancock County court was whether Donald Eugene Miller, the man standing right in front of the court, legally dead?

In 1986, Donald Eugene Miller went missing. He allegedly owed $26,000 in back child support payments. As any good parent would do, he took off, looking high and low for work so he could take some financial responsibility for his offspring. That, or he was dodging a summons from his ex. Who really knows? The point is, he was on the run.  

He could not be found for over eight years. There was no evidence that he was still alive. His ex, after searching for traces of Donald’s existence, went to the police to have them track him down. Couldn’t be found.

She even went to his parents who lived in town to see if they had heard from Donny. Nothing.

She hired a private investigator. Nada.

In the world of hide-and-seekers, he was legendary. Rumor has it, he could’ve won the international hide-and-seek play-offs, but, by nature, the contestants are hard to track down, so we can’t be sure.

Now, Ohio has a law that allows you to declare a person dead. But don’t get too excited; strings are attached. You can’t just have your mortal enemy declared dead in a court of law. Or the guy who lets his dog do his business in your yard without picking it up. 

But, if you are a person with a financial interest in this other person being dead or alive (especially if they are wanted), then you can have the person declared dead. 

Ohio Revised Code Section 2121, the Presumed Decedent’s Law, states:

[A] presumption of the death of a person arises . . . [w]hen the person has disappeared and been continuously absent from the person's place of last domicile for a five-year period without being heard from during the period. . .

Naturally, the ex jumped on the chance. After looking for eight years and not finding a trace that he was alive, Donny was declared dead in 1994. His children were then able to receive social security death benefits.

Fast forward to 2005. Guess who shows up in town? Donald Eugene Miller.

Imagine how that conversation went with his parents.

Donny boy, so great to see you! It’s been a long time! Hey, before you come over for Thanksgiving dinner, just thought you might want to know that we gave away your room . . . and had you declared dead.  Just didn’t want any awkward conversations about what happened to your Pokémon collection.

When asked about his delayed absence, Donald said that after losing his job and facing child support payments, he did not know what else to do.  Let’s see, I could apply for a job at McDonalds. I hear Wal-Mart needs greeters. Or . . . I could skedaddle and live off the land for the better part of a decade. What to do, what to do.

Turns out, life is hard to live as a dead person. For example, the DMV would not give him a driver’s license. Apparently, this DMV wasn’t a big fan of the whole vampire community craze and frowned upon dead people driving cars. 

Voting, however, was no problem.

Donald filed a motion with the court to undo the order that declared him dead. 

Can you imagine having a more slam dunk case that Donald Eugene Miller’s? I imagine his argument sounded something like this:

Your honor, the issue before the court is whether I am alive or dead. As proof, I offer . . . me. See look, this is me breathing. And this is me bleeding. Let the record reflect the color of the blood is red.

One would think this was a no-brainer. I’m thinking in the world of varying burdens of proof, from more-likely-than-not to beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, I am putting my money on Donny.

But not so fast. 

The court said,

“I have taken the issue under advisement. I have read the pleadings in this matter and reviewed the evidence presented. Thank you for both sides for your excellent legal work. But while you have made a compelling case Mr. Miller, I am afraid I am going to have to deny your request. You see, you filed your motion out of time.”

That’s right, there was a three-year statute of limitations period for overturning an order declaring a person dead, and Donny filed his motion outside of the three-year window.

Now lest you think this is the courtroom of the absurd, there are sound policy reasons for why society requires finality in this area of law. Certain decisions would have been made in reliance on this person being dead. Life insurance would have been paid out. Property exchanged. Potato salad served and confessions made at a wake. 

If a person were brought back to life, would death benefits have to be paid back? And in this case, social security death benefits were paid to his children after he was declared dead.

Even though this decision might make some sense, this created a real interesting legal anomaly. How would you advise someone to go through life as a dead person?

·       Is there a legal process for being born again? And if so, would that not violate separation of church and state?

·       If the person got a job, would he have to pay taxes? Last I checked, dead people don’t have to pay taxes.

·       If the person committed a crime, the punishment for which is life in jail, could he then say, “Ok, time served. Let’s go!”

Don’t scoff – similar arguments have been made in court. Benjamin Schreiber was serving a life sentence in an Iowa prison for first-degree murder. In March 2015, he developed large kidney stones that led to septic poisoning, and he died in the hospital. But thanks to the tireless work of doctors and nurses, he was brought back to life. In fact, he was resuscitated five times.

Benjamin then went to court and argued he should be a free man. After all, he was sentenced to only one life in prison, and he was now on his second life.

You have to give the guy points for trying; that is one creative argument. But the court said, “Cute, very cute, now get back to your cell.”

Actually, Judge Amanda Potterfield, like most courts would, treated this request seriously. She wrote that a “plain reading” of Iowa law states defendants guilty of a class A felony “must spend the rest of their natural life in prison, regardless of how long that period of time ends up being or any events occurring before the defendant's life ends.”

"Schreiber is either alive, in which case he must remain in prison, or he is dead, in which case this appeal is moot."

These two stories show how the law can be twisted. In the first case, a person was trying to prove he wasn’t actually dead, but the written law required the opposite conclusion.

You might be thinking, regardless of whether the statute of limitations had run, he’s not dead. This is a legal fallacy. Sometimes, the law is deaf to reality.

But in the other case, a person stopped breathing, technically died for a moment, had to be brought back to life, and yet the judge ruled that the life sentence hadn’t ended. The judge’s reasoning highlights the loophole. She said a defendant’s life sentence goes until “the defendant's life ends.”

Well, that’s the question isn’t it, Judge? Didn’t the defendant’s life end?

These two cases highlight several looming questions about the role of the law:

·       When do you apply common sense to the law?

·       When do you strictly adhere to the exact words of a statute?

·       When do you ignore the plain reading of the statute?

·       Do the ends justify the means?

·       When does due process become undue?

·       How can I get out of my speeding ticket?

All great questions. Outside of the last question, the answers to these questions have confused courts as high as the United States Supreme Court and dictated conflicting results. The U.S. Constitution guarantees every American is entitled to due process under the law. But sometimes, delivering the process that is due can lead to quite odd results. For now, I have one thought: the law is anything but boring.