The fictional autobiography of conjoined twin sisters Lily and Rose continues, as they juggle marriage, parenthood, and career ambitions while living in a world not designed for them.
Part 2 includes the following chapters:
Chapter 4: Never-ending hassles
Chapter 4: Never-ending hassles
After finally getting to experience being husband and wives, we returned to the harsh reality that we will always have battles to fight in singleton society, now also including battles related to our unique plural marriage to Nick. At our wedding reception, our lawyer-state senator friend Mr. Vernon had advised us to check in with him when we returned, before taking any steps to change our last names or marital status on any official records.
So, once back in town, we arranged to meet with him to discuss this. He suggested that Nick also attend, as what he needed to tell us would affect him as well. He said to us, “You’re now in the precarious position of being legally married in the eyes of the state government but not the federal government. The feds don’t recognize marriages involving more than two people. Of course, I told you this would be the case, but now it’s real.
“With the feds, your marital status mostly matters with regards to your income taxes. People pay less tax as a married couple than as two single individuals. However, they cross-reference the Social Security numbers of people claiming to be married to each other, and they’d immediately catch it if Lily and Rose both claimed to be married to Nick. At a minimum, they would refuse to allow you to do that. Worst case would be that they charged you with tax fraud.
“You can play this one of two ways. You can continue to be three unmarried individuals in the eyes of the feds, or you can tell them that either Lily or Rose, but not both, is married to Nick, and the other one of you is single. Since you have two separate marriage certificates, they’ll accept either one, but not both, if you ever had to prove your marital status. If you claim that Nick is married to one of you, you’ll pay less in taxes. But you’ll have to decide whether it’s acceptable to you to say that one of you is married to Nick and the other isn’t.
“If one of you claims to be married to Nick, that person has a legal basis to use his last name on federal legal documents such as a Social Security card, tax forms, a passport, and so on. The other person, the one who’s single in the eyes of the feds, doesn’t. So if you both want to legally use the last name Spencer, at least one of you is going to have to change your name via court order, and use that as the basis for the name change rather than your marriage certificate. You might be wise to both obtain a court order changing your name, in case the feds ever decline to recognize either marriage as valid.
“Your names in the state employee payroll and personnel system will have to match what the feds think they are, since they withhold your federal income taxes and remit them under your names to the IRS. So in other words, you can’t both change your names to Spencer at work until at least one of you has a court order.
“Now, everything I just said is based on the assumption that you don’t want to fight the federal government to get them to recognize the second marriage. If you do, a different strategy is called for. But I’ll tell you up front, the process to get the state to allow both of you to marry the same man was child’s play compared to what’ll be involved to get the feds to recognize both of you being married to Nick, and the chances of success are minuscule.”
Mr. Vernon stopped and came up for air as he gave us time to process everything he’d just said. The three of us exchanged glances before Nick spoke. He said, “I think this is going to be something Lily and Rose need to decide. I’ll give my opinion if asked, but it’s really their battle to fight. If we’re going to tell the feds that I’m only married to one of them, I’m not going to be the one to decide which; they’ll have to work that out between themselves. Likewise, it’s their call whether they want to change their last names, and their call whether they want to battle it out with the feds or just be content that the state recognizes our marriages.” Nick and Mr. Vernon then both looked at the two of us in anticipation of what we had to say about the matter.
“How hard is it to get a court order for a name change?” I, Rose asked Mr. Vernon. I figured we might as well tackle the easy issues first.
“Not hard at all,” he replied.
“We just always assumed we’d change our last names to Nick’s,” I, Rose, replied. “If we need a court order or two to make that stick, and it’s not a big deal, I don’t see why we wouldn’t want to pursue that.”
I, Lily, indicated my agreement. I said, “I think it would be smart to get court orders for both of us. That way our bases are covered. I wouldn’t want us to have two different last names. That would just be weird.”
I, Rose, then said, “I think it would be dumb to not have the feds recognize at least one of our marriages. I’ll volunteer to be the one who’s considered unmarried. Not that I’m not 100% committed to you, Nick, but Lily’s the one with commitment issues and insecurities. I don’t want to give her any reason to doubt that she’s really married.”
“That’s big of you, sister. Thank you for that,” I, Lily replied. “Mr. Vernon, what would be involved in getting the feds to recognize both marriages? You said a different strategy would be called for.”
Mr. Vernon took a deep breath before replying. “We would have to file suit in federal court to get the Respect for Marriage Act of 2022 either invalidated or interpreted in our favor. Its intent, among other things, was to prohibit plural marriages. However, the way it’s worded does provide a small amount of wiggle room for an interpretation in your favor. It clearly prohibits three-way marriages where each person is married to the other two, but that’s not your situation. Lily and Rose are not married to each other. Unanswered is whether the wording also prohibits one person from being simultaneously married to two people who are not married to each other.
“Federal judges are appointed, not elected, so they’re not as readily influenced by whether their rulings will be popular. That’s good for us. However, in the current political climate, it probably matters very little. The judge would not have the flexibility to say that polygamy is legal only when someone is married to conjoined twins. He’d have to rule either that polygamy is allowed or it isn’t. A judge who rules in favor of polygamy would be under intense political pressure. They might have to face impeachment and removal from office, and they’d almost certainly be subject to receiving death threats and violence against them and their families.
“Also, if a judge made a loophole like that because of a vaguely worded law, it would get appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court if necessary. The issue would remain unresolved during that entire time. If the Supreme Court ruled in your favor, Congress would immediately act to pass a new law where the wording was crystal clear, and you’d be back to square one. The only recourse you’d have then would be to challenge the constitutionality of the law. To do that, you’d have to show how it violates some provision of the U.S. Constitution. That, in my opinion, would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do.
“The more I think about it, the more I’d say you have a snowball’s chance in hell to ever get the federal government to recognize both of your marriages as legal.
“In order to file suit and go down that path, you’d first have to try to get the feds to recognize that Nick’s married to both of you without the court’s involvement. So for example, you’d have file tax returns indicating that, which of course the IRS would reject. Only then do you have a legal basis to file suit, but you’d then also be embroiled in an ongoing dispute with the IRS until the matter is resolved in the courts, and as I said, it could drag out for years and it’s all but guaranteed to not go your way.”
“Getting federal recognition of both marriages sounds completely futile, and any effort towards making that happen would be a complete waste of time and money and sanity,” Nick observed. “It’s your call, flower girls, but I think we should just be grateful for what we already have.”
“I would have to agree,” said Mr. Vernon.
“So where does that leave us?” I, Lily, asked.
I, Rose, replied, “If I recall correctly, we were both going to get court orders to change our last names to Spencer, and for federal purposes like tax withholding, we’re going to say that you and Nick are legally married and I’m single.”
“Yeah, that sounds right,” I, Lily confirmed.
“That brings up another conundrum,” I, Rose, said to Mr. Vernon. “As far as the state’s concerned, we’re both legally married to Nick. Therefore, for state income tax purposes, we should both be able to claim we’re married. I’d bet anything that the state income tax laws and regulations and computer systems are unable to address our situation. They probably can’t handle me claiming I’m single to the IRS while claiming I’m married for their purposes, nor both of us claiming we’re married to the same man. I’m sure they don’t have a way to figure out how much tax we should be paying. What should we do about that?”
“That is a conundrum, but it’s the state’s problem, not yours. At least for now,” replied Mr. Vernon. “It’ll become your problem if they withhold too much and don’t have a way to give you a refund, or can’t even calculate how much you should have paid. It’ll become your problem if they come after you for not complying with their regulations if there’s no possible way for you to comply. But those kinds of problems can be resolved either in state court or by the Human Rights Commission.
“I highly recommend that you consult a CPA and a tax attorney who specializes in state income taxes to help you navigate that. You’ll want to find someone sooner rather than later, so they can advise you how to fill out the state payroll tax withholding forms. I can refer you to a tax attorney if you’d like.
“There’s a chance that the state payroll system won’t be able to handle whatever the tax attorney recommends as far as state tax withholding goes, but you’ll have to cross that bridge when you get to it and work it out with the state Human Resources Department.”
We asked Mr. Vernon to refer us to a tax attorney, and assured him we could handle dealing with Human Resources if the need arose.
On the way back home, Nick said to us, “It sure is a hassle being conjoined, isn’t it? I thought all of this kind of stuff was behind us once the Human Rights Commission ruled in your favor regarding marriage.”
“Welcome to our life,” we replied. “It never ends. We are square pegs living in a world with only round holes.”
The tax attorney, a Mr. Lawrence, confirmed much of what Mr. Vernon had told us, that we should have no trouble with the IRS if we told them one of us was married to Nick and the other was single, and that in theory, at least, we should be able to claim that we’re both married to Nick with the state tax agency based on our ruling from the Human Rights Commission. He didn’t think this would be an issue for tax withholding purposes, but almost certainly would be a problem when we tried to complete our tax returns early the following year.
Mr. Lawrence also told us we should work with a CPA to determine how much state tax to withhold from our paychecks based on our change in marital status. We asked him if he could recommend a CPA, and he referred us to a Mrs. Norris.
Mrs. Norris was certain that the state tax agency had no basis for determining the tax liability for a married throuple, especially where all three had taxable income, so there was no way to accurately anticipate how much tax should be withheld. All we could do was make our best guess and hope for the best. But really, that’s all anyone ever does with figuring out their tax withholding.
We pointed out that we were each being paid half of the normal salary for our position, because the two of us were together performing a single job. Based on that, it seemed reasonable to us that our combined family income should be taxed exactly as it would be if there were one husband and one wife, and so our individual tax burdens should be half of what they would be if we were one person earning a full salary.
Mrs. Norris agreed that that was reasonable, but any expectation that the state would be reasonable was purely speculative. In any case, she agreed with us that doing it the way we suggested was as good as any, and would demonstrate a good faith effort on our part to pay what was fair. We asked her if it was possibly to proactively inform them of our situation or ask for guidance about how to file and calculate our tax come next spring. She said she would try, but to not get our hopes up that they’d act on the information she provided or respond in any way.
It occurred to us that we could also give the state tax agency a heads up through official channels via the Human Rights Commission. This time, though, we would get someone else to be the contact person between the two agencies regarding our case.
Since we didn’t have to identify our husband on the tax withholding forms, they were processed without a hitch. It turned out that the state payroll system didn’t care if one of use claimed to be single for federal tax withholding and married for state tax withholding, so we were good there, too.
For once, something went smoothly for us, but we knew that the day of reckoning would come when we, or our new CPA Mrs. Norris, tried to complete and submit our state tax forms in the spring.
Chapter 5: Maple
Our request to have someone from the Human Rights Commission, where we worked, go through channels to contact the state Revenue Department to alert them to our upcoming state income tax conundrum, was acted on. About a month later, we were contacted by a woman in the Revenue Department named Tori. She was a policy analyst like us, and had been assigned to craft a solution to the problems of how we could both file our taxes claiming a married status when we were married to the same man, and how much those taxes should be.
Tori had done her research about the matter up front, but she wanted to meet with us in person to truly understand our situation. She asked if we could come to her office to do that, and we arranged a day and time. Several days later we arrived at the Revenue Department building and asked for her. She met us in the lobby and welcomed us, acting completely at ease like she encountered conjoined twins on a regular basis. We appreciated that; it’s not often someone can act naturally upon meeting us the first time, even if they’ve been forewarned about what to expect.
Tori escorted us to a small conference room and offered us coffee, which we politely declined. Then she got down to business. “I’ve read the law giving the Human Rights Commission the power to make exceptions to state law on a case-by-case basis, and I’ve read their ruling on your particular case. I assume you were both recently married to the same man?” We answered affirmatively. “Well congratulations to you both, then, for getting married, but also for first successfully making it legal to do so.
“So, I understand your concerns revolve around how to complete your state tax forms indicating you’re both married to the same man, and how the tax would be calculated. Granted, currently there’s no way to do either. It’s my task to devise a way to accommodate your situation that’s fair to you and also doesn’t unduly burden the Revenue Department. I used to be a data analyst, so I have a pretty solid understanding of the state’s personal income tax computer system. So, if you don’t mind, why don’t you tell me about your current tax situation from your perspectives?”
I, Rose, took the lead. “Well, the first complication is that the federal government doesn’t recognize plural marriages, so we’ve had to tell the IRS that Lily and Nick are married but I’m single. They’ll file married filing jointly. Therefore, I’m going to be taxed at a higher rate than Lily. But since the state does recognize our marriages, we believe we’re entitled to both file with a status of married filing jointly and both pay the lower rate on our state taxes.
“Also, we believe our total tax liability should be the same as it would be for a normal married couple. You see, the two of us are performing a single job and are being paid a single salary as if we were one person. Technically, they’re paying each of us half of the normal salary for our job. So we feel like since the two of us together are being paid the same as our married co-worker in the next cubicle, it’s only fair we should be taxed the same, too. We certainly don’t want to pay more, but we know we shouldn’t pay less, either.”
“Interesting that you should say that,” replied Tori. “I think I’ve come up with a fairly simple solution that would enable you to do just that. It would be a massive undertaking to modify our computer system and our tax forms and instructions and procedures to accommodate a three-way marriage. That’s not cost effective when you’re the only one in the entire state who has such a marriage. Maybe there’ll be a few more eventually, but it wouldn’t matter.
“What I’d like to propose is that we make up a new legal identity for the two of you together for state tax purposes. I call it a Legal Multi-Person Entity, or LMPE. It’s sort of like a corporation. A corporation isn’t a person, but in many ways the law treats it as if it were a person. The LMPE would be defined in our system as consisting of the two of you, and then it would be treated like a person for tax purposes. It would have its own ID number similar to a Social Security number, and the LMPE’s name would be something like Lily-and-Rose Barrett or Spencer or whatever last name you’re going to use.
Then, when you’re filling out your state tax forms, you’d select married filing jointly, and the two parties in the marriage would be your husband and this LMPE we invented. The two of you would combine your individual wages and other taxable income, tax withheld, and so on, and report it under the LMPE. The system would treat this just like any other normal married couple. Behind the scenes, you two as individuals are associated with the LMPE.”
“That sounds like a pretty straightforward solution,” I, Lily replied. “We’d create this… entity, so to speak, called Lily-and-Rose and then say that Nick is married to the entity rather than two individuals, right? But I don’t like the acronym LMPE. That’s going to end up being pronounced ‘limpy’ or ‘lumpy’.
“What if you rearranged the words in the acronym?” I, Rose, suggested. “Multi-Person Legal Entity, which would be MPLE. That would be ‘emple’. It could be pronounced ‘ample’ or ‘maple’, I suppose.
“Much better,” I, Lily, responded.
“I like it too, but let’s say right now it’ll be pronounced ‘maple’,” said Tori. “So we’d create this new form, and process, to set up the Maple. It would only be available for conjoined twins, and even then, it would be optional. We’d have a Maple file in our computer system that cross-references your Social Security numbers and the Maple ID number.”
“So would our employer withhold state taxes and send them to you using our two Social Security numbers or our one Maple number?” I, Lily, asked.
“I think we could make it work either way at our end,” Tori replied. “Whichever way they want would be fine. But, regardless, they’d still have to use your SSNs to withhold federal taxes and send them to the IRS, so I’m guessing it would probably be easier for them if they stuck to using your two SSNs for state taxes, too.”
“Would legislation have to be passed to allow the use of the Maple?” I, Rose, asked.
“No,” replied Tory. “This is just an internal ID number to facilitate state tax collection only. Revenue has the authority to create and assign such IDs without specific enabling legislation.”
“Well, this sounds like a plan, then,” I, Lily, responded. “We’re completely on board with it. So, you’ll let us know when you’re ready for us to fill out and submit the Maple form?”
“Yes,” replied Tori. “I’ll let you know. It’ll probably take a few months, though, so be patient.”
“Okay, we’ll wait to hear from you, then. Thank you so much for working with us.”
A couple of months later, in mid-January, Tori sent us a form titled ‘Application for a Department of Revenue Multi-Person Legal Entity Identification Number’ to complete, sign, and return. Despite the long title, it was an amazingly simple and short form. We just had to fill in our individual names and Social Security numbers and date of birth and the name we wanted the Maple to have. The form suggested one of two formats, depending on whether our last names were the same or different.
Since we’d gotten the court-ordered name change taken care of, and had updated our names with the Social Security Administration, we both now had Spencer as our last name. Therefore, the name of the Maple was “Lily G. and Rose H. Spencer, MPLE”. A few days after we submitted the form, Tori sent us a document confirming the creation of the Maple and providing us with a nine-digit ID number to use in place of an SSN on our state tax forms. Easy peasy.
Our accountant Mrs. Norris was thrilled that Revenue had come up with such a simple, elegant solution to a seemingly extremely complex problem.
We mentioned to our state senator friend Mr. Vernon the solution that Tori had come up with regarding our state taxes, and he thought it was brilliant. He thought he could possibly get a bill passed in the legislature making the Maple something that could be used throughout state government, rather than just in the Department of Revenue. He could see how it could be used so that, for example, we’d only need a single driver’s license for our multi-person legal entity rather than individual personal driver’s licenses.
However, we pointed out to him that without the federal government also being on board with the Maple concept, trying to expand its use in state government could cause more problems than it would solve. For example, a Maple driver’s license wouldn’t match our individual passports, nor could we use it as ID to open a bank account at a federally-insured bank or to vote as two individuals. If we’d used a Maple ID to get a single marriage license, neither of our marriages would be valid in the eyes of the federal government.
He conceded our point and didn’t press the issue any further.
Chapter 6: Legalese
We also asked both Mr. Vernon and our tax lawyer Mr. Lawrence if they could refer us to a personal injury lawyer who wasn’t a sleazy ambulance chaser, to help us evaluate the settlement offers we were getting from the cruise line and to discuss a potential lawsuit against them. Both of them highly recommended a lawyer named Mrs. Tanner.
The three of us met with Mrs. Tanner and told our story once again, and gave her a copy of the cruise line’s most recent written offer. We told her that we were not trying to get rich at the cruise line’s expense; we only wanted a settlement that was fair, but we weren’t sure what fair was, exactly. She explained to us that we were entitled to be compensated not just for our actual costs such as the fee the airline charged to push back our trip home by a day and the therapy sessions, but also for intangible costs as well.
She explained that intangible costs involved putting monetary values on the ways our lives were adversely impacted, but not just looking at those things at the surface level. For example, having our honeymoon ruined involved much more than the financial cost of the honeymoon. It meant that for the rest of our lives, we could never have completely fond memories of our honeymoon – that was forever taken away from us and could never be restored. We needed to consider the monetary value of that loss.
She encouraged us to make a list of these intangibles, and besides our ruined honeymoon, suggested we dive deep into topics such as having to experience the trauma of being attacked and fearing for our lives; the potential short-term, long-term, or even permanent mental health issues resulting from the attack, such as anxiety, fear, panic attacks, nightmares, PTSD, etc.; the possible impact this might have on the quality of our marriage or other relationships, and so on.
We responded that we couldn’t possibly know if such things might be issues for us in the future, let alone how severe they might be. But she replied that we should consider what we thought the odds were of each of those things being issues, and to what extent. She also advised us that once we either reached an agreement with the cruise line, or had a judge or jury determine the amount we’d be compensated, we very likely would not get another opportunity to ask for more, and that in either case, it was very improbable that anyone would give us more than we initially asked for. Therefore it was better to err on the side of getting more than was fair rather than not getting enough.
Our heads were swimming as we left the meeting with Mrs. Tanner. “How can we possibly put a dollar amount on a ruined honeymoon, let alone all of those other things that may or may not ever happen?” we asked, more rhetorically than otherwise.
Nick replied, “I suppose the way to put a value what happened would be to ask ourselves, how much would we have required to be paid to willingly allow our honeymoon to be ruined in that way. If someone said to us they’d give us a million dollars to agree to have someone put a knife to Lily’s neck so that we all truly feared for her life during our honeymoon, would we have taken it? If not, what would it have taken for us to agree to that? Ten million? 100 million? A billion?”
I, Lily, replied, “All the money in the world wouldn’t have been enough to agree to go through that.”
“I understand, and I agree,” replied Nick, “but we can’t sue the cruise line for infinity dollars. Besides, if you recall, we began the meeting by saying we didn’t want to get rich; we only wanted what was fair. I think we need to dial it back some.”
We knew Nick was right. So over the next several days, we brainstormed to come up with a list of all the ways the attack affected us or could potentially affect us. But we knew if we tried to assign a dollar value to each of those, we’d end up back at infinity dollars, or something equally ridiculous, when we added them up. Instead, we tried to just come up with a total amount that we’d be satisfied with.
Eventually the three of us came up with an amount we all agreed on – 3 million dollars. In light of the analysis we’d done, we realized the cruise line’s best offer to date was a pittance, an insult. They’d offered us $20,000 plus some trinkets like vouchers for a free cruise. We were glad we followed our gut and refused their offers.
We met again with the lawyer, Mrs. Tanner, and told her how much we wanted and our rationale for it. She told us that that amount was quite reasonable, considering what we’d gone through. It showed that we weren’t chumps, but neither were we trying to bankrupt them. She then explained it was standard practice to ask for twice what we actually wanted, because they’d want to negotiate down from there.
Mrs. Tanner said she’d contact the cruise line on our behalf and ask for $6 million. If they could negotiate an out-of-court settlement amount of no less than $3 million, she’d accept the offer on our behalf; otherwise, she’d file suit against them on our behalf for the entire $6 million or possibly more. She explained that if we settled, we’d have to sign an NDA – a non-disclosure agreement, to keep us from talking about the details of the attack, the cruise line’s negligence, or the settlement amount. They would not budge on that. If we couldn’t reach a settlement and we filed suit, there would be no NDA, but we would be at the mercy of a jury to award us what we wanted.
She explained that the standard fee for such cases was one third of the settlement amount, and costs for things like expert witnesses and travel expenses for other witnesses would come out of our share. If we didn’t win, we owed her nothing, but she said the chances of that happening were about zero. We’d certainly win; the only question was how much. She also explained that if the case went to court, she’d need to bring in another law firm that specialized in maritime law, and that based on the terms of the contract we’d agreed to when purchasing our tickets, the suit would have to be filed in U.S. Federal Court in Miami.
She asked if we wanted to proceed under those terms, and we all looked at each other and nodded our heads in agreement. She’d have her office draw up a contract for us to sign, and then she’d get to work.
Meanwhile, we’d heard from the prosecuting attorney from the U.S. Federal Court in New York, which was handling the criminal case against Creepy Guy. He also wanted to hear firsthand our telling of the events on the ship, even though he had the transcripts of our interviews with the English police and the FBI as well as our written statements.
He then said he was trying to make sense of the interviews, statements, and the account we’d just given. His main question was how the guy could physically control both of us at the same time, and specifically how he could control Rose only using his left hand to pin her left arm behind her back. Most people would have no trouble twisting away from that. A related question why would he even try to control both of us, rather than concentrating his effort on just one of us. He also wanted clarification about which of us was married to Nicholas Spencer; the documents he had seemed to indicate we both were.
We replied, “Nobody’s told you there’s anything unusual about us, have they?” He replied negatively and asked us to elaborate. “We are conjoined twins; we physically share a single body.”
“I’m sorry, what?” he said in response.
“We’re conjoined twins, commonly but incorrectly called Siamese twins. But rather than having two bodies that are physically joined, we collectively have one torso, two arms, and two legs, but also two heads and necks. We have the appearance of being a two-headed woman. In reality, we are two women who share a body.”
“For real?” he asked.
“Yes, for real,” we said. “If you re-read the documents with the understanding that we’re conjoined in that way, they’ll make a lot more sense, we’re sure.”
“What about the marriage question?” he asked.
“That’s where it gets a bit complicated; well, even more complicated,” we replied. “We are both legally married to Nick Spencer in our home state, and we have the documentation to prove it. But the federal government doesn’t recognize both marriages. Therefore, for federal purposes, Lily is the one married to Nick.”
“You’re not just saying that because Lily was the one who was injured? You can back that up, too?”
“Yes. Our federal tax withholding forms show Lily as being married and Rose as being single. We haven’t filed 1040 forms since we’ve been married; the cruise was actually our honeymoon.”
The prosecutor did share with us that Creepy Guy had prior convictions for such things as peeping, stalking, and assault, and that ours was a pretty open-and-shut case.
A couple of months later, Mrs. Tanner reported that she’d negotiated an out-of-court settlement with the cruise line in the amount of $3.45 million. There were no other expenses involved, so that meant we had $2.3 million coming our way, and it was tax-free – personal injury settlements aren’t considered taxable income.
Shortly after that, we heard from the prosecutor in the criminal case. Creepy Guy’s defense lawyer was going to plead not guilty by reason of insanity on his behalf, and the prosecutor said that there was no question that he fit the legal definition. He had a history of first stalking and eventually attacking people he encountered who he considered to be freaks of nature. He really thought he was doing the world a favor by eliminating such people. The prosecutor said he would not be able to defeat the insanity defense, so he did not intend to challenge it.
“So what does that mean?” we asked. “He gets off scot free?”
“Yes and no,” the prosecutor replied. “He won’t receive a sentence or go to prison, but he will be committed to a federal mental hospital for the criminally insane, most likely in North Carolina, until such time that he’s no longer a threat to himself or others. That may or may not ever happen.”
“Well, that’s good, I guess,” said Lily. “But why wasn’t he found insane before?”
“It’s as good as can be expected, all things considered,” he agreed. “Apparently in his past cases, the charges weren’t that serious and his public defenders thought it was a better strategy to have him to serve his time and be released. But this time he used a deadly weapon and kidnapped you.”
“Kidnapped us?” we asked, confused.
“The legal definition of kidnapping is holding you against your will or forcing you to go somewhere against your will. When he restrained you and made you go back to your cabin, that was considered kidnapping,” he explained.