Force majeure

A force majeure argument was used by Oswald Danes' legal team to secure his parole after the events of Miracle Day. According to a contemporaneous KCNU news report, Danes was freed after his execution failed. The charity legal group, Freedom and Liberty, "employed a force majeure ruling to define Danes' survival as an Act of God". Since the state of Kentucky could not immediately prove otherwise, they were compelled to set him free. This was aided through the citation of the Fifth Amendment forbidding being punished more than once for the same crime (his lethal injection had been carried out. It is unclear how the sentence can be considered to be carried out. The sentence has simply become impossible, and could be commuted to life in prison) and the Eighth Amendment forbidding cruel and unusual punishment (a normally painless death was made painful via Miracle Day). (TV: The New World)