Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.
PALO ALTO – The Santa Clara County District Attorney unsealed murder charges this week against Martin Mayfly Ph.D. ‘27, a graduate student of physics at Stanford, for the alleged killing of James Mayfly Jr. ‘73, his grandfather. Prosecutors charged Mayfly with one count of first degree murder for the alleged killing of his grandfather and three more counts of second degree murder for the resulting paradoxical killing of his father, his sister and himself, raising several new legal questions.
Mayfly’s lawyer, Marco Anconie, contended that, “The alleged killing was in self-defense. My client only killed his grandfather because he presented an imminent threat in the timeline where my client did not kill him. As to the second degree murder charges, Mayfly had no malice aforethought in the cases of James Mayfly III and IV, who went on to never exist due to my client’s alleged actions.”
“In fact, I filed a motion today to have every charge dismissed on the grounds that my client, Martin Mayfly, does not even exist in the first place on account of his alleged and completely justified actions,” said Anconie.
On the other hand, some legal experts believe that Mayfly should face the full weight of the law given these extraordinary circumstances. Dr. Norman Martin, a legal theorist for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that the District Attorney’s office should have charged Mayfly with theoretically infinite counts of second degree murder.
“I say throw the book at him. Really make an example for the next guy who thinks he’s wise enough to wield the power of intertemporal travel. I mean, I’d think twice about going and messing with ol’ kronos if the sentence was a Groundhog-Day-esque nightmare of unknowable length and severity,” said Dr. Martin.
Mayfly’s Stanford affiliation has some wondering if he poses a danger to any other students in the University’s nearly 150-year continuum of students. University officials have declined to comment on Mayfly’s pending legal case, the potential for intertemporal threats or the potential for disciplinary action, but have confirmed that he will be charged for fifty years of university tuition adjusted for inflation with late fees amounting to well over $50 million.