process, while being treated with greater leniency in the sentencing stage of the process.
Prosecutorial decisions related to elderly offenders, however, necessarily must consider the nature of the crime and an offender's criminal history, as well as offender age (Buchanan, 1994, pp. 61-63). In the United States, as an example, Edward Henry Cook, age 69, is wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in that country for a string of bank robberies stretching over a number of years, the latest known of which occurred in 1993 when Cook was 67 years old. The types of offenses being committed by elderly persons in the contemporary period also create significant problems for prosecutors. Such problems are particularly significant with respect to crimes of expressive violence, such as the murder of a terminally ill spouse, or in relation to the charge of assisted suicide where the suicide victim is a terminally ill spouse or close friend. One reason that prosecutors enc
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