crim law: march 10 2010 class notes

causation: proximate cause.

prox cause is about policy. when prox cause arises, it is because there is something between the harm and the defendant's act that we feel should have some reason to be linked as a cause. there's no easy answer, but the basis standard is whether the defendant's act is a natural and probable consequence of the defendant's conduct (see rideout)

six factors of prox cause.

(1) foreseeability (the most important factor)

     (a) responsive? ... if so, then was the resulting harm highly abnormal?

     (b) was it coincidental?... if it was coincidental, then was it unforeseeable?

(2) de minimus

(3) intended consequences

(4) omissions

(5) apparent safety

(6) voluntary human intervention/ free, deliberate and informed decisions

drunk driving is a conduct crime. if you're drunk driving, then it's always foreseeable that someone could die from the conduct. but if the death happens in a really weird way, then for policy reasons, we may not want to hold the driver responsible... rideout had no control over welch, no control over certain events BUT if the coincidental event was foreseeable, then rideout will still have a weak argument

causation, culpability and harm -- utilitarian and retributive: in drunk driving, it's bad but when you're drunk and don't hurt anybody (get pulled over by a cop and get a ticket or your license suspended) but then the culpability changes when you hit someone

was the victim's resultant death foreseeable?

not foreseeable:

the victim knowingly put himself in danger of walking in the street on a dark night on a street with no lights.

apparent safety

made a decision to put himself into danger by walking into the street

was the resultant death forseeable?

chain of events were put into place starting with the accident. it is forseeable that someone can die from a car accident resulting from impact of a party who is drunk-driving.

the victim made a decision to go into the road and turn the flashers on. he "wanted to be a hero". does his voluntary action have a superceding or intervening result to rideout's culpability? 

was it forseeable or unforseeable that welch, as an intervening cause, would come along and hit the victim in the road, or was it highly abnormal? 

was it coincidental and unforeseeable that welch would come along and hit the victim in the middle of the road? 

does it make it easier or harder to break the chain of causation since it was highly abnormal that welch would come along and hit the victim while he was in the street? 

what if the victim hadn't gotten out of the car and turned the flashers on, welch came down the road, hit the cars, and was killed. would keiser (the victim) have been culpable? 

if the driver has a legal duty because he is a responsible cause of the accident, and doesn't, then maybe we can establish that it was a crime for him to not do so. however, it would not break the chain of causation because it would be an omission 

example.

drunk driver hits dean simons' car. dean gets out of the car. lightning hits him. is the drunk driver the cause of the death? the driver is a cause but he is not a prox cause

state v. preslar
see the case on google books, starting page 421


mpc 2.03: Causal Relationship Between Conduct and Result; Divergence Between Result Designed or Contemplated and Ac-tual Result or Between Probable and Actual Result.

§ 2.03(1)	Conduct is the cause of a result when:
§ 2.03(1)(a)	it is an antecedent but for which the result in question would not have occurred; and
§ 2.03(1)(b)	the relationship between the conduct and result satisfies any additional causal requirements imposed by the Code or by the law defining the offense.
§ 2.03(2)	When purposely or knowingly causing a result is an element: not established if the actual result is not within the purpose or the contemplation of the actor unless:(a)actual result differs only in the respect that different person / property is injured or affected or injury or harm designed would have been more serious; or (b) actual result involves same kind of harm as that designed and is not too remote to have [just] bearing on the actor's liability or on gravity of offense.

basically, mpc 2.03 asks is the result so accidental and remote that it would be unjust to hold the defendant responsible? 

regina v. michael: mom wanted to kill her child and put poison in the milk.
omissions: negligence on the nurses' part and could be expected by the kid
voluntary human intervention/ free deliberate and informed decision: the nurse and the kid are making their own decisions that absolve the defendant of responsiblity

velazquez v. state
the issue: is velazquez guilty of vehicular homicide when the sole basis for imposing liability is his participation in an illegal drag race that resulted in the death of another participant in the race?

even where a defendant's conduct is the cause-in-fact of a prohibited result, criminal liability should not be imposed where hte prohibeted result of the defendant's conduct is beyond the scope of any fair assessment of the danger created by his conduct OR where it would otherwise be unjust, based on fairness and policy considerations, to hold the defendant criminally responsible for the prohibted result.

people often join together in reckless conduct, but if all participants do so knowingly and voluntarily, there is no point in holding a survivor guilty of manslaughter if the reckless conduct results in death. velazquez's only contribution to alvarez's death was their mutual agreement to participate in the illegal activity. alvarez's parcipation was an independent, intervening and superceding act of wrongful conduct that resulted in his death.

from state v. petersen: "the question is whether the defendant's reckless conduct caused the death of the victim -- but not legal causation,... responsibility"

foreseeability analysis is about breaking the chain of causation...

problem 1. 

B shoots V, with the intent to kill. V's wound is non-fatal but he requires hospitalization. V is treated by a doctor recovering from scarlet fever. V contracts the disease and dies. is B the prox cause of death? see bush v. commonwealth, 78 Ky. 268

so highly abnormal that it is unforeseeable. the resultant death was not the intended death. however, bad medical practice is not enough to break the chain of causation (and that's a rule: ordinary subsequent med mal does not break the chain)

problem 2.

R stabs X fatally and then drops the knife and flees. X is in shock from his wound and grabs the knife and runs after R. X encounters V who tries to take the knife. X stabs and kills V. is R the prox cause of V's death? see people v. roberts, 2 cal. 4th 271, 6

problem 3. 

B stabs V, a jehovah's witness. her lung is pierced and she needs a blood transfusion to survive. she realizes she will die without blood, but refuses on her religious beliefs. is B the prox cause of her death? see regina v. blaue

eggshell victim: her religion must be taken as she's found. however, if assuming that the defendant didn't intend to kill her, then voluntary human intervention is his best defense.

problem. 

D is standing outside of his car and X fires at him. D picks up V, a two year old, to protect himself. X's shots wound V. D escapes unscathed. X is never found. D is prosecuted for aggravated battery, for the wound. is D the prox cause? see people v. hall, 273 ill. app.3d 838

concurrence of the elements

(1) crimes of recklessness or negligence.

(2) manslaughter

state v. rose
rose left the scene of the accident that he knows he caused.
we have an act
we have a mental state
we have a harm
we have causation
but things don't match up in time... 

rose did two acts: (1) drove down the street and hit a guy. did not mean to so no sufficient mental state
                             (2) hit and run. did mean to do this, but did it cause the resultant death?

issue: for a manslaughter conviction, must a defendant's negligence precede the death?

things don't match up in time. if the impact caused the death, that was not negligence and it was not manslaughter and it was not murder.

to be liable for manslaughter, the defendant's negligence must have caused the victim's death: in this case, it must be found that the defendant was alive immediately after impact and that the defendant's conduct after impact constituted culpable negligence. up to the time that the victim was hit, there is no evidence of the defendant's negligence.

rose left the scene of the accident, and that is not copacetic. but because the testimony of the medical witness lacked reasonable medical certainty as to the time of death, it cannot be concluded that the defendant was guilty of manslaughter.