Criminal Law July 2007 Flashcards
(6 cards)
Summary
Defendant need not have acted with deliberation or premeditation to be guilty of second-degree murder. However, Defendant must have acted with the mens rea, or mental state, of “malice aforethought.” Malice aforethought is present where a defendant acts with “depraved indifference to the value of human life.” On these facts, a jury could conclude that Defendant’s act of shooting at a lamp to “scare Friend” evidenced a disregard of the risks to Friend and of the value of Friend’s life sufficient to amount to depraved indifference.
Defendant’s act of shooting Friend was the legal cause of Friend’s death. First, it was the “but for” cause of Friend’s death. Had Friend not been shot, Defendant would not have been driving him to the hospital, there would have been no accident, and Friend would not have bled to death. The fact that the accident contributed to Friend’s death does not relieve Defendant of liability. The accident occurred as a result of Defendant’s response to the shooting and would not be held to break the chain of causation. Thus, if Defendant were found to have acted with the requisite mens rea, Defendant would be responsible for Friend’s death and guilty of second-degree murder.
A jury could find that Defendant’s act of shooting at a lamp to scare Friend evidenced an extreme indifference to the value of human life and thus conclude that Friend acted with “malice aforethought.”
To be guilty of second-degree murder, Defendant must have acted with the requisite mens rea, or mental state, of malice aforethought. Malice aforethought is a term of art, and it encompasses several different mental states. In most jurisdictions, the malice aforethought requirement is satisfied if Defendant acted with intent to kill, with knowledge that his acts would kill, with intent to inflict great bodily harm, or with reckless disregard of an extreme risk to human life (a depraved heart).
Application
In this case, the evidence does not suggest that Defendant acted with intent or knowledge that Friend would be harmed. However, the evidence probably does support a conclusion that Defendant acted with “a depraved heart” and therefore with the malice aforethought necessary for Defendant to be guilty of murder.
Depraved-heart Murder
Although the precise terminology used to describe “depraved-heart” murder differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, most states require (i) that the defendant act “recklessly” (i.e., with an awareness of the risk that his acts could cause death) and (ii) that the defendant’s conduct show a high degree of indifference to the value of human life. Thus, convictions for depraved-heart murder have been upheld when a defendant intentionally shot a gun into a crowded room, or played Russian roulette with a partially loaded revolver.
Application
Here, Defendant probably acted recklessly. Defendant shot a gun in the general direction of Friend, while aiming at a lamp that was behind Friend. This behavior carries an obvious risk to Friend: if Defendant’s aim was slightly off or if Friend moved (as happened here), Friend could be shot and fatally injured. From the facts of Defendant’s behavior, and the obvious risks attending that behavior, a jury could infer that Defendant must have been aware of those risks and thus acted recklessly.
Did Defendant’s recklessness evidence an “extreme indifference to the value of human life?” Courts have held that behavior that carries a substantial risk of causing death, when it has no legitimate purpose and is done solely for the amusement of a defendant, is a sufficient predicate for a conclusion that the defendant acted with the necessary indifference to human life to be liable for depraved-heart murder. See Malone, 47 A.2d 445. Here Defendant ran a high risk of causing serious harm to Friend for no purpose other than to amuse himself by scaring Friend. This is the kind of behavior that provides a sufficient predicate for a jury to find “extreme indifference to the value of human life” and to convict Defendant of second-degree murder.
Defendant’s act of shooting Friend was the legal cause of death because Friend would not have died “but for” having been shot by Defendant, and the injuries suffered by Friend in the car accident do not break the chain of proximate causation.
Defendant is criminally liable for Friend’s death only if Defendant’s acts were both the actual and proximate cause of Friend’s death. Defendant’s act of shooting Friend was the actual cause of Friend’s death. First, Defendant’s act was the “but for” cause of Friend’s death. Had Defendant not shot Friend, they would not have been driving to the hospital, the accident would not have occurred, and Friend would not have bled to death. Quite apart from that, however, it is well established that where a defendant’s wrongful act (the gunshot wound) works in combination with some other cause (the injuries in the accident) to cause a victim’s death, the defendant’s act is an actual cause of the death because it “accelerated the death process.” (defendant who inflicts a second non-mortal wound can be considered the cause of child’s death only if his actions caused child to die sooner than he otherwise would). Here, the facts state that Friend’s death was the result of loss of blood caused by both the gunshot wound and the automobile accident. In that case, the gunshot wound is an actual cause of death.
Defendant’s acts were also the proximate cause of Friend’s death. The accident was a “dependent intervening cause”—a consequence of Defendant’s prior wrongful conduct. It is widely held that such an intervening cause breaks the chain of causation from the original act to the death only if the intervening force was “so out-of-the-ordinary that it is no longer fair to hold [the defendant] criminally responsible for the outcome.” DRESSLER, supra, at 190. Courts routinely say that the intervening event must have been “abnormal or bizarre” to prevent a defendant’s original action from being regarded as the proximate cause of death. Here, there is nothing abnormal about Defendant’s response to his wrongful act (he tried to rush Friend to the hospital). Nor is there anything abnormal or bizarre about the fact that Defendant was involved in an accident while rushing to the hospital with a wounded friend. Even if Defendant was not at fault in causing the accident, the fact that it occurred is not sufficiently “out-of-the-ordinary” to warrant breaking the chain of causation from the shooting to the death. Therefore, Defendant’s act of shooting Friend was the legal cause of Friend’s death, and Defendant is guilty of second-degree murder if that act was committed with malice aforethought (see Point One).
