Kibbe
v.
534
F.2d 493.
Dressler,
pp. 201-204
Facts: The defendant and another
man robbed the victim and left him out on the highway where he was later struck
by a car. The defendant was found guilty
of murder and appealed on the basis that the court did not allow the jury to
consider whether he caused the death of the victim.
Issue: Did the trial court err in
failing to instruct the jury with respect to the issue of causation?
Rule: By statute, the state must
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant caused the victim’s
death.
Analysis: The definition of causation
is complex, and the court finds it was essential that the jury be provided with
such a definition.
Conclusion: The court found that the trial
judge had given the jury incomplete instructions and thus had violated the defendant’s
right to due process.
Notes
and Questions
1.
So this was all for naught.
2.
An airplane making an emergency landing is far less foreseeable
than a speeding motorist. I think
getting hit by an airplane is a far more “independent” cause of death then
getting hit by a car when you’re left on a road. It would be different if you were dumped out
of the robbers’ car on a landing strip.
3.
The LaFave and Scott excerpt would have been way too
complicated for the jury. I think a good
jury instruction would focus on the contrast between the words “coincidence”
and “response”. For example: “In other
for you to convict the defendant of murder, you must find that it has been
proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim getting hit by a truck was a response
to the defendant’s conduct rather than merely a coincidence.”
4.
I think
5.
A. Here, I think
X’s act of jumping into the water was caused by D’s shooting, and thus D is the
proximate cause for V’s death.
B. Here, D is not
the proximate cause of V2’s death because the result was mere coincidence rather
than a response to D’s actions.
C. X’s shooting
at V was a response to D’s shooting at V, and thus D is the proximate cause of
the death of V.
6.
It doesn’t seem like this should relieve the defendants
of their liability because the nature of their actions has not changed and the
ultimate result is not changed. It doesn’t
seem like they should get off just because they were lucky enough that
7.
Using the analysis in Kibbe, I believe that M
was the proximate cause because Y’s giving the poison to V was a response to M’s
buying the poison and leaving it around the house.
8.
Under Kibbe, I believe P would have been
found to be a proximate cause of V’s death because her traveling to her parents’
house was a response to P’s violent behavior.
The doctrine of contributory negligence would hold that V’s choice to
fall asleep outside in freezing weather may lessen the chance that P caused V’s
death. On the other hand, since P
apparently wished to kill V, the doctrine of intended consequences suggests
that since P got what he wanted, he caused it to happen. The safety that is described here must be
safety from the defendant rather than safety in general. I tend to side with the doctrine of intended
consequences and thus I would disagree with the result in this case. I don’t think it would make a difference
whether or not P was searching for V, but I think it would matter whether P’s
threat was genuine, although it would be difficult to know. The wife batterer aspect could go either way:
you could say that it showed he was regularly violent towards his wife and thus
it was more likely he truly intended to kill her, but on the other hand, you
might argue that if he was going to kill her he would have done so already, and,
though it’s despicable, that what he really likes is just to beat her up.
9.
Freedom of action is a key principle of retributivism. It is considered right to punish someone who
had some bad intent and by their free choice caused some harm. If it was really someone else’s free act that
caused the harm, we won’t hold the former person accountable. Under this doctrine, I believe Preslar
could be decided differently if V’s act was not seen as “free”, but rather
compelled by P’s actions.
10. The Model
Penal Code seems to remove the idea of proximate cause, and only uses “but for”
plus culpability. It says it doesn’t
matter if you intended to cause harm to a different person, or intended to
cause more harm (but not less) than actually occurred. It also doesn’t matter if your intended
result happened differently than you intended it to, so long as the actual
result wasn’t a coincidence or an accident.