Hypothetical Legal Scenario About Manslaughter

Hypothetical Scenario

Did Lennie cause the first officer's death? Distinguish between proximate cause and cause in fact. Are there any intervening causes? If so, are they superseding? Explain in detail every argument that could help Lennie and every argument that the prosecution is likely to use against him using only the concepts you learned in class.

"Cause in fact requires that the defendant's negligent conduct was the actual cause of the plaintiff's injuries ... Proximate cause refers to the 'foreseeability' of the injuries. That is, the plaintiff's injuries must be a foreseeable result of the defendant's conduct" (Clarke 2015). Although it could be argued that Lennie acted in a negligent manner regarding his conduct with the girl -- allowing her to play a dart game while drunk -- Lennie's defense attorney would argue there is no way he could have anticipated that she would react in such an extreme manner. The girl also denied being drunk and Lennie is not in a position to assess her sobriety. The prosecution would likely counter that giving a sharp weapon to an intoxicated person (and that a reasonable person should have been able to spot she had been abusing alcohol) and making loud noises made Lennie the proximate cause of the officer's death, given that he should have anticipated harm. Given his responsibility in his position of employment, he had a duty to safeguard the safety of both participants and spectators.

Q2. Did the girl cause the first officer's death? Use the same analysis for the girl as you did for Lennie.

If the girl was charged, the prosecution would likely argue that the girl was the proximate cause of the officer's death given that she was intoxicated and playing a potentially dangerous game. She also denied that she was intoxicated and lied to Lennie. The girl would likely defend her actions by alleging that Lennie's business had acted in a negligent manner, creating a dangerous game of darts, complete with loud noises in an environment where a participant would likely commit an error at some point The legal definition of negligence is "existence of a legal duty to exercise reasonable care; a failure to exercise reasonable care; cause in fact of physical harm by the negligent conduct; physical harm in the form of actual damages; and proximate cause, a showing that the harm is within the scope of liability" ("Negligence," 2015). The fact that a child's carnival game could potentially be so dangerous and the lack of safeguards would suggest that the carnival that created the game was at fault and Lennie's failure to exercise due diligence over observing the participants was the reason for the resulting death. A parallel example might be a shooting range giving a small child a semi-automatic weapon. In other words, the nature of the game's setup was such that tragedy was almost inevitable and thus the girl would argue she was not at fault. She had a reasonable expectation that playing the game would be safe.

Q3. Did the girl have a defense to killing the second officer? Explain the rules regarding defenses in thoroughly answering the question.

Although mental illness is not an automatic excuse for committing a crime, if someone genuinely was unable to tell right from wrong (as in the case of the girl hearing voices in her head telling her that the second police officer was evil), he or she might be able to convincingly argue the insanity defense. Although standards differ depending upon the state and various court rulings have refined the definition over the years, in general the insanity defense rests upon the notion that "defendants are not guilty because they lacked the mental capacity to realize that they committed a wrong or appreciate why it was wrong" (Martin 1998). Not only was the girl mentally ill, in other words, but she genuinely believed that she felt she was engaging in a beneficial action. The insanity defense "allows judges and juries to decide some defendants aren't 'criminally responsible' for their actions even though those acts might be a crime under different circumstances, just as a child who accidentally starts a fire shouldn't be treated as an arsonist"(Martin 1998).

Q4. Who can be charged for killing Ernie? Does the second cop have a defense (assuming he were alive to be charged)? Does the girl have a defense?

The second cop might seem to have a clear defense that he had no intention to kill Ernie nor did he act negligently. He could not have anticipated that the girl would react in the manner that she did and had no intention to harm Ernie. However, he could still potentially be charged for a negligent behavior, given his responsibility as an officer carrying a weapon to ensure that his gun is secured at all times. Police officers have a responsibility to secure their guns at all time so that they are safe and if he did not secure the gun properly, unless the discharge was due to a manufacturer's defect, he might be held responsible. The girl would claim that she believed she was acting in self-defense (this would be connected to her claim that she was insane at the time and thus not responsible for her actions). The girl could be charged with involuntary manslaughter: "an unintentional killing that results from recklessness or criminal negligence, or from an unlawful act that is a misdemeanor or low-level felony" ("Involuntary manslaughter," 2015). Her decision to throw the dart at the officer was a reckless action that resulted in death. If not found to be legally insane, she could be charged.

Q5. Does Jeffrey have any defense to jumping on top of the bystander? Which defense? What are the elements of that defense?

Jeffrey can defend himself against a charge of assault claiming that he was attempting to preserve the life of the person whom he was trying to help and also contain the fire from spreading. Necessity is a common defense leveraged to excuse "criminal conduct when it is done only to avoid an even greater harm. If you reasonably believe that you or another person are about to suffer significant bodily harm ... and there is no other reasonable legal alternative to engaging in the criminal conduct ... you may be entitled to an acquittal of the charged offense" ("Necessity, 2015). In this instance, had Jeffrey not attempted to put out the fire, the bystander and also much of the crowd could have been seriously injured; this was clearly not an assault.