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Question 0

What are the two questions you should always ask when dealing with proximate cause?

Answer 0

1. Was the harm foreseeable?

2. Were there intervening acts?

Question 1

If you drive 90 km/h in a 50 km/hour zone and your passenger has a heart attack, are you proximate cause of his death?

Answer 1

Unless you should have reasonably foreseen that your culpably negligent driving would cause a heart attack, you shouldn’t be guilty of manslaughter

Question 2

What is the substantial factor test?

Answer 2

If two people inflict mortal wounds on a victim and either is enough to kill him, it must be asked whether the defendant’s conduct was a substantial factor in bringing about the result

Question 3

If there are multiple assailants that aren’t working together, how does guilt work?

Answer 3

Each are as guilty as the other

Question 4

If you hasten someone’s death, what does that mean for liability?

Answer 4

You are the cause of death

Question 5

If you prematurely pull the plug on a terminally ill patient, how does that affect your liability?

Answer 5

You were the cause of death

Question 6

If April goes on a desert trek and you poison her water, but Bo steals the water and April dies of thirst, who is the cause of death?

Answer 6

Bo, because he was the actual cause

Question 7

If there is a small difference between what you meant to happen and what actually happened, are you still the direct cause?

Answer 7

Yes

Question 8

What is an intervening cause?

Answer 8

When your intended result is achieved in an unintended way because of an intervening act

Question 9

If there is a coincidence that wasn’t foreseeable as an intervening cause, are you liable?

Answer 9

No

Question 10

If there is a response to your actions that is an intervening cause, are you liable?

Answer 10

Yes

Question 11

If there is no evidence that your act caused or accelerated the victim’s death, are you liable?

Answer 11

No

Question 12

What is a superseding intervening act?

Answer 12

An intervening act that breaks the chain of causation

Question 13

If an act is foreseeable, will it be superseding?

Answer 13

No

Question 14

If an act is unforeseeable, will it break the chain of causation?

Answer 14

Probably

Question 15

What is a dependent intervening act?

Answer 15

Intervening act that doesn’t break the chain of causation

Question 16

What are the four different intervening cause categories?

Answer 16

A. Victim
B. Third person
C. Defendant
D. Nonhuman source

Question 17

How can a victim be an intervening cause?

Answer 17

If the victim in someway contributes to his own death after the defendant’s attack

Question 18

What are the ways a victim can contribute to his own death?

Answer 18

• trying to escape
• impulsively acting to avoid harm
• acting voluntarily to refuse treatment
• committing suicide

Question 19

If the victim contributes to his own death, how does that affect the guilt of the defendant?

Answer 19

Usually means the defendant is still guilty

Question 20

How can a third person be an intervening cause?

Answer 20

• negligent treatment by a doctor

- another defendant coming along and also harming the victim

Question 21

If a doctor negligently treats a wound, does that make him the proximate cause of death?

Answer 21

Only if the negligence was gross negligence, because ordinary negligence is not abnormal and doesn’t cut off liability

Question 22

If you shoot someone and leave them to die, and another stabs them and hastens the death, that person is guilty of murder. Are you?

Answer 22

Yes because at the time of death both wounds were contributing to the life shortening process, or your intent to kill that person made him unable to defend himself against the other, so you proximately caused the death

Question 23

How can the defendant be an intervening cause?

Answer 23

If the defendant thought he killed the victim, but didn’t, and actually killed him while trying to dispose of the body

Question 24

How can a nonhuman source be an intervening cause?

Answer 24

If the defendant intends to kill someone, but just wounds them and leaves them somewhere that nonhuman sources finish him off

Question 25

What are some examples of nonhuman sources that could be intervening causes?

Answer 25

• being kicked by a horse
• struck by lightning
• exposure to the elements

Question 26

How is a D still liable if the victim is killed by a nonhuman source?

Answer 26

As long as the nonhuman source is foreseeable, the defendant is liable

Question 27

Do acts of nature usually break the chain of causation?

Answer 27

No, but unforeseeable freak acts of nature often do. Ie: earthquakes

Question 28

If you contract a disease during treatment, does that break the chain?

Answer 28

Not usually unless the disease is very rare and totally unforeseeable

Question 29

How does the MPC deal with proximate cause?

Answer 29

When the defendant’s conduct brings about an unintended result, the question is put to the jury about whether the result is too remote or accidental to have a just bearing on the actor’s liability

Question 30

How does the MPC deal with proximate cause for situations that there’s a difference between the result imagined and the actual result?

Answer 30

If the but-for test can be applied, the conduct is the cause of the result

Question 31

What is the status prohibition?

Answer 31

Defendant cannot be charged for a state of being, rather than what he has done. Ie: being a vagrant, prostitute, drunk, etc.

Question 32

What are inchoate crimes?

Answer 32

Planning crimes that are punished before the harm occurs

Question 33

What is the proper order of inchoate crimes?

Answer 33

• Solicitation
• Conspiracy
• Attempt

Question 34

If on an exam there is no evidence about which defendant came up with the idea to commit a crime, how should that be dealt with?

Answer 34

Skip solicitation and just discuss conspiracy

Question 35

What is solicitation?

Answer 35

Minor crime when someone asks someone else to commit a crime with the specific intent that the crime be committed

Question 36

What are some examples of solicitation?

Answer 36

Enticing, advising, inciting, ordering, encouraging

Question 37

On an exam how should you always discuss solicitation?

Answer 37

Identify it with the crime committed. Ie: solicitation to commit murder

Question 38

What are the elements of solicitation?

Answer 38

• D urged another person to commit some act

- The act urged would have been a crime if it was committed

Question 39

When is solicitation complete?

Answer 39

When the command/request is made

Question 40

Does a solicitation have to be personal?

Answer 40

No, it can be to a large group of people

Question 41

Is bare solicitation considered an attempt?

Answer 41

No because completion requires action by the person solicited

Question 42

The solicitor is guilty of solicitation until the crime is completed, and then he becomes what?

Answer 42

An accessory before the fact to the substantive offense

Question 43

How can attempted solicitation happen?

Answer 43

If the solicitor mails an inciting letter that is never received