Proximate Causation Flashcards
What is proximate cause?
The act and harm are sufficiently closely related the act is a legal cause of the harm. Exempts some actual causes from legal responsibility (different than in Torts!!).
Under MPC: if the result is not too remote or accidental in its occurrence to have a just bearing on the actor’s liability or on the gravity of his offense.
What is the “year and a day” rule in homicide?
D cannot be convicted (as a proximate cause) of death, if victim did not die until a year and a day following D’s act.
What was the holding in People v. Rideout?
D’s immediate action of causing harm (via drunk driving) was not the proximate cause of death. Other car that hit was superseding cause = breaking chain of causation
What is a superseding cause?
If an unforeseeable intervening cause breaks the chain and supersedes D’s act in bringing about the harm, then that will be the cause of the harm.
As long as its voluntary free deliberate movement of breaking the chain (e.g., independent human agency - acts of god etc.) then superseding.
What is the holding in State v. Rose?
Because victim crossed street illegally, D was not negligent in hitting D. Therefore, the timing of her actions (hitting D, her driving away, and then when D died) is essential in determining causation in relation to death of victim/negligence on part of D. Therefore, because the ME could not definitively state whether victim died upon impact or died after D was driving away, proximate cause cannot be determined.
What was the holding of Velazquez v. State?
D’s conduct was a substantial factor in decedent’s death but was not the proximate cause of death, therefore, D is not criminally liable. The decedent in effect killed himself by his voluntary and reckless driving in the “drag race”
