Voluntary Acts and Omissions Flashcards
Chain smoker lights a cigarette at a gas station. He has no memory of lighting the cigarette. Pump explodes.
Is his act voluntary?
- Yes - habitual action is a voluntary act
- Habitual action = very specific response to the same set of specific stimuli
Police officers arrested man drunk in his home, took him to the highway, arrested him for being drunk in public
- Martin v. State
- Action must be voluntary
- Cannot be culpable for action you did not voluntarily perform
- Taking a person from their home to a public place means they were not voluntarily drunk in public
D let friend and 10-month-old baby stay with her. Baby died from lack of food and medical care. Did D have duty to provide food and care? Case?
- Jones v. US
- No legal duty to act
- No contract to care for the child
- No statutory duty
- Did not create peril
- No traditional relationship (not the parent)
- Did not take responsibility for the child then isolate her from her mother
- Taking someone into your home to help them does not create a duty to act
- Policy: Encouraging people to help each other
D was involved in struggle with police - was shot in stomach then shot and killed police officer. Expert testified he would have been unconscious after being shot in the stomach.
- People v. Newton
- Unconsciousness is a complete defense to homicide
- Act must be voluntary - any act performed while unconscious is involuntary
MPC Requirement of Voluntary Act
A person is not guilty of an offense unless his liability is based on conduct that includes a voluntary act or the omission to perform an act of that he is physically capable.
MPC - What acts are involuntary?
The following are not voluntary acts within the meaning of this section:
- reflex or convulsion;
- bodily movement during unconsciousness or sleep;
- conduct during hypnosis or resulting from hypnotic suggestion;
- a bodily movement that otherwise is not a product of the effort or determination of the actor, either conscious or habitual.
Did Johnny commit a voluntary act?
- Johnny served for 20 years as a navy seal. Highly trained in close combat techniques.
- He was chopping celery in his kitchen when his sixteen year old son walked up behind him and hugged him from behind.
- Johnny responded, as he had been trained, by breaking his son’s hold and stabbing him with the knife.
-
YES - conditioned responses are voluntary acts
- Is a product of effort or determination by the actor
In what situations is there a duty to act / what creates a duty to act?
- By Statute
- By Contract
- By Relationship
- By Creating Peril
- By Taking Responsibility and Isolating
Must reasonably assist without causing danger to yourself
Woman dreamed soldiers were attacking her daughter, sleep-walked into daughter’s room and killed her while asleep
- The Cogdon Case
- Somnambulism / sleep-walking
- Any act while sleep walking is not a voluntary act
- Woman not liable for killing her daughter because it was not a voluntary act
D drove his car on the highway, had an epileptic seizure and crashed, killing another driver. Voluntary act? Which case?
- People v. Decina
- Was a voluntary act to choose to drive knowing he was epileptic - D was found liable
- Expanded the scope of when the voluntary act occured
- Seizure that caused crash not voluntary but choice to be on the road was
Relationships that create legal duty to act
- Common law:
- Parent to minor
- Husband to wife / wife to husband
- Modern trend toward relationships that look like these eg. gay marriage
D took in mother and her child, mother beat the child in front of D and D did nothing to stop the beating, or call for medical help or police. Child died that night. Did D have duty to act? Case?
- Pope v. State
- No legal duty to act
- No contract, relationship, creation of peril or taking responsibility and isolating
- Statute created duty if D was responsible for the supervision of the child
- Mother was always present, D did not usurp role of parent by letting mother and child stay in her house
D was having an affair. Mistress overdosed and D failed to call for medical help. Duty to act? Case?
- People v. Beardsley
- No legal duty to act
- No contract, statute, creation or peril or taking resp./isolating
- Relationship not one recognized as creating a duty at common law - not husband and wife
Stepmother did not prevent her husband from killing his daughter during a week she was staying with them
- People v. Carroll
- Beginning to expand the traditional legal relationship that creates duty
- Stepmother had duty to act
- Parent with functional equivalent of a parent in familial or household setting is legally responsible for child’s care
- Takes into account modern-day reality that parenting functions not always done by parent
D, live in BF, failed to protect a baby from being beaten by its mother, his GF. D had taken care of baby and considered himself its stepfather.
- State v. Miranda
- Overturned on appeal finding NO legal duty to act
- Parental liability should not be extended on case-by-case basis beyond traditional categories
- Will discourage people from becoming too involved with children for fear of being held criminally liable
- This case is stupid as shit
