I’d like to ask about things that happen during the commission of a crime.
If I rob a jewellery store with a gun and the clerk behind the counter has a heart attack and dies, am I legally culpable for his/her death?
In Vancouver, a man is on trial right now for this crime: two cars are street-racing at ridiculous speeds. One driver loses control of his car, hits a telephone pole, splits the car into two pieces, and he and 3 of his 4 passengers are killed. The driver of the other car takes off and his located by police days later. Is this second driver legally culpable for the deaths of the 4 people in the other car?
I want to cross a busy road but there is no crosswalk in sight. I know that jaywalking is wrong, illegal, and, at times, dangerous. I decide to jaywalk anyways, causing a nasty car accident. Am I legally culpable for the result of the car accident, whether there are injuries or deaths?
I’m guessing you could be sued for #3 and possibly #1. And #1 would probably be brought up in your trial for armed robbery, but I am not sure either would be a crime on its own. The other racer in example #2 is partly responsible for the race happening and I am pretty sure there are laws against that kind of drag racing on the street, so that looks pretty straightforward.
If you kill someone, accidentally or otherwise, while committing certain kinds of felonies, you can be charged with murder, as can everyone else involved with committing the felony.
Example #2 is straightforward, I agree. And in fact the driver has been found guilty and is awaiting sentencing. Being Canada, however, he’s not likely to get much more than a few months in jail.
Example #3, however, seems to me to be quite similar. Even though I couldn’t reasonably assume that a bad accident would occur, I still participated in a technically illegal act that led to a death or injury.
I’m trying to wrap my head around the differences in these 2 scenarios.
“Technically” being the operative word. Would a jaywalker and a drag racer get the same sentence? I’m guessing not. For jaywalking you’d get a citation or a fine at worst. If you get caught drag racing, you’d probably face some combination of a big fine, losing your license and going to jail even if you didn’t kill anyone.
Yes, I think the exact statutes and relevant felonies differ from state to state, but from the above examples, jaywalking would presumably not be an applicable felony. Armed robbery obviously is. The drag racing, I don’t know.
Whether the drag racer could be charged with felony muder depends on whether drag racing is an appliable felony in Canada (or in that particular province, or however they do it up there).
Jaywalking on a surface street that is expected to be operating at street speeds strikes me as different from running onto an interstate highway. This is mostly just a WAG, but I would think that the latter could result in a higher charge, like reckless endangerment.
Not sure about the last case but I think in the US (or alot of it at least) the first two cases you’d be as cupable as if you’d shot the shopkeeper, or plowed into those passengers yourself.
Personally I think it is a bit excessive. There are cases I’ve heard of when person A goes about robbing a bank, he convinces person B to come along, person B has no weapon, never enters the bank or threatens anyone, but is involved in the crime (say, he is the getaway driver). Person A ends up getting shot by the security guard in the bank, and Person B is charged with murder (as far as the law is concerned he is a cuplpable as if he’d shot Person A himself, and in states with capital punishment he’d be facing capital murder charges). Not that I think Person B should get off scot free he has clearly commited a crime, but he is NOT guilty of murder.
The OP is posting from Canada. Two points of vocabulary - we don’t have felonies, and we don’t have misdemeanours.
On the substantive issue, our constructive murder rule is much more narrow than in the U.S. Based on the Supreme Court decision in R. v. Vaillancourt, it is not constitutionally permissible to convict a person of murder simply because someone died during the commission of a criminal offence. The summary of the majority’s reasons state:
So with respect to scenario # 1, I would doubt very much that the robber could be convicted with constructive murder. The possibility of death by heart attack in the course of a robbery likely doesn’t meet the test of objective foreseeability of death resulting, beyond a reasonable doubt.
With respect to scenario # 2, isn’t the question already answered? The court has convicted the accused. Barring a successful appeal, the court has ruled that in this situation, the accused’s actions did contribute to the deaths and triggered criminal liability. However, the OP hasn’t explained what the OP was convicted of. I’d be surprised if it were constructive murder, for the reasons already given. Was the accused convicted of manslaughter?
With respect to scenario # 3, I would think that the answer would be the same as in # 1. Jaywalking is a relatively common occurrence, without normally causing the deaths of people (other than the jaywalker, of course), so it’s hard to say that death as a result of jaywalking is objectively foreseeable. (Note as well that jaywalking is not a “misdemeanour”, nor is it a criminal offence. It’s a provincial offence.)
That’s assuming a star-studded lawyer or an impartial jury. Otherwise, the accused will be charged and convicted with murder like this person, or this guy who didn’t even touch the deceased, and especially these two people.
**Northern Piper ** was explaining the law in Canada. He quoted where the Supreme Court of Canada rejected murder convictions in certain cases. Your examples are from the U.S.
The OP indicated he was posting from Canada; I gave an answer based on Canadian law, which has a much narrower rule for constructive murder than in the US.
Principle from tort law are of very little assistance in determining criminal liability. Similarly, cases from England from thirty years ago, pre-dating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, do not determine whether Canadian courts will find criminal liability. In any event, in that particular case, the accused had caused direct physical harm to the victim, contrary to the example raised by the OP in scenario # 1.
For jaywalking you’d get a citation or a fine at worst. If you get caught drag racing, you’d probably face some combination of a big fine, losing your license and going to jail even if you didn’t kill anyone.