I’d say that the guy who rigged the parachute could be charged with attempted murder. Basically, he set up a situation where the jumper would be killed but the act was interrupted by an outside action before the murder was concluded.
Suppose the guy had rigged the parachute in the same way but at the last moment the jumper got a phone call saying his mother had been in a car accident and left to go to the hospital before he made the jump. In such a case it would be obvious the rigger’s action had been an attempted murder which was thwarted by an unforeseen circumstance. The same happened in the OP’s scenario except that the unforeseen circumstance was that the jumper was killed by a different murderer before the first murder was completed.
This is why many jurisdictions punish attempt to the same extent as the completed offense. Someone with murderous intent who takes steps to act on that intent ought not benefit from a purely fortuitous intervening event.
Hypothetical:
A boss is hated by everyone at work. He happens to work in a place where some unpleasant substances are easily accessible. By sheer coincidence, two employees happen to slip something into his coffee on the same day. Either one of these substances alone would only have given him unpleasant diarrhea for a couple of hours. But the two substances taken together turn out to kill him.
Are they both guilty of manslaughter? Even though not acting in concert, it would seem that both people must be guilty here.
Just a guess here but I’d think they were both guilty of first degree murder. Both committed a felony when they poisoned the boss’ drink, even though they had no intention of killing him. In most jurisdictions, far as I know (which isn’t all that far) a death during a felony is first degree murder.
I’d think the same would be true in the OP’s hypothetical.
Depends very much on the jurisdiction where it occurs. Outside the US, felony murder like Sandy Hook describes is rare. If it happened in Canada, it couldn’t be murder, because no intention to kill. At most, unlawful act manslaughter for both, would be my guess.
There was a trial in Toronto that wrapped up a few months ago dealing with a somewhat similar issue. A police officer fired several shots at a man wielding a knife, then stopped shooting, and after the man was on the ground fired another volley of shots.
It was determined that the first shots were fatal, and the allegation that none of them were justified resulted in the peculiar situation of charges of murder for the first shots and attempted murder for the second volley.
Even more unusual was the eventual verdict that the first shots were justified and so the officer was not guilty of murder, but the second ones were not, so he was convicted of attempted murder.
It was a strange and complex trial that focused on the fact that the victim was a young man who was mentally ill rather than a dangerous criminal and the general belief that the officer had overreacted in the circumstances. The jury could not be persuaded that the first shots constituted murder even if the force was excessive, but the officer choosing to release a second volley of shots cost him his job and his freedom.
This sub-cite is to causation in the civil negligence sense as applied to what seems to me to be the relevant fact pattern. Causation (law) - Wikipedia
It’s unclear to me how much the legal logic of causation may differ across jurisdictions or across the civil / criminal divide.
Certainly in the US various legislatures have tried short-circuiting common-law causation to make crimes easier to charge and to prove. IMO the getaway driver being fully liable as a murderer for a shooting somebody else did in the course of a bank robbery is an example of that legislative overreach.
Most states follow a doctrine, called merger, that holds that the felony murder rule only applies when the predicate felony is different from the act causing the death. In other words, a death during a criminal assault does not trigger the felony murder rule because the assault and the death “merge.”
I think the death in this hypothetical would probably be treated as some level of manslaughter. It’s akin to punching someone with force that ordinarily would not be deadly, who then dies because the punch caused him to stumble on a curb and hit his head on a fire hydrant.
IANAL, just a guess here… but in Canada, the charges for both would probably be “Criminal negligence causing death” (and “administering a noxious substance” or something). Whatever the equivalent US crimes would be… There was no intent to kill, but by recklessly failing to ensure the drink was not rendered fatal by addition, despite intentions, the persons both cause the death - the first by leaving an adulterated drink where it could be further adulterated, and the second by adding a dose to an already adulterated drink. Was this foreseeable? Well, if you did it, why would you think nobody else could or would?
these would be appropriate charges and penalties to match the intent - no intent to permanently harm or kill, but acting inappropriately recklessly in such a way that death resulted.
That’s true in New York (the state whose laws I’m most familiar with). A charge of attempted murder is treated as a charge of murder.
Being as one victim can have several murder attempts committed against him, it’s possible for several people to be convicted of separately murdering the same person (who may still be alive).
Yes and no- in New York a conviction for attempted first degree murder or aggravated murder is a Class A-1 felony, just like the completed crimes and will be sentenced in the same way as the completed crimes. But the conviction will be for the attempt and that is what court documents will say .
A conviction for attempted second degree murder, however, is a Class B felony although the completed crime is also a Class A-1 felony and therefore the sentence for an attempt is lower than the sentence for a completed Murder 2.
And for this reason, the basic prison sentence given here (vic.aus) would be the same for either crime. Say 15 years for the murder, 15 years for the attempted murder.*
I assume that even in your state, not all murderers get death, and that some attempted murderers get very long sentences.
*(IANAL. I don’t know if they’d give one “attempted murder” in vic.aus. But if they did, he probably wouldn’t get off more lightly because of it)
You’re not reading carefully. A person can be convicted of murder for trying and failing to kill someone. So both victim and would-be killer are still alive.
So now the original victim attacks the original would-be killer with intent to kill. And once again fails to successfully complete the deed.
Now both are alive and both have committed legal murder of the other. It’s certainly straightforward try live people for stuff they have done.
In practice though, I think the government would have a tough time with the second murder prosecution, since the defense would simply put on whatever experts the government used in the first trial and ask them “now, when you testified in another trial about the death of Joe Smith, didn’t you say that in your expert opinion it was the [other thing] that killed him?”
Section 321P of the Crimes Act sets out the penalties for attempted offences, and says that for offences carrying a penalty of “level 1 imprisonment (life)”, the penalty for attempting that offence is “Level 2 imprisonment (25 years maximum)”.
Doesn’t sound to me like Victoria treats murder and attempt murder the same for penalty purposes. Am I missing something?
Yes, in that case I’m sure this happens all the time with gangs and other kinds of feuds. Retaliation is the typical way of life (and death) and you’d definitely be wanting to kill the guy who tried to kill you (especially before he tried again).