Julia Duffy’s character puts her dog’s medication in another dog’s drinking water. She wants to harm the other dog so that her dog will win an upcoming contest. The tainted water, however, is drunk by the target dog’s handler. The dog medication reacts with a medication the dog handler was already taking. In distriss, the victim staggars around looking for help. She trips over a bag on the floor and falls on one of Julia Duffy’s knitting needles. The knitting needle pierces the victim’s aorta and she dies.
So, we have a dead woman, Julia Duffy tainted the dog’s water, and Julia Duffy’s knitting needle is stuck through the dead woman’s chest.
What crime, if any, is Julia Duffy’s character guilty of? She did intend to poison a dog, but a human got the poison. The poison wouldn’t have been lethal if it weren’t for a medication the victim already had. Falling on the knitting needle was a random accident.
IANAL, but isn’t manslaughter the charge when a person knowingly commits an act that can result in harm, and death, though not intended, results? Wouldn’t that be the charge here? Did CSI not get around to what the charge would be?
But firing shots into a crowd will reasonably harm or kill someone. In the CSI episode, the intended target was a dog. She didn’t even intend to kill the dog, just drug it a bit. The drug wouldn’t have hurt the human lady, except that she was already taking a medication that the dog drug reacted with. Not to mention, the actual cause of death was a knitting needle.
Suppose the poisoning hadn’t taken place at all, and the lady died be tripping over her own feet and landing on a knitting needle. Could the owner of the knitting needle be charged with a crime?
The CSI episode ended before the charges were brought. Those shows are usually more interested in the process of figuring out what happened, not in successfully prosecuting someone.
She’d probably be charged with reckless endangerment or the equivalent. Basically that’s the crime of creating a situation that caused a death or serious injury even though the actual chain of events couldn’t be anticipated. In this case, Duffy’s character intentionally created a dish of tampered water. Although nobody could foresee the subsequent death, it was an action she took which ultimately had that result. The fact that she also owned the knitting needles probably wouldn’t be a factor, because possessing them wouldn’t be considered a reckless action (assuming there was no other circumstances involved).
Did the drugging make any difference to falling onto a knitting needle?
Isn’t the crime leaving a bag full of sharp implements in a dangerous place?
CSI is about providing the evidence of the crime (if any) - they are different from Law and Order in that respect.
There was a CSI episode where a college student disappears and a chain of events are uncovered showing what actually happened.
Shouldn’t there be spoiler warnings?!
UK television is just about to air the first episode of CSI: NY (apparently it’s a spin off from CSI: Miami :eek: )
I’m gonna go with NO on this one.
For Felony Murder to work, the lady would had to have committed an “intentional act that is not an essential element” of the original Felony.
Placing the Poison in the dog dish would have been an essential element in the “Cruelty to Animals” or “Attempted Cruelty to an Animal” felony we’d have to stick her with to get Felony Murder.
So, unfortunately, Felony Murder is out of the question.
Manslaughter is the best bet here. Either that, or 2nd degree Stupid Bitchery!
This link from the very credible :rolleyes: Court TV page suggests that in New York, Reckless Endangerment can be a lesser included offense to manslaughter and negligent homicide.
It arguably caused the fall. A person drinking the drugged water could have been injured in many ways. They could have tried to drive and had an accident, they could have fallen on a knitting needle, or they could have had unprotected sex and would up with HIV. The argument is that it was foreseeable that a human would drink the water and be put at risk of injury or death.
IANAL, but I seem to recall some sort of maxim that you take your victim “as you find him”.
Suppose you get into a fight, and punch the guy in the chest. Unknown to you, and perhaps to him, he had an aneurysm which burst from the impact, killing him. The punch would not have killed a healthy person. According to the maxim, you are not entitled to claim that he was killed by the aneurysm, as the aneurysm wouldn’t have killed him (then) if he hadn’t been punched.
So, if you give someone a drug intending only to make them sick, and it interacts with their medication to kill them (or makes them pass out and fall on knitting needles), you can’t claim that the medication killed them. You are on the hook for the death.
Glee, sorry about the lack of spoiler warnings. That was my oversight. Honestly, this wasn’t one of the better episodes. I won’t tell you how the case with the bike messenger came out. More spoilers in this post, if that matters any more.
The knitting needles fascinate me. Julia Duffy’s character left them in a sewing bag in the area where the dogs are prepared for the show. (She knits things for her precious “Hercule”.) The needles, being larger than the bag, where in a sort of upright position. I’ve seen lots of people leave their sewing supplies this way. If the whole business of the poisoning hadn’t occurred, and the victim merely tripped over her own feet, could the owner of the knitting needles have a legal problem?
Also, the tainted water was in a baby’s bottle. It was revealed that the dog handlers would sometimes suck on the nipple of the baby bottle to get the water flowing, then provide the bottle to the dog. That’s how the woman ended up with the dog’s water. Were I prosecuting this case, I would argue that Julia, being experienced with show dogs, would know that there was a reasonable chance that the poisoned water would come into contact with a human.
See, this is a case of Julia making a poor choice (choosing to poison a competitor dog), then having that choice result in devastating unintended consequences. How criminally liable are we for making poor choices? If I miss a stop sign while driving my car, can I be charged with murder of the person I kill in the resulting colission? (This sort of accident happened to Laura Welch Bush when she was a teenager.)
If nothing else, lets all be careful about where we leave our knitting needles.
There’s a concept called “transferrence of intent.” For instance, if a cop intends to shoot a bad guy, but misses and shoots an innocent bystander, it counts as if the cop intended to shoot the innocent bystander. (This covers the “spraying bullets into the crowd” example given by ltfire)
I’m not sure if intent can transfer from animals to humans. If it can, then Julia “intended” to poison the woman, and the poisoning was part of the cause of the woman tripping and dying. (The fact that the poison worked much better than intended isn’t going to get her off the hook)
It really doesn’t matter who owned the knitting needles.
But aahala had the best answer. She’s guilty of being in a really dumb show.
Sengkelat is correct - in a sense. If a cop intends to shoot a bad guy, but misses and shoots a bystander, the act may be evaluated by the doctrine of transferred intent.
But what was the cop’s intent? Since the cast of characters is “cop” and “bad guy” I assume the cop’s intent was not to murder the bad guy, but to reasonably use lawful force. If that’s the case, then the cop’s transferred “intent” is meaningless, since that intent does not form the mens rea for a crime.
Now, if the cop’s actions were reckless, we may resolve that without resorting to “transferred intent.” He shot, recklessly, but without a specific intent to harm, and caused a death. That’s manslaughter.
In either case, the doctrine of transferred intent is useless in analyzing this situation.
It would come into play only if the cop were planning to murder the bad guy, and accidentally shot a bystander. As I say, that’s a possible scenario, but a very odd one when the players are “cop” and “bad guy” but the cop is also a bad guy.