2023.04.24_Criminal_Law_Lecture_Part_1__28Legal_Causation_Successive_Assaults_29_Audio_Only

Successive Assaults Overview

• In legal contexts, successive assaults involve multiple actors causing harm to a victim, raising questions about causation in terms of death or injury.

• It is crucial to determine who legally caused the victim's death and if one actor can be considered a necessary intervening cause (NCI) for another.

Case Study: Mbambo

Events Leading to Death

• Accused A throws stones at Victim C, causing C to fall and injure himself.

• Accused B then stabs C in the chest, resulting in a mortal wound, leading to C's immediate death.

• A claims, "I felled him," indicating a perception of having incapacitated C.

Legal Implications of Common Purpose

• Common Purpose: A legal doctrine allowing multiple perpetrators to be charged as if they individually committed the offense.

• The court's challenge was proving common purpose due to disagreements among judges on its applicability in this case.

• If common purpose is established, individual acts lead to joint liability without needing to prove causation for each person involved.

Analyzing Causation

Factual Causation

• A's action (throwing stones) and B's action (stabbing) are both considered factual causes of death.

• Batfor Test: Evaluating whether C would have survived had A not thrown stones, suggesting A made C vulnerable to B's attack.

• Legal Causation: Court found B to be the direct cause of death due to the stab wound being the most proximate cause.

Nerve Causa Intervenience (NCI)

• NCI’s Criteria:

  • Was the intervening act abnormal or unexpected?

  • Was it independent of A's actions?

  • Was it a factual cause on its own?

• B's act of stabbing was deemed independent of A's conduct since the court ruled A did not foresee B's attack, disallowing A from being implicated in C's death.

Court's Conclusion in Mbambo

• A was not found to be the legal cause due to the independence of B's act, with the case setting a precedent adhering to the need for clear evidential connections in causation.

Case Study: Daniels

Events Leading to Death

• Similar circumstances where Accused A shot Victim C in the back, subsequently leading to multiple shots, with Accused B executing C with a shot to the head.

• The court evaluated A and B's actions in a similar manner to Mbambo, yet found notable differences.

Key Differentiators in Legal Analysis

• A's gunshot was established as an act that could likely lead to C's death, suggesting adequate causation.

• Findings in Daniels differed in that the act of shooting inherently elevated the likelihood of death, unlike throwing stones.

NCI Evaluation in Daniels

• Court deliberated over the factors of NCI similarly to Mbambo but emphasized that A's conduct was integral and not entirely independent given the circumstances.

• Judges noted that even if there was no explicit common purpose, A created the means for B to act, thereby linking their acts regardless of whether they were agreed upon or not.

Judicial Opinions in Daniels

Agreeing Views

• Judge Nicholas believed that A and B acted together, supporting the idea of imposing collective liability despite lack of evidence for common purpose.

• Judge Trengrove found B's conduct to be abnormal and independent, suggesting A's liability should only extend to attempted murder.

Dissenting View

• Judges Van Winsen and Janssen articulated that A's actions had sufficiently contributed materially to the situation, arguing against the NCI application which isolated B's conduct from A's.

Conclusion and Critical Reflection

• The contrasting outcomes of Mbambo and Daniels reflect ongoing tensions within legal interpretations of causation and liability based on factual circumstances versus evidential support for causal links.

• Policy Considerations: The legal principles advocate for accountability, yet emphasize the necessity of basing judgments on substantive actions that can be directly traced to the consequence of death.

• Further Discussion Points: Whether the cases truly diverge on principles of causation, or if they simply reflect judicial discrepancies requiring coherent application of the law.

• The ideological question remains: Should a defendant be accountable for a death caused directly by their actions, or can liability shift due to subsequent acts of others, even if they were facilitated by the initial wrongdoer?