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Thus, “where A shoots B, who is hit and dies, we can say that A [actually] caused B’s death, since but for A’s conduct B would not have died.” . The same conclusion follows if the predicate act combines with other factors to produce the result, so long as the other factors alone would not have done so—if, so to speak, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Thus, if poison is administered to a man debilitated by multiple diseases, it is a but-for cause of his death even if those diseases played a part in his demise, so long as, without the incremental effect of the poison, he would have lived.

This but-for requirement is part of the common understanding of cause. Consider a baseball game in which the visiting team’s leadoff batter hits a home run in the top of the first inning. If the visiting team goes on to win by a score of 1 to 0, every person competent in the English language and familiar with the American pastime would agree that the victory resulted from the home run. This is so because it is natural to say that one event is the outcome or consequence of another when the former would not have occurred but for the latter. It is beside the point that the victory also resulted from a host of other necessary causes, such as skillful pitching, the coach’s decision to put the leadoff batter in the lineup, and the league’s decision to schedule the game. By contrast, it makes little sense to say that an event resulted from or was the outcome of some earlier action if the action merely played a nonessential contributing role in producing the event. If the visiting team wound up winning 5 to 2 rather than 1 to 0, one would be surprised to read in the sports page that the victory resulted from the leadoff batter’s early, non-dispositive home run.

Where there is no textual or contextual indication to the contrary, courts regularly read phrases like “results from” to require but-for causality.

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Unsurprisingly, it could not specify how important or how substantial a cause must be to qualify. Presumably the lower courts would be left to guess. That task would be particularly vexing since the evidence in §841(b)(1) cases is often expressed in terms of probabilities and percentages. One of the experts in this case, for example, testified that Banka’s death would have been “[v]ery less likely” had he not used the heroin that Burrage provided. Is it sufficient that use of a drug made the victim’s death 50 percent more likely? Fifteen percent? Five? Who knows. Uncertainty of that kind cannot be squared with the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard applicable in criminal trials or with the need to express criminal laws in terms ordinary persons can comprehend.

But in the last analysis, these always-fascinating policy discussions are beside the point. The role of this Court is to apply the statute as it is written—even if we think some other approach might “ ‘accor[d] with good policy.’ As we have discussed, it is written to require but-for cause.

Quote (Goomshill @ Dec 24 2021 06:29am)

Also if you're really interested in that distinction, read the opinion in Burrage v US since it deals with precisely these issues.
ie
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/571/204/#tab-opinion-1970803
Minnesota murder statutes all use the 'cause the death', not 'contributes to the death', that imports but-for causality.

Quote (NetflixAdaptationWidow @ Dec 24 2021 06:27am)

Everybody follows acceleration theory causation, they just don't know it. All murder is just moving the needle forward after all. But that's being pedantic.

The case you are referencing was specific to the language of that particular law, which is a federal law and not a state law. It is not applicable to this case. In interpreting murder cases this would only fall on the state supreme court.

Under your interpretation we could kill terminal cancer patients with impunity as long as their cancer was technically the thing that killed them. If my mother got cancer I could starve her so her cancer kills her faster, as long as she didn't technically die from starvation. I was doing my best to care for her officer I swear! This is obviously not true. I'd get charged and convicted with very little fight. You are using an overly-broad definition of "acceleration theory" to make your case.

Quote (Goomshill @ Dec 24 2021 06:38am)

Burrage deals with a case of a statute that reads "{death} results from", while Minnesota law reads "{whoever} causes the death". They are functionally identical, the same standard of causation, and that meaning was already laid out in those jury instructions nobody read in the Chauvin trial- because that's how the law works in Minnesota, too. There's no acceleration theory in MN law. And the supreme court specifically contrasted that language with acceleration / contributing factor language in statutes, where legislatures can write "whoever contributes to the death". Its plain english, and its not pedantic, its the core of what establishes the proof of causation required at murder trial. As the supreme court says, tests based upon probabilities and percentages and unknowable incremental time periods, are incompatible with the proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard of criminal law. There's a reason that the court in the Chauvin trial didn't instruct the jury that all they had to find was Chauvin being a contributing factor, or else they'd get struck down on appeal instantly on just this basis. Fortunately for the state, jury instructions are irrelevant if they made up their mind to convict before the trial was even started.

Quote (NetflixAdaptationWidow @ Dec 24 2021 06:44am)

The supreme court case is irrelevant here, even if the statutes were entirely identical, just so you know. The supreme court has no say in interpreting state laws. That's just a procedural issue.

Again, if your interpretation is the correct one then I can starve my cancer ridden mother to make her die faster, as long as I'm careful enough to make her death "cancer" and not "starved to death". You take your victim as you find them. Overdosing is just another example of eggshell skull. The guy with eggshell skull was going to die at some point from getting hit on the head (having drugs in his system), but Chauvin's knee was the thing that broke the shell.

Quote (Goomshill @ Dec 24 2021 07:05am)

1) The state courts explicitly draw upon federal interpretations to resolve such vagueness in their laws even when its not binding, which most states have done post-Burrage
2) Minnesota does not have an acceleration theory to begin with, so its irrelevant, just not in the way you meant it. They apply the substantial cause test as a natural result, revoked by superseding intervening causes. You can't convict someone in Minnesota criminal law for the probability factor or expected-lifetime factors of an acceleration theory when another direct cause exists, because its specifically stated that a superseding cause removes criminal liability from other causes.

As per the 'straw that broke the camel's back' example, under the SCOTUS rule, as long as the last straw is the one that breaks the back of the camel but the weight of all the others didn't, it is still the proximate cause, eggshell skull and all. But if all the other straws were placed at the same time, no one straw can be called the proximate cause, because the camel's back would have been broken without it, not passing the but-for standard.

Quote (NetflixAdaptationWidow @ Dec 24 2021 07:10am)

You keep ignoring the example though... by your logic we can murder any number of people so long as we have at least one other pin, which is not true. You are stretching the definition of acceleration theory to its breaking point to make your case.

Quote (Goomshill @ Dec 24 2021 07:38am)

Burrage deals with a case of a statute that reads "{death} results from", while Minnesota law reads "{whoever} causes the death". They are functionally identical, the same standard of causation, and that meaning was already laid out in those jury instructions nobody read in the Chauvin trial- because that's how the law works in Minnesota, too. There's no acceleration theory in MN law. And the supreme court specifically contrasted that language with acceleration / contributing factor language in statutes, where legislatures can write "whoever contributes to the death". Its plain english, and its not pedantic, its the core of what establishes the proof of causation required at murder trial. As the supreme court says, tests based upon probabilities and percentages and unknowable incremental time periods, are incompatible with the proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard of criminal law. There's a reason that the court in the Chauvin trial didn't instruct the jury that all they had to find was Chauvin being a contributing factor, or else they'd get struck down on appeal instantly on just this basis. Fortunately for the state, jury instructions are irrelevant if they made up their mind to convict before the trial was even started.

Quote (Goomshill @ Dec 24 2021 07:17am)

Well tell that to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's corpse.
Whenever a court weighs a criminal law it has to balance the constitutionality and public interest. Making it harder to establish causation in a murder trial means more murderers getting lesser charges. They might get attempted murder and only serve 20 years in prison instead of life under 609.17(4)(1). What a grand loophole that would be. Only two decades in prison for attempted murder 1st degree.