Criminal Law Essay

This issue involves the death of an owner of a store, by a police officer that was attempting to stop a robbery of a jewelry store. This paper will discuss Cal and Dan’s liability to the death of Opal, the owner of the jewelry store.

Murder is established where there is an act of the accused, that causes the death of the deceased and at the time of the act, the accused acted with intent to kill, intent to cause grievous bodily harm or reckless indifference to human life. It is also murder if the death occurs during or immediately after the commission of some other offence.

The first issue is whether there was an act of Cal and Dan that caused the death of the owner. Before Cal and Dan can be liable for the death there must have been some voluntary act that caused the death. In this case the accused was trying to flee from a robbery that he committed as a willing participant. The accused discharging the gun was a voluntary act in response to Officer Pat showing up and attempting to stop the robbery. The wounding and death were caused by a combination of acts done in pursuance of the robbery. Since Cal and Dan actively involved in the robbery and there was a death of an innocent person accidentally, while he was robbing [the victim], the accused is guilty of murder.

Taking the broad view of the acts of the accused, his voluntary actions included going into the jewelry store whilst armed, robbing the store and running away and having Opal getting wounded would still have been the voluntary act of Cal and Dan. Even if the precise cause of the wounding was unforseen it would seem that it was still a voluntary act of Cal and Dan that can be identified as the relevant act.

The next question is that given there were voluntary acts of the accused that ultimately wounded the owner, did that cause the owner’s death? The owner was killed by a stray bullet that would not have been fired if it were not for Cal and Dan’s actions.. Whether Cal and Dan’s actions caused...