321 N.E.2d 773 (N.Y. 1974)
On the evening of December 30, 1970, defendants George Kibbe and Barry Krall encountered George Stafford in a Rochester tavern where Stafford displayed one hundred dollar bills while heavily intoxicated.1 The defendants, who had decided to steal Stafford's money, agreed to drive him toward Canandaigua.2
After visiting additional bars, they entered Kibbe's automobile where Kibbe took Stafford's money, forced him to lower his trousers and remove his shoes, and ejected him onto the shoulder of a rural two-lane highway with his trousers around his ankles, shirt rolled up, and without shoes, jacket, or eyeglasses.3 The defendants left Stafford's shoes and jacket on the shoulder. They drove away around 9:30 to 9:40 p.m. The temperature was near zero, with snow on the ground and intermittent high winds reducing visibility. The nearest structure was a gas station nearly one half mile away.4
At approximately 10:00 p.m., college student Michael W. Blake driving his pickup truck northbound at about 50 miles per hour struck Stafford after two oncoming cars flashed their headlights.5 Stafford died from massive head injuries with a blood alcohol concentration of .25 percent.6 The defendants were convicted of murder, robbery in the second degree, and grand larceny in the third degree after a trial at which the Medical Examiner testified, the Appellate Division affirmed, and the Court of Appeals granted review.7
Whether the defendants' acts caused the death of George Stafford within the meaning of the murder statute?8
Subdivision 2 of section 125.25 of the Penal Law provides that a person is guilty of murder when under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby causes the death of another person.9 To impose criminal liability the defendants' actions must be a sufficiently direct cause of the ensuing death.10 It will suffice if the ultimate harm is something which should have been foreseen as being reasonably related to the acts of the accused.11
Yes. The established facts show that Kibbe and Krall left Stafford helpless on the highway in conditions that made his death foreseeable.12
The defendants left a helplessly intoxicated man without his eyeglasses in a position from which he could not extricate himself and whose condition was such that he could not even protect himself from the elements.13 There can be little doubt but that Stafford would have frozen to death in his state of undress had he remained on the shoulder of the road.14 The only alternative left to him was the highway, which in his condition clearly foreboded the probability of his resulting death.15 Under the conditions surrounding Blake's operation of his truck it may not be said that any supervening wrongful act occurred to relieve the defendants from the directly foreseeable consequences of their actions.16
The defendants' acts caused the death of George Stafford within the meaning of the murder statute.17
Whether the actions of the pickup truck driver constituted an intervening and superseding cause that relieved the defendants of criminal responsibility for Stafford's death?18
There is no statutory provision regarding the effect of an intervening cause of injury as it relates to the criminal responsibility of one who sets in motion the machinery which ultimately results in the victim's death.19 Actions which may serve as a predicate for civil liability may not be sufficient to constitute a basis for the imposition of criminal sanctions.20 The defendants should not be found guilty unless their conduct was a cause of death sufficiently direct as to meet the requirements of the criminal and not the tort law.21
No. Blake's collision with Stafford was a foreseeable consequence of the defendants' conduct rather than a superseding cause.22
The established facts demonstrate that the defendants abandoned Stafford on a dark rural highway in near-zero temperatures with his clothing in disarray and without eyeglasses.23 Visibility was reduced by high winds blowing snow across the road and there was no artificial illumination.24 Blake was driving at fifty miles per hour with low beams when two oncoming cars flashed their headlights and he had insufficient time to react before striking Stafford who was sitting in the northbound lane.25
The conditions surrounding Blake's operation of his truck, including the fact that he had his low beams on as the two cars approached, that there was no artificial lighting on the highway, and that there was insufficient time in which to react to Stafford's presence in his lane, show that no supervening wrongful act occurred.26 The defendants do not dispute that their conduct evinced a depraved indifference to human life which created a grave risk of death but argue that it was just as likely that Stafford would be miraculously rescued.27 The jury determined that the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants' actions caused the death.28
The actions of the pickup truck driver did not constitute an intervening and superseding cause that relieved the defendants of criminal responsibility for Stafford's death.29