Hypothetical invoving the Felony Murder rule and a violent crime intermeddled-upon by an un-involved murderer This is a hypothetical that I encountered in a work of fiction. The work itself wasn't really a story about law and only briefly discussed the possible ramifications, but I thought I would bring it here because I found it really interesting. I'll summarize the case as follows: Bob Jr. wants to murder his father, Bob Sr. Bob Jr. has all of the required mens rea to commit murder (malice aforethought), he is just waiting for the most opportune moment to commit the actus reus at the lowest likelihood of being caught. Alice, a person with no existing relationship, agreement, or arrangement with either men, kidnaps Bob Sr. and holds him for ransom because the Bobs are rich and are well-known to pay money to make trouble go away. Bob Jr. stages what appears to be a &quot;daring&quot; full-frontal rescue mission/raid to rescue his father, but it is entirely a ruse. Once he's in Alice's facilities, he kills his father with a bomb in a manner calculated to appear as if Bob Sr. was just collateral damage of a rescue attempt rather than the target of a murder plot. Since Bob Jr. is far richer than he is smart, the police figure out the truth pretty quickly and both Bob Jr. and Alice are arrested. Bob Jr. is charged with murder, and Alice is charged with both kidnapping and murder. Clearly, Bob Jr. is guilty of murder and Alice is guilty of kidnapping. Is Alice also guilty of felony murder because Bob Sr. died in her custody in connection with her kidnapping of him? My initial thought is that kidnapping would qualify as an &quot;inherently dangerous&quot; crime that would put the offender (Alice) under notice that she could be guilty of felony murder if someone dies, but it seems like Bob Jr. entirely separate criminal scheme might constitute a new intervening cause and place all of the murder liability on Bob Jr. with Alice being guilty only of kidnapping. While the possibility of someone dying in a bona-fide rescue attempt might be reasonably foreseeable by Alice and imported to her, the convenient arrival of a third-party murderer out for blood against her victim specifically might be a bit too much to be reasonably foreseeable. I'm interested in reasoning or cases from any common law jurisdiction on how this might be handled. Caveats: Bob Jr. and Alice are sane, competent adults and there are no reasons why they would be judged not criminally responsible or unable to stand trial due to insanity. Bob Sr. was a competent adult and not under any kind of guardianship or in any kind of legal custody of Bob Jr. or Alice. Bob Jr.'s mens rea to commit murder was perfected and lasted throughout his entire scheme up to the moment of his father's death. No defense on the basis of lack of mens rea or lack of convergence between mens rea and actus reus is plausible. Alice had both the mens rea and actus reus to commit kidnapping. She will be found guilty of kidnapping. She was aware that kidnapping is a violent crime that can sometimes lead to death but she had no active intent or plan to kill anyone and the place she was holding her victim was not set up to be a deathtrap. It only became a deathtrap because a third-party murderer broke in. Alice had no reasonable reason to suspect that Bob Jr. (or anyone) was planning to murder her victim. Evidence showing all of the facts above has been introduced in trial and will be used by the trier of law and trier of fact. No relevant evidence is missing, lost, or inadmissible and no misleading or false evidence will be admitted. In other words, this is a question purely on substantive law and not on procedural rules of trial or evidence or the possibility of an erroneous finding of law of fact. No other hypothetical &quot;gotcha&quot; shenanigans are present. This doesn't take place across a jurisdictional border, this doesn't take place in virtual reality, and none of the characters are actually cats.
In Washington state, RCW 9A.32.030(c) encodes the felony murder rule w.r.t. first degree murder: (c) He or she commits or attempts to commit the crime of either (1) robbery in the first or second degree, (2) rape in the first or second degree, (3) burglary in the first degree, (4) arson in the first or second degree, or (5) kidnapping in the first or second degree, and in the course of or in furtherance of such crime or in immediate flight therefrom, he or she, or another participant, causes the death of a person other than one of the participants: There being a list of crimes in the statute, we needn't be concerned over whether kidnapping is inherently dangerous. Because Bob is not a participant in Alice's kidnapping scheme, a crucial element of the crime is missing, but there is exceptional stuff after the colon – Except that in any prosecution under this subdivision (1)(c) in which the defendant was not the only participant in the underlying crime, if established by the defendant by a preponderance of the evidence, it is a defense that the defendant: (i) Did not commit the homicidal act or in any way solicit, request, command, importune, cause, or aid the commission thereof; and (ii) Was not armed with a deadly weapon, or any instrument, article, or substance readily capable of causing death or serious physical injury; and (iii) Had no reasonable grounds to believe that any other participant was armed with such a weapon, instrument, article, or substance; and (iv) Had no reasonable grounds to believe that any other participant intended to engage in conduct likely to result in death or serious physical injury. As you can see, the exception lays out exceptions where a participant might not be found guilty. So, not guilty here. There is also second degree murder per RCW 9A.32.050(b), that He or she commits or attempts to commit any felony, including assault, other than those enumerated in RCW 9A.32.030(1)(c), and, in the course of and in furtherance of such crime or in immediate flight therefrom, he or she, or another participant, causes the death of a person other than one of the participants but since kidnapping is not &quot;other than&quot; the previously mentioned crimes, we needn't consider this case any further. So under Washington law, Alice is only guilty of kidnapping.
So I'm fascinated with the OJ trial and I've read a ton about it. I'll try to answer your question both accepting your premise as true, and then also going into what actually happened. First of all, jury nullification cannot be overturned in the US. The double jeopardy clause forbids it. This is such a powerful tool, in fact, that there are strict rules that prevent defense lawyers from mentioning or even hinting at jury nullification, in front of the jury, in almost all circumstances. It doesn't mean D is safe from all legal liability. OJ, obviously, was found liable in the civil trial. Sometimes other jurisdictions can prosecute. For example, after the officers in the Rodney King beating were acquitted in state court, the federal government got them for violating federal hate crime statutes. Second, looking at your premise. If jurors think D is guilty, but also being framed, that's not necessarily jury nullification. Remember, a criminal defendant must be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That means that 'probably guilty' means 'not guilty.' That said, there may be times when a jury is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of a defendant's guilt, but is so disgusted by the police tactics used in the case that they acquit. This would be jury nullification. What actually happened in the OJ case: Mark Fuhrman perjured himself on the stand. He lied and said he'd never said the N word, and the defense produced tapes of him saying it a ton. The defense recalled him to the stand. Because perjury is a serious crime, this time he came in with his own defense lawyer, and did nothing but take the fifth on the stand. In a genius move, OJ's defense team asked him whether he planted any evidence in the OJ case. He didn't deny it, instead he took the fifth (again, as he was doing to every question). This was enough to sow reasonable doubt about OJ's guilt based on the evidence in that trial (there's obviously no actual doubt, in real life, that he's guilty). So, what actually happened wasn't jury nullification.
It is the use of a "menace" which creates the crime, not the nature or validity of the demand. That's not correct. You've inadvertently missed the other element of the offence: that it's an "unwarranted demand". A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief— (a) that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and (b) that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/21 For example, I may have reasonable grounds under the Consumer Rights Act to demand a refund for a faulty good. It might be sensible to moderate one's language, e.g. "If I do not receive a satisfactory response from you within 30 days of the date of this letter, I intend to issue proceedings against you in the county court without further notice. This may increase your liability for costs." vs. "If I do not receive the money from you within 30 days of the date of this letter I'll take you to the f***ing cleaners, sunshine." But the language doesn't make the demand unwarranted.
In the US, it depends on the jurisdiction because each state has its own homicide statutes: but, the defining elements don't differ a lot. Drawing on Washington state law, the first question is whether you intended to kill a person (it doesn't have to be a specific person). If you did, you have committed first-degree murder. It is first-degree murder, because it requires a certain amount of advance planning to kill with a drone. It does not matter that the drone houses the gun that killed the person and a program determines when the gun fires (the "it was the drone, not me" defense gets you nowhere: otherwise, you could always claim "It wasn't me, it was my gun / knife / fist".) If instead this is a badly-designed pig-slaughtering drone, then it could be manslaughter in the first degree, if the act was reckless, or manslaughter in the second degree, if the act was with criminal negligence. To determine which it is, you look at the definitions: A person is reckless or acts recklessly when he or she knows of and disregards a substantial risk that a wrongful act may occur and his or her disregard of such substantial risk is a gross deviation from conduct that a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation. versus A person is criminally negligent or acts with criminal negligence when he or she fails to be aware of a substantial risk that a wrongful act may occur and his or her failure to be aware of such substantial risk constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation. So it would depend on whether you decided that safeguards which would prevent shooting people were too much bother (you know there is a risk and set aside that concern), or it didn't occur to you that a flying gun might hurt a person.
"Double jeopardy" applies to a criminal proceeding, that is one that needs to be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt," and involves criminal sanctions such as jail time. Once OJ was acquitted of criminal charges, he couldn't be tried again as a "criminal." The second trial was a civil trial, with a "lesser" standard of proof (preponderance of evidence), and lesser "damages" (money, not jail time). So even though the facts were the same, OJ was accused of violating a different standard, that is a different "law" so to speak. He could be tried for a "tort" just not a crime. Or put another way, "wrongful death" is not the same as murder. The latter requires intent. Wrongful death suggests "tortious" negligence, but not necessarily intent.
There are several elements working in your friend's favor. The first is "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." In an entrapment case, the police have recordings or documents claiming that the "girl" was underaged. If there is no such smoking gun from the (real) girl, the case (probably) would not be prosecuted in the U.S. He doesn't have to prove that she told him she was 18; "she" (or the police) has to prove that she told him she was "not." The second factor is "remoteness" in time, and distance. Two years after a U.S. state sent me a "nasty letter," I asked my lawyer if the state would ever come after me. He answered, "If they were going to do this, you would have heard further by now." The other factor, distance and cross border, (three countries: Turkey, the U.S., his home country) further militates against prosecution except for highly aggravating circumstances such as drug dealing, gambling, or sex for pay. A third factor is that your friend would not come close to qualifying as a "serious offender." This would be someone like a drug dealer, or the head of a "call girl" ring. The cops concentrate their effects on big "busts" like this that make their careers, not "small fry" like your friend. But of course they use the publicity from the big catches to scare everyone else. While there is no "guarantee" against "the worst possible consequences," the chances of them happening are similar to his getting hit by lightening, and less than his chances of being hit by a car crossing the street. No one stresses out about those chances. He shouldn't either. I am not a lawyer but I have done paralegal work in a law office.
Charlie may or may not be guilty of murder or of attempted murder. It depends upon his intent and knowledge, which the question doesn't flesh out sufficiently to evaluate. Why did Charlie bodyslam Bob? The reason matters a lot. Did Charlie know that the building was on fire? Was Charlie trying to kill Bob? Was the thing that Bob knocked his head upon an intended result of the bodyslam, or an intervening cause? Did Charlie's initially less culpable act and his knowledge combine to create a duty to rescue and what offense (probably not murder) would it be if a death resulted from a failure to rescue? Alice is likely to be guilty of murder, but on a felony-murder theory, rather than on a transferred intent theory. In most, but not all, states if you are in the process of committing one of an enumerated list of specific felonies that pose a high risk of serious injury or death, such as arson, you are guilty of murder in the event that anyone (even a co-conspirator) dies as a result of your felonious course of conduct, whether or not you intended that a death result. Alice might have been able to purge her felony-murder liability if she had tried to put out the fire and save Bob once she realized that he was in danger, under the exception to felony-murder for renunciation of a course of felonious conduct, but she didn't even try. The doctrine of transferred intent in a murder case usually applies when you intent to kill one person and instead end up killing someone else. But, Alice didn't intend to kill anyway, so this doctrine does not apply. Alice's best defense would be that the death was a result of the attack by Charlie, rather than by the fire, which she would merely have to establish a reasonable doubt regarding. But, ultimately that would be a weak defense for her.
IMO this is a perfectly reasonable question, amenable to a common law analysis: (1) indicates that A has committed the tort of false imprisonment (Restatement of Torts, 2d, §35). Because of 2-4, we can see that A intends to confine B (though vide infra). The confinement is complete (§36), this being a single aisle plane although the same would be true if this was a 5-aisle plane. A has no authority to confine B (§ 41) and is not otherwise privileged, and is accomplished with a physical barrier (§38). B knows that he has been confined (§42). B is "privileged to use any means of self-defense to protect himself against confinement which he is privileged to use to protect himself against a harmful or offensive contact or other bodily harm" (§68). B uses reasonable and minimal force not likely or intended to cause death or serious bodily harm (§63), force which is privileged and thus protects B from being subject to liability (§10). A commits the tort of battery (and a second round of false imprisonment) by taking B down (§13). A is not privileged to use force in self-defense. There is no reasonable belief that B will spontaneously turn on A and use further, unprivileged force – A is simply punishing B for his minimal use of force in self defense, so A's final act is not privileged. There is a related but distinct scenario that adds a material fact, which could change the analysis: C calls out "Excuse me, my flight flight leaves in 15 minutes, may I pass?" whereby A allows C to step ahead of him in the queue. A has no obligation to let anyone jump the queue, but may consent to inconsequential contact which might constitute battery. It is reasonable to conclude that there is apparent consent (§50) given to anyone (§52) when A makes way ("making way" is a publicly-available fact, but "for C to pass" is a private fact of A's state of mind which B cannot reasonably infer: except, B has heard the "May I pass?" request). So the analysis really hinges on how to interpret 2 and 4. Coupled with 6, we (jurors) have a preponderance of evidence showing that A intended to confine B, and battered him when his confinement failed.