Legal causation holds the legitimacy of holding an accused morally responsible for a given result (Skolnik, 2019). In other words, it holds a certain individual responsible for a crime committed after given all the contributions. For example, when prosecuting an individual (Person A) for murder, if all the clues and contributions lead directly to Person A, then Person A is held full accountability for the murder. What makes it difficult to prosecute a certain individual is if there are contributions that lead to different subjects. Legal causation assists in prosecuting criminals because it ensures that the victim’s injury or death is caused by the offender or offenders who produced those contributions (Skolnik, 2019). Basically, it is to make sure the right person or people are being convicted of the crime committed.
A dependent intervening cause is something that was intended, foreseeable, or sufficiently related to the offender’s initial act, but an event that happens after the offender’s act but before the victim’s injury. For example, a man pulls a woman into his car and tells her he is going to rape her, but she jumps out of the vehicle sustaining injuries. The dependent intervening cause is the woman jumping out and sustaining injuries before the man raped her. The act of the man pulling the woman into the car and seeking to rape her caused the victim’s injuries (SGR, n.d.).
3-1 RC (125 words with 1 reference)
Legal causation is whether the suspects actions contributed to the illegal action to justify his criminal liability, based on two aspects: “factual” and “legal” causation (Teacher, Law., 2013). Legal causation is important in proving that the suspect is responsible for his actions and those actions were illegal in nature. Dependent intervening cause is an action that comes between an initial act and the end result, changing what would have been the natural sequence of events connecting the initial act to the result (Teacher, Law., 2013). An example of this would be if a LE officer tries to pull a vehicle over that has an abducted person in it but the vehicle takes off at a high rate of speed and crashed causing their death of that abducted innocent person. The crash would be the dependent variable that caused the injury/death of the innocent person. Crashing when fleeing from the police is a foreseeable event and directly related to the illegal actions of the suspect. Legal causation is important when prosecuting crimes because it limits the areas the defense council can attempt to discredit.
3-2 CR (125 words and 1 reference)
The difference between the three terms listed is that the principles are those that are directly committing the crime. This would even be used in the case of a group of individuals if they all committed the same crime. The accessory before the act is the person that helps commit the crime by assisting with the development of the plan or giving the person that is trying to commit the crime more reasons to do it. Accessory after the fact is when a person helps cover up a crime or keep those that committed the crime out of jail (Lippman, 2019). When looking at the sentencing the person that commits the crime regardless of being considered the principle or the accessory before the fact will get the punishment for committing the crime. This means that they all share the blame for the crime and get the same amount of jail time. Those that are considered accessories after the fact, if proven to be so is not associated with the main crime being committed and will be charged with a misdemeanor (McIntosh Law, 2020).
