Causality: A and B shot separately, hitting the head and heart respectively, are both responsible?

In a homicide case, for example, there is an act of homicide and there is also a result of death, but without determining the causal relationship between the act of homicide and the result of death, we cannot be sure that the perpetrator of the act of homicide must be responsible for the result of the death. For example, if the perpetrator commits an act of homicide, but the victim actually dies of a sudden illness, the perpetrator should not be responsible for the result of the death, because there is no causal relationship between the act of homicide and the result of death. It can be seen that it is not enough to understand the behavior and the result, we also need to judge the relationship between the behavior and the result. In our country, the use of the concept of causation is not uniform, some use it in a broad sense and some use it in a narrow sense. Causation in the broad sense actually includes two parts: causation in the narrow sense and attribution of results.

What is causation in criminal law?

Causality in the narrow sense resolves the objective fact that there is a relationship between the action and the effect, whether there is a relationship between cause and effect. The case in the initial question of the article involves the judgment of causality. To understand this problem, it should first be clear what is causality in criminal law. Causality refers to a causal relationship between the harmful act and the harmful result. If Zhang San's theft causes the victim to lose his property, it can be said that Zhang San's theft caused the victim to lose his property, so there is a causal relationship between the two. It should be noted that causation is an objective existence, and whether there is a causal relationship can only be judged according to the objective connection between things, so this is a fact-level judgment and does not need to consider the content on the subjective level. For example, the perpetrator gently scratches the victim without knowing that the victim has hemophilia, and the result is that the victim dies because of more than blood flow. If the subjective dimension is to be considered at this time, is it possible to justify the act that he did not know that the victim had hemophilia, so there was no causal relationship between his injurious behavior and the death of the victim? Such a judgment is inappropriate. It should be considered that there is a de facto causal link between the perpetrator's act of harm and the victim's death, which cannot be denied just because the victim has hemophilia.

How to judge causation?

Judgments as to whether there is a causal relationship between the act and the result are generally conditional. Simply put, if "without the former there is no latter", then the former is the reason for the latter. Therefore, if there is no result without behavior, and the action is the cause of the result, the causal relationship between the two can be affirmed. For example, when a bullet fired by A hits B's heart and causes B to die, we can conclude that "B would not die without A's shooting behavior", further affirming that there is a causal relationship between A's shooting behavior and B's death. If there is no conditional relationship, then there is certainly no causal relationship. For example, A deliberately threw poison enough to kill C into C's food, and although C ate the food, but the poison did not yet work, B shot C. B's act of shooting resulted in C's death, which is causal. There is no conditional relationship between A's poisoning behavior and C's death without the former and there is no latter, so there is no causal relationship between A's poisoning behavior and C's death. It is important to note, however, that this does not mean that as long as the previous action and the result intervene in the middle of another, there is certainly no causal relationship between the previous action and the final result. For example, A injects C with a dose of deadly poison, and when the poison first occurs, B acts violently against C, and at this time, C is unable to escape B's violence because he has been poisoned by A, which eventually leads to C's death. This situation is different from the previous one, it is precisely because of A's behavior that C's body becomes weak, and then B can successfully use violence to cause C's death, so it is completely certain that there is a causal relationship between A's poisoning behavior and C's death. At this time, there is a causal relationship between the behavior of A and B and the death of C.

There are several special causal relationships

Usually, causation is not difficult to determine, but there are several types of more complex situations that need to be analyzed in detail. The theoretical names of these cases are relatively strange, and the names do not need to be memorized, as long as they know whether the corresponding situation should affirm the causal relationship.

The first is the assumed causal relationship. What needs to be made clear is whether there is a causal relationship or not, which should be determined by the facts that actually occurred, and cannot be supplemented by hypothetical factors. For example, murderer B will be executed at 1 p.m., and at the moment before the executor pulls the trigger, the victim's father A pushes the executor away and pulls the trigger himself and kills B. Since it is objectively A's shooting that leads to B's death, the causal relationship between the two should be affirmed. It cannot be said that death row prisoner B will be executed even if he is not killed by A, which means that a causal relationship is assumed, and the hypothetical causal relationship cannot be used to negate the actual causal relationship between A's shooting act and B's death.

The second is a twofold causal relationship, also known as the competition of one-of-one. This means that more than two acts can lead to the occurrence of the result, but in the case that the actor has no intention of contacting, the competition together leads to the occurrence of the result. For example, A and B have no intention of communicating, that is, they are not aware of each other, and they both throw a lethal amount of poison into C's food. In this case, C will die even if there is no act of A or the act of B. In other words, the actions of A or B alone can lead to the death of C, but the actions of A and B compete together to lead to the death of C. In this case, one view is that there is no conditional relationship between the actions of A and B and the death of C, so there is no causal relationship. Because C without A would also die, and C would die without B. However, objectively there is already a result of the death of victim C, and if we deny the conditional relationship, and then determine that the perpetrator only bears the responsibility for the attempt, it is difficult to accept. Another view is that in the case of multiple actions leading to a result, if one action is removed, the result will still occur, and if all the behavior is removed, the result will not occur, and all the behavior is a condition for the result to occur. However, this view is only a change in the punishment of multiple actors, and does not give a substantive basis for such a change. There is also the view that a causal relationship can only be established if it is proved who released the poison that played a role in the death of the victim. Therefore, if there is a chronological relationship and one party's behavior does not have an effect on death, then the causal relationship should be denied. For example, in the previous example, if it is proved that C has died before the poison delivered by B has worked, it can only be considered that there is a causal relationship between A's behavior and the result of C's death. This view is desirable.

The third is a sufficient alternative condition. Some have relegated this situation to the previous dual causality, but here it is discussed separately. Case: C wants to go on a desert expedition, A and B each want to take the opportunity to kill C, on the one hand, A, on the eve of C's preparation for a long journey through the desert, quietly sneaked into C's room, and replaced the water in C's kettle with colorless and odorless poison. On the other side was B, who had drilled a small hole in the bottom of C's kettle on the morning of departure. After departure, C wanted to drink water in the desert, but the kettle was empty. With no other source of water, C dehydrated and died in the desert. In this case, whether it is the act of A or the act of B, it may lead to the death of C, so whose act and the death of C have a causal relationship? This requires judging which action led to the result based on objective facts. In this case, C died of dehydration, not from poisoning, so the result of C's death was caused by B's act of drilling a hole in the kettle, so it should be affirmed that there is a causal relationship between B's behavior and C's death. Conversely, there is no causal relationship between A's poisoning behavior and the outcome of C's death. Some people may think that if B does not drill holes in the kettle, C will drink poisonous water and will die earlier, so B also letSO live for a while, then it should be determined that there is a causal relationship between A's behavior and C's death? This reasoning may hold. However, the result of death is concrete rather than abstract. Poisoning and dying of thirst are not the same concrete results. If C was poisoned, but C did not drink poison, how could he be poisoned? There was no toxin in C's body at all, so how could it be said that he had been poisoned? In fact, such a doubt is to assume a fact, but as mentioned earlier, do not judge causation by assuming facts.

The fourth is overlapping causation. This refers to two or more independent acts that alone do not lead to a result, but merge together to produce a result. This is not the case above, in the case of overlapping causation, several factors must be superimposed to cause the result. For example, A and B respectively put 50% of the lethal amount of poison into C's food without prior communication, and the two people's behaviors superimposed to reach the lethal amount, and C died after eating food. In this case, since the actions of A and B have a role in the death of C, it can be said that there is a cause and effect, so it should be affirmed that there is a causal relationship between the behavior and the result of the two people.

The fifth is the interruption of the rescue causal process. This means that there is a causal relationship between the act of interrupting the rescue causal process and the result of the action of eliminating the condition that could have prevented the outcome from occurring. For example, if a lifebuoy is floating towards a victim who has fallen into the water, the victim can immediately grab the lifebuoy, but the perpetrator takes the lifebuoy and the victim drowns. In this regard, it should be affirmed that there is a causal relationship between the act of taking away the lifebuoy and the outcome of death.

How should Wen Chu's case be determined? A and B have no intention of contacting each other, and both want to kill C, and at the same time shoot C, one shot hits the heart, one shot hits the head. This is the causal relationship of the duo mentioned earlier. In this case, is it certain that there is a causal relationship between the shooting of A and B and the death of C? If A and B shoot at exactly the same time, judging according to the conditional relationship, even if there is no A's behavior or no B's behavior, that is, even if one less person shoots, C will still die, then this situation is not in line with the conditional relationship, we can not prove that there is no A's behavior or no B's behavior, C will not die, so it cannot be said that there is a causal relationship between A and B's death and C's death. Of course, if they have an interesting connection, they are accomplices, and of course they are responsible for the outcome. Suppose that if there is a chronological order of the shooting acts of A and B, and the actions of one of the parties have no effect on the death of C, then the causal relationship between the actions of this party and the death of C should be denied, and the behavior of the other party has a causal relationship with the death of C. In other words, only if it is proved that the bullet fired by A or B played a role in the death of the victim can a causal relationship be determined, otherwise the causal relationship cannot be affirmed.

EDIT: A pavilion