Criminal law and victims who refuse medical treatment

[Volokh, Eugene]

        I too have no sympathy for the drunk driver who claims that his
conduct wasn't murder because the Jehovah's Witness victim refused a
blood transfusion; but the case seems to me a bit more complex than some
might suggest.

        As I understand it, there is a loose supervening circumstances
principle afoot in the criminal law:  At a certain point, the actions of
another, be it the victim or a third party, break the chain of proximate
causation; the criminal is not held responsible for these indirect
circumstances.

        Thus, consider example 1:  Criminal C rapes a woman.  She is so
upset by this that she commits suicide, perhaps because of a (purely
hypothetical on my part) religious belief that she is tainted and no
longer deserves to live.  I assume that C would be held liable for rape,
but not for murder.  (I intentionally chose rape, as an *extremely*
serious crime, for which I endorse extremely severe punishment; but even
for such a heinous crime, I take it we would not go further and hold C
responsible as a murderer for the woman's death if it's genuinely by her
own hand.)

        Now consider example 2:  Criminal C rapes a woman.  She is so
upset by this that she stops eating, and dies within several weeks.
Again, I take it that she wouldn't be liable.

        Finally, consider example 3:  Criminal C rapes a woman.  She is
mildly injured by this, in an eminently medically reparable way; but
because she refuses to accept medical treatment (Christian Science) or
refuses to accept a blood transfusion (Jehovah's Witness), she dies.
What result?

        It seems to me quite plausible to argue that in example 3, C
*should* be held liable for murder -- but it seems to me that
considering examples 1 and 2 before 3 show that this isn't an
open-and-shut case.  True, there's a distinction that in 1 and possibly
in 2, the woman seems to will her own death, whereas in 3, she wants to
live but refuses to accept a certain life-saving procedure; but it's not
obvious to me, at least at first blush, that this is an obviously
relevant distinction.

        I am *not* a crim law maven, so perhaps I'm mistaken on the
likely outcomes of these hypos; I welcome any corrections anyone might
provide.  (I did, however, check them with a crim law maven colleague of
mine.)


Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School
405 Hilgard Ave., L.A., CA 90095