CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE - HOMICIDE - CAUSAL RELATION BETWEEN DEFENDANT'S UNLAWFUL ACT AND THE DEATH

Authors

Abstract

Though the books are replete with homicides in which the elusive doctrine of proximate cause has vexed both courts and commentators, it may be ventured that no case has more strikingly run the gamut of proximate cause perplexities than Stephenson v. State. There it appeared that the deceased, an unmarried girl of good reputation and social standing, had been drugged and then raped by defendant in circumstances of the most atrocious brutality. In her dying declaration, admitted by the trial court into evidence, she deposed that "he chewed her all over her body; bit her neck and face; chewed her tongue; chewed her breasts until they bled and chewed her back, her legs, and her ankles, and mutilated her all over her body." One of the wounds in her breast later suppurated and caused a lung abscess which was discovered on post mortem examination. Removed to a hotel room which she was forced to share with her assailant, she swallowed a large dose of bichloride of mercury. Defendant not only refused to summon the medical assistance which she direly needed, but against her will drove her from Hammond to Indianapolis where he imprisoned her in a garage for several hours before leaving her in a helpless condition on the front porch of her home. She died about a month later.

Recommended Citation

CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE - HOMICIDE - CAUSAL RELATION BETWEEN DEFENDANT'S UNLAWFUL ACT AND THE DEATH, 31 Mich. L. Rev. 659 (1933).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol31/iss5/4