Two Mortal Wounds

The Defendant and his brother-in-law quarreled, and the Defendant shot the other man in the abdomen with a rifle, inflicting a wound that was mortal but would have taken perhaps an hour to kill. As the wounded man lay in agony, he took a knife and cut his own throat, dying within minutes. Medical testimony established that the victim was already dying from the gunshot when he cut his throat, and that the knife wound hastened a death the bullet had made inevitable. The Prosecution argued the Defendant's shot set the fatal chain in motion and remained an operating cause of death. The Defense argued that the immediate cause of death was the self-inflicted knife wound, an independent act that broke the chain of causation and relieved the Defendant of responsibility for the death.