Opinion ID: 780524
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Definition of involuntary manslaughter in Ohio

Text: 38 The Ohio Revised Code defines involuntary manslaughter as caus[ing] the death of another or the unlawful termination of another's pregnancy as a proximate result of the offender's committing or attempting to commit a felony. Ohio Rev.Code § 2903.04(A). The proximate result requirement has been described as follows: 39 The term proximate result was used by the General Assembly to refine and limit the verb cause. Thus, it is conceivable that defendant's conduct may have caused [an individual's] death in the sense that he set in motion events which culminated in her death, which therefore would not have occurred in the absence of that conduct, but, nevertheless, that the death was not the proximate result of his conduct if it were not the natural, logical, and foreseeable result of his conduct. Under the statute, defendant cannot be held responsible for consequences no reasonable person could expect to follow from his conduct; he will be held responsible for consequences which are direct, normal, and reasonably inevitable — as opposed to extraordinary or surprising — when viewed in the light of ordinary experience. In this sense, then, proximate result bears a resemblance to the concept of proximate cause in that defendant will be held responsible for those foreseeable consequences which are known to be, or should be known to be, within the scope of the risk created by his conduct. Here, that means that death reasonably could be anticipated by an ordinarily prudent person as likely to result under these or similar circumstances. 40 State v. Losey, 23 Ohio App.3d 93, 491 N.E.2d 379, 382 (1985) (citations omitted). As this quote makes clear, proximate causation is an essential element of the offense of involuntary manslaughter pursuant to Ohio Revised Code § 2903.04(A).