Opinion ID: 1060725
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Modern Status

Text: Despite its early common law recognition and near universal acceptance, the rule has fallen into disfavor and has been legislatively or judicially abrogated by the vast majority of jurisdictions which have recently considered the issue. [4] Most courts describe the rule as outmoded and obsolete since the reasons justifying its recognition no longer exist. In characterizing the rule as an anachronism, courts have particularly emphasized the many advances of medical science. For example, the Ohio Court of Common Pleas stated: [t]oday, the retention of the year and a day rule is clearly an anachronism. The jury may now rely on the testimony of expert witnesses and need not decide issues on the basis of their own individual knowledge. Furthermore, since great advances have been made in scientific crime detection and scientific medicine, the doubt that a mortal blow is the cause of death, when death ensues a year and a day after the blow, has been largely removed. Consequently, a period of a year and a day after which death is conclusively presumed to result from natural causes is no longer realistic. Sandridge, 365 N.E.2d at 899. Likewise, in holding that the rule had been implicitly abrogated by its omission from a comprehensive criminal code enacted by the legislature, the Illinois Supreme Court stated: [m]oreover, we note the legislature's wisdom in abolishing the year-and-a-day rule. It was a remnant from the days when medicine and science, both as to diagnosis and treatment, were so unsophisticated that mortally wounded persons commonly died shortly after the infliction of a grievous wound. In such circumstances, it was reasonable to presume that if a wounded person died more than a year from the time of the wound, the cause of death was other than the wound. Modern medicine, however, allows doctors to employ a variety of extraordinary, even heroic, means to save and prolong the lives of victims for years, as opposed to days or months. Also, diagnostic post-mortem pathological procedures can now discover and define the cause of death with great particularity and precision. Carrillo, 207 Ill.Dec. 16, 646 N.E.2d at 585. Similarly, in judicially abrogating the rule, the Michigan Supreme Court stated: [t]he advances of modern medical science, by extending life and by providing strong evidence of the cause of death, have undermined the wisdom of the irrebuttable presumption that the death of one who expires more than a year and a day after receiving an injury was not caused by the injury. The availability of modern life sustaining equipment and procedures raises the specter of the choice between terminating life-support systems or allowing the defendant to escape a murder charge. The presumption was wooden and arbitrary from the beginning, since it prevented a murder conviction even in those rare cases when causation could be proved. Now, when medical causation can be proven with much greater frequency and certainty, the old rule is simply too often demonstrably wrong to be upheld. Stevenson, 331 N.W.2d at 146. The North Carolina Supreme Court took judicial notice of the rapid development and proliferation of the art and science of medicine and crime detection, and stated: Sophisticated medical tests, analyses, and diagnoses allow positive evidence to be presented to a jury on questions of causation in criminal prosecutions. For the courts to remain judicially oblivious of these advances when considering whether to extend an ancient common law rule would be folly. We must let the light of scientific development illuminate the legal issues of today. It would be incongruous indeed that medical science has developed to the point that it may prolong human life for long periods if that same development be utilized to bar conviction of a killer by prolonging the life of his victim. Hefler, 310 S.E.2d at 313. Finally, the Massachusetts Supreme Court observed that the rule is anachronistic considering the advances of medical and related science in solving etiological problems as well as in sustaining or prolonging life in the face of trauma or disease and emphasized that the relatively short time limit is seen as not only capricious but as senselessly indulgent toward homicidal malefactors. Lewis, 409 N.E.2d at 773. Although the rule has been judicially abrogated in a number of jurisdictions, none of those courts have adopted a new time limit to replace the year-and-a-day rule. In declining to do so, courts emphasize that no arbitrary time frame is needed because abolition of the year-and-a-day rule does not relieve the State of its burden of proving causation beyond a reasonable doubt. See e.g. Jackson, 528 A.2d at 1218 (Nor is it to suggest that abrogation of the rule would remove all limitations on assessing culpability; limitations necessarily would exist by virtue of the requirements of due process and the government's burden to prove causation beyond a reasonable doubt.); Stevenson, 331 N.W.2d at 146 (Of course, abolition of the rule would not relieve the prosecution of its duty to prove all of the elements of the crime, including proximate causation, beyond a reasonable doubt.); Sandridge, 365 N.E.2d at 899 (Finally, it must be emphasized that the refusal to apply the `year and a day' rule does not deprive the defendant of any fundamental right. In all homicide cases, the burden always falls upon the prosecution to prove proximate causation that death flowed from the wrongful act of the defendant. That must be the critical determinant, and not the expiration of some archaic, arbitrary time period.). These courts also point out that there is no statute of limitations for murder prosecutions and find implementation of an arbitrary time limit which bars murder prosecutions if the victim does not die within a specified period of time inconsistent with public policy. See e.g. Stevenson, 331 N.W.2d at 146 (No repose or statute of limitations is available for murder in this state.); Ladd, 166 A.2d at 506 (Society is free to prosecute murderers without a statutory limitation, and it is possible that evidence and witnesses may be lost during a long interval between crime and trial. It is therefore not a strange idea to put no restriction of time upon the death of the victim and to require only proof of causation of conventional quality at the trial.). Therefore, regardless of whether its demise was achieved by legislative or judicial action, in other jurisdictions, abolition of the year-and-a-day rule has not altered the general principle that causation be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Its abolition simply allows the State to have the opportunity to attempt to prove causation. Having considered the historical development of the rule and the modern trend away from application of the rule, we must next decide whether the year-and-a-day rule remains viable in Tennessee.