Court Opinion

ID: 9700852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:51:11.682951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:15.229435
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
(concurring). I concur in parts i, ii(a), and v of Justice Brickley’s opinion and in parts ii(a) and ii(b) of Justice Riley’s opinion. I write separately to express my concern regarding the unsettling potential of an open-ended definition of proximate cause in which assaults may become murders years after the initial incident upon the factfinders’ determination that death was the "natural” result of the original act.
I agree that these cases do not present an appropriate vehicle to consider whether, and when, a higher burden of proof of causation should be imposed in cases of long delayed death. See, e.g., *735People v Stevenson, 416 Mich 383, 393, n 4; 331 NW2d 143 (1982). Both defendants clearly intended exactly the result that occurred. The intent was to inflict a fatal wound that would have caused death, and eventually did, and "contributory negligence of the person harmed is not a defense to a criminal prosecution.” Perkins & Boyce, Criminal Law (3d ed), p 781, n 74.
Nevertheless, the astonishing advancements of medical science, both in prolonging life and in identifying contributing causes of death, may suggest that in another context the question of causation, in fact and in law, should be measured by a different calculus.
The complexity of the question counsels judicious use by the prosecutor of the charging discretion approved by the Court today.