Court Opinion

ID: 9749692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:58:35.721545+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:55.736899
License: Public Domain

*649NIX, Justice,
concurring.
This case raises the possibility of criminal liability as to both defendants as a consequence of their affirmative acts of Saturday, March 23, 1974. As to Mrs. Konz, it also raises the question of possible criminal liability for her failure to act between the events of Saturday evening and Monday morning (when Rev. Konz died) in view of the relationship she shared with the decedent. For the reasons that follow, I am satisfied the instant record does not support criminal liability under either theory.
In this appeal there is no causal connection between the acts of appellants and the death of Rev. Konz. The record is clear that the appellants’ prevention of the decedent’s attempt to administer insulin on Saturday was in no way causally connected with the death on Monday morning. Subsequent to the events of Saturday, the Reverend had numerous opportunities to seek help if he wanted an insulin injection. His conscious decision to continue to forego insulin after the events of Saturday constituted an intervening, superseding cause, thus cutting off any connection between appellants’ affirmative actions on Saturday and Rev. Konz’s death on Monday.
The more difficult question presented is whether there is a duty upon a spouse to seek medical aid for the other partner in contravention of the conscious decision of the ill spouse. The majority correctly notes that this is not a situation where one spouse is unable, because of a weakened condition, “to evaluate the need for [medical] aid, or helpless to obtain it, ....”1
Without determining whether a healthy spouse has to seek medical aid for a physically infirm spouse in spite of the conscious choice of the ill spouse, it is clear that if such a duty were required it could not be operative in this case. The knowledge requisite to show criminal responsibility for failure to act must include knowledge of the risk of danger *650or life. Since the wife here had no superior knowledge of medicine and apparently shared her husband’s religious views, the knowledge essential to the establishment of an affirmative duty is lacking and the requisite mental state does not exist.2
Thus, I concur in the result.

. Since such is not presented here, there is no need to consider the duty of the surviving spouse in that situation. Therefore, I decline to do so.

., I reject the broad proposition, suggested by the majority, that a conscious decision of an ailing spouse to forego medical help would relieve the surviving spouse in all situations of the obligation to procure help.