Is it Murder ?

My friend, call him F., hates his neighbor, N. F wants to get rid of
N, legally. N is in fairly good health, but he loves chocolate,
sometimes to excess. F. decides to undermine N's health. Every
morning he goes over and presents N with a pound of chocolates, which N
eats on the spot. After three years of this, N's health having
seriously deteriorated because of this unhealthy diet, he dies
precipitously and painfully. This had been F's plan all along.

N's wife, call her W., closely observed F's behavior during all this
time, always advising her husband to desist from eating all that
chocolate. Alas, she could not prevail upon her gluttonous husband to
listen to her. But after her husband's death, W. decides to do the
following two things:

1) she presses the District Attorney to lay criminal charges, homicide,
against F.,

and

2) she files a civil wrongful death suit against F.

Question to the lawyers:

Is W. (which now stands for Widow) likely to prevail in either of
these two actions ?

"professor1956" <wernercohn@gmail.com> wrote:
Is it Murder ? My friend, call him F., hates his neighbor, N. F wants to get rid of N, legally. N is in fairly good health, but he loves chocolate, sometimes to excess. F. decides to undermine N's health. Every morning he goes over and presents N with a pound of chocolates, which N eats on the spot. After three years of this, N's health having seriously deteriorated because of this unhealthy diet, he dies precipitously and painfully. This had been F's plan all along.

Interesting.

Technically I think it would be murder. If you take an action with
the intention that someone die, and as a result of that action the
other person dies earlier than he otherwise would have, it's murder.

I remember a hypothetical from law school: someone falls off the roof
of a 40 story building. As he passes the 20th floor an enemy of his
(who had nothing to do with the fall) takes out a rifel and shoots
the falling guy in the head.

He was going to die anyway. But as a result of the gunshot he died
sooner than he would have. So it was murder.

The problem in your case would be proof that F's actions actually
caused the death, and that N would have lived longer without F's
candy.

Stu

"professor1956" <wernercohn@gmail.com> wrote:
My friend, call him F, hates his neighbor, N. F wants to get rid of N, legally. N is in fairly good health, but he loves chocolate, sometimes to excess. F decides to undermine N's health. Every morning he goes over and presents N with a pound of chocolates, which N eats on the spot. After three years of this, N's health having seriously deteriorated because of this unhealthy diet, he dies precipitously and painfully. This had been F's plan all along.

Assuming as apparently does the OP qûa hypothesizing "professor" that
N's gluttonous eating of chocolate contributed in some way to N's
death (though he does not actually so say), query the accuracy of
characterizing N as having died "preciptously" but only "[a]fter three
years" of his "sometimes" having eaten chocolate (whether or not also
"sometimes to excess")?
N's wife, call her W., closely observed F's behavior during all this time, always advising her husband to desist from eating all that chocolate. Alas, she could not prevail upon her gluttonous husband to listen to her. But after her husband's death, W. decides to do the following two things:

Though the question interjected above which the OP's version of the
facts does not answer concededly points to just one issue the he as
"professor" presumably tries to raise, it illustrates (as has been
typical for law-related newsgroup postings from him) the more basic
point that this poster almost always omits the "punchline" from his
law-related questions -- here: 1) she presses the District Attorney to lay criminal charges, homicide, against F.,and 2) she files a civil wrongful death suit against F. Is W. (which now stands for Widow) likely to prevail in either of these two actions ?

That though W is of course free to ask whatever she wants, one will as
noted search in vain in the OP's version of the underlying facts (even
though he was free as hypothesizing "professor" to have posited
whatever facts he wished) for any statement to the effect that N would
be able to furnish the D.A. with or that the D.A. would be able
otherwise to obtain/develop any evidence that N's death was caused by
his eating chocolate.

Conversely/correlatively, though presumably the "professor" also would
like his "students" to address the role or not of F's motive -- though
in hypothesizing that F hated and wanted to get rid of N and had
"plan[ned]" N's death by exploiting N's propensity to eat chocolate
sometimes to excess, the OP does not make clear even hypothetically
what evidence W or the D.A. would have of F's motive beyond the OP's
just one vague reference to F's "behavior" in giving N chocolate --
the "professor" appears in this respect to beg the question whether,
if the other more basic questions he also did not beg were
realistically answerable as he might wish, F's motive is especially
relevant (although W's might be for wrongful death lawsuit purposes
given her choice to "observe" F's chocolate deliveries and N's
chocolate eating for more than three years yet to do nothing about
this other than to "advis[e]" N not to eat so much chocolate).

Compare in this respect (i.e., the importance or not of intent), e.g.,
People v. Green, etc., 584 N.Y.S.2d 543; 180 A.D.2d 141 (1st Dep.t
1992), lv. to app. den, ; 79 N.Y.2d 1049, 596 N.E.2d 415 (1992) (a
homicide-by-enema case, affirming conviction of criminally negligent
homicide even absent deceased's hatred of the deceased or other desire
to kill him by giving him an enema).

professor1956 <wernercohn@gmail.com> wrote:Is it Murder ?

No.
My friend, call him F., hates his neighbor, N. F wants to get rid ofN, legally. N is in fairly good health, but he loves chocolate,sometimes to excess. F. decides to undermine N's health. Everymorning he goes over and presents N with a pound of chocolates, which Neats on the spot. After three years of this, N's health havingseriously deteriorated because of this unhealthy diet, he diesprecipitously and painfully. This had been F's plan all along.N's wife, call her W., closely observed F's behavior during all thistime, always advising her husband to desist from eating all thatchocolate. Alas, she could not prevail upon her gluttonous husband tolisten to her. But after her husband's death, W. decides to do thefollowing two things:1) she presses the District Attorney to lay criminal charges, homicide,against F.,and2) she files a civil wrongful death suit against F.Question to the lawyers:Is W. (which now stands for Widow) likely to prevail in either ofthese two actions ?


IANAL, but I would say no.

Giving somebody high-fat foods is simply not going to meet the test of
wrongfully causing somebody's death with malice. Even if you could
prove malice (hard enough in itself), there is no assault, no wrongful
act you can point to.

It's not illegal to offer somebody chocolate, french fries, or any of
the other foods that are bad for you. If it were, McDonalds would be
in serious trouble. So would Hershey, Nestle, Godiva, Burger King,...

After all, even if F gives N chocolate, N has a choice not to eat it.
In fact, he has a choice not to meet with N and even be presented with
the temptation to eat the chocolate.

In addition to the above, this idea has to qualify for some sort of
award for the most baroque(*) way of killing somebody I ever heard
of.

(*) in the sense of "baroque worry" vs. "ordinary worry", see _The
Baroque Worry Book_


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professor1956 wrote: Is it Murder ?
<snip> F. decides to undermine N's health. Every morning he goes over and presents N with a pound of chocolates, which N eats on the spot. After three years of this, N's health having seriously deteriorated because of this unhealthy diet, he dies precipitously and painfully. This had been F's plan all along.

Is that all he ate for years, chocolate? In most states the decedent
would bear some responsibility for his own demise in a civil suit where
his death was due in part to his own conscious choices, and the
decedent's intervening act of choice, to knowingly ingest a substance
that he knew or should have known was harmful just as much as F knew,
would also be a "superseding cause" relieving F of culpability or
perhaps reducing the level of culpability.
N's wife, call her W., closely observed F's behavior during all this time, always advising her husband to desist from eating all that chocolate. Alas, she could not prevail upon her gluttonous husband to listen to her. But after her husband's death, W. decides to do the following two things: 1) she presses the District Attorney to lay criminal charges, homicide, against F.,

Death by chocolate? I thought that was the name of a fancy dessert.
IMO such a criminal charge would be far-fetched but theoretically
possible if all the elements of the charge were present: an intentional
act which the actor intended to cause the death of a human is homicide
(of whatever degree the facts support under the law of the
jurisdiction, if it recognizes degrees of culpability) even if the
process takes a bit longer than your typical mugging or execution
would. Poisoning, for example, can take place over months or years.
Hard to prove, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to prove.
2) she files a civil wrongful death suit against F.

Also far-fetched, but theoretically as viable as those suits brought
against asbestos, tobacco, and lead paint manufacturers. The
difference would be, in order for the chocolatier's actions to be
negligent, there would have to be some reliable evidence showing that
consumption of chocolate, in the quantities normally taken
daily/weekly/monthly, was a health hazard that could lead to death.
Such a suit would also be more than likely to face vigorous defense
argument that many other things N did to himself also contributed to
his death, reducing or eliminating F's culpability.

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Mike Jacobs
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I would say that W is an accomplice too the crime if it is a crime. If W watched F feed N the chocolate knowing it would harm N, then W is as reasonable for Ns demise as F is. ;)

No. W is not likely to continue, realizing a glutonous and insulant husband with a pound-a-day chocolate habit had no worth to begin with.:p

If this is murder isnt it just the same as what these fast food places like Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonalds and Burger King do?

IMO... NO it's not murder.

What if N were allergic to nuts and F gave him chocolate with traces of nuts and:

1. N was aware the chocolate contained traces of nuts but he nevertheless chose to eat it
2. N wasn't aware the chocolate contained nuts, but F was
3. F wasn't aware the chocolate contained nuts or that N has a nut allergy or both

If the Admiral replied to a year old post, AND was allergic to peanuts, would it be legal to buy him a calendar?

What if N were allergic to nuts and F gave him chocolate with traces of nuts and:

1. N was aware the chocolate contained traces of nuts but he nevertheless chose to eat it
2. N wasn't aware the chocolate contained nuts, but F was
3. F wasn't aware the chocolate contained nuts or that N has a nut allergy or both

Why are you responding to an old thread?