NOTE: Take this question at face value; that is, assume that everything in this question happens just the way the question says it does. Don’t think, ‘well, that could never happen in real life.’
Despondent because he’s failing his Psychology seminar, Todd climbs to the roof of the tallest building on campus, planning on committing suicide by jumping off the roof. Brittney’s failing the same class, but instead of planning to kill herself, she decides to kill Dr. J., her professor. She enters Dr. J’s office, which has a window view, and fires her gun at Dr. J. just as Todd jumps off the roof.
Never having fired a gun before, Brittney misses, and her bullet goes through the window and hits Todd on his way down. The force of the bullet hitting Todd changes his trajectory, and instead of landing on concrete (which would definitely have resulted in his death), he lands in a fishpond. He’s badly hurt, but he survives.
At the hospital, the doctors discover the bullet is lodged in his chest, pressing against his aorta. Any attempt to remove it might lead to it cutting his aorta in two, killing him, so they leave the bullet where it is.
Brittney is arrested. However, Brittney’s grief over failing to kill Dr. J. has led her to become depressed, and she’s committed to a psychiatric hospital instead of standing trial.
While Todd’s recovering in the hospital, he meets a nurse, Stephanie, and he decides he’s glad his suicide attempt failed. Todd and Stephanie both fall in love at first sight, and they quickly get married.
Several months later, the marriage has gone bad. Really bad. So bad, in fact, that Stephanie decides to kill Todd.
Late one night, Stephanie takes a butcher knife and stabs Todd in the chest while he’s sleeping. However, she misses his heart, just barely. Todd would have easily recovered, except that the knife glances off the bullet that was left in his chest when Brittney shot him. The knife nicks Todd’s aorta. Once again, Todd gets sent to the hospital instead of the morgue.
While he’s recovering, Todd meets a patient from the Psych unit, a young woman named Brittney. Brittney realizes that he’s the same Todd whom she shot when she was a student, and she blames him for her depression and her commitment to a psych hospital. She decides to shoot Todd, but on purpose this time. She steals a gun from the hospital’s Security office and makes sure it’s loaded. What she doesn’t realize is that the gun is just for show, and it’s only loaded with blanks.
Brittney goes to Todd’s hospital room, and when he looks up to see who it is, she fires.
The shock of being shot at again causes Todd to have an acute stress reaction – so severe, in fact, that the stitches holding his nicked aorta together burst, and he dies of fright.
Question 3A: Both Stephanie and Brittney are arrested for Todd’s murder. Should either (or both) of them be found guilty? Support your answer.
Question 3B: Impossible Acts
One of the more interesting concepts concerning intent is the concept of the “impossibility” defense:
“Two types of impossibility defenses exist: legal impossibility and factual impossibility. Legal impossibility means that the defendant believes what he or she is attempting to do is illegal, when it is not. Factual impossibility means that the defendant could not complete the crime attempted because the facts are not as he or she believes them to be.”
In other words, if you commit what you think is a crime, but it’s not a crime, you are not guilty of the crime. However, if you try to commit what you know is a crime with the intent to commit the crime, but it’s not actually possible for you to commit that crime, you’re guilty of trying to commit the commit.
For this question, assume that stabbing a dead body is not a crime. (I know, I know, it’s ‘desecration of a corpse.’ For the purposes of this question, assume that’s not actually a crime.)
You and nine other students are taking a class on the History of Motorcycle Gangs in Peru. You’re all worried about your grades, so you all get together and decide to kill your professor so she can’t give the final exam. You each buy a knife. You surprise her outside WP1 one night, and one at a time, you each stab her.
Because she’s so tough, she survives all ten stabbings, although she’s very badly hurt.
As she’s staggering away toward Ala Moana Boulevard, an underage drunk away from of the Row Bar and bumps into her. Your professor falls into the street, is run over by an unlicensed Uber driver, and dies.
Of all 10 students, you’re the only one who didn’t really want to kill the professor, but you felt you had to go along with the others. You were the last person to stab her, and at the time you stabbed her, you thought she was already dead. You’d heard about a crime called ‘desecration of a corpse,’ and it was your intent to commit that crime, thinking it wasn’t as bad as killing somebody.
However, the Coroner determines that your professor would have survived the other nine stabbings, and that it was your stabbing that weakened her to the point where she fell into the street after the drunk bumped into her.
Question 3B: Can you use either version of the Impossibility defense? Why or why not?
Question 3C: Intent and the NGRI defense
For this question, you will want to review the material on competency and insanity, including the Hawaii statutes. (The basic information is in the slides, and you can easily find more detailed information online.)
For this question, make the following assumptions (they’re not all accurate, but make these assumptions for the sake of the question):
• The minimum sentence for any form of homicide is five years.
• Anyone found incompetent to stand trial or NGRI will be sent to Hawaii State Hospital.
• Anyone woman found guilty of homicide will be sent to the Women’s Community Correctional Facility.
At a festival on Maui, Jennifer took what she thought was Ecstasy, but it was really meth.
A short time later, Alexandra accidentally stepped on Jennifer’s toe. Because she was under the influence of the meth, Jennifer flew into a violent rage, and she killed Alexandra. At the time, she felt she couldn’t stop herself.
Then, wanting to chill, Jennifer found a friend who had some actual Ecstasy, and she took that.
Jennifer is arrested for killing Alexandra. She will be tried in Hawai‘i. Before the case actually goes to trial, Jennifer tells her lawyer she just wants to plead guilty and be punished.
Because her lawyer thinks this is irrational, he requests a competency evaluation. The evaluation determines that Jennifer’s long-time Ecstasy use has finally burned out the serotonin receptors in her brain, and she is now permanently depressed.
Question 3C: Where would you expect to find Jennifer in five years and one day? Explain your answer.