【Chapter 41 – If the Case from
"So what happened?"
A gathering to confer on Go Jae-suk's case.
While reviewing precedents that might prove helpful, Michael asked.
"You didn't read R v Blaue?"
"Yeah. I'm not taking Criminal Law this semester."
He was taking only three courses this semester. A guy whose dream was to become a criminal attorney hadn't signed up for Criminal Law immediately after entering.
He really was a unique fellow.
"Guilty. The first-trial decision was upheld."
"Oh—thank goodness. For a second there, I thought they came out with an absurd acquittal."
The British court sentenced the perpetrator, Robert Conrad, to life imprisonment even on appeal.
It might have seemed like an easy decision if thought about simply, but it was a difficult problem upon deeper reflection.
After all, she could have survived (there was a doctor's testimony to that effect, and the prosecution acknowledged this as well), yet she had chosen death of her own will, in accordance with her religious convictions.
Then, could the perpetrator be punished for murder? Perhaps for attempted rape or wounding, but was applying murder truly appropriate?
"Ah, but this case doesn't seem like it'll help our case."
Michael was right. This case didn't help Go Jae-suk's case.
Because it was a fact that Go Jae-suk had struck Go Hyeon-muk on the head with an iron.
If you applied the logic of R v Blaue, even if Go Hyeon-muk had been discharged of his own will, if the attack with the iron was the cause of the cerebral hemorrhage, then Go Jae-suk would find it difficult to avoid a charge of manslaughter.
"Is that necessarily so?"
"Huh? What's that supposed to mean? You think it helps?"
"I think it might help."
"How?"
In essence, legal application lies in where you draw the line.
The reason being a judge is a difficult job is because one must decide where and how to draw that line.
And the reason judgments are important is precisely because they reveal what the judge was thinking when they drew the line there.
"Hey, if in R v Blaue, that girl hadn't died that very day but a week later, what do you think would've happened? Do you still think the perpetrator should be punished for murder?"
"A week? Shouldn't it be the same result even after a week? Either way, it happened because she was stabbed by the perpetrator."
"Then what if it was a month?"
"A month? Hmm... if she had remained hospitalized for a month..."
"Then what if she had been discharged, later developed complications, came back, and died?"
"Come on—would something like that even happen?"
"Just assume it does."
"If she died from complications... still, if she hadn't been stabbed by the perpetrator, it wouldn't have happened, so I think murder would be applied."
"Good. Then let's assume this: the doctor made a surgical error. So the girl died from post-surgical complications. Then what do you think should happen?"
"That's a somewhat different situation."
"Why? According to your logic, if she hadn't been stabbed, she wouldn't have needed such surgery in the first place."
"Ah... still, that's..."
"Then should the perpetrator be guilty of attempted rape and wounding, and the doctor guilty of manslaughter by negligence?"
"Now that you put it that way, it seems unfair too... this is difficult."
"Now, let's assume differently. In R v Blaue, the doctor ignored the girl's refusal of a transfusion and transfused her, saving her. But the girl, upon waking from surgery, committed suicide because her religious beliefs were disregarded. Then, is Robert Blaue not guilty of murder? If he hadn't entered the girl's house that day to rape her, and hadn't ruthlessly stabbed the resisting girl with a knife, none of this would have happened in the first place, would it?"
Causation is a crucial factual relationship that must be established in law. This is especially true when applying criminal law, which defines someone's actions as crimes and imposes punishment.
In determining whether causation exists between an event and the resulting harm or damage under Anglo-American law, the most commonly applied logic is the but-for test.
"'A' but for 'B': Had 'B' not occurred, 'A' would not have happened."
A simple yet clear rule.
"Your child pushed our child on the stairs.
"As a result, our child fell and broke their arm.
"If your child had not pushed our child on the stairs, our child would not have broken their arm.
"Therefore, our child was injured because your child pushed them."
If you apply the but-for test to this scenario, the act of pushing on the stairs becomes the cause, and the broken arm becomes the result.
Once causation is established, identifying the perpetrator becomes easy.
All that remains is holding the perpetrator responsible.
Then why did legal professionals create complex concepts like novus actus interveniens (a new intervening act, or an independent superseding act that breaks the existing causal chain)?
Because events in reality are sometimes far more complicated.
"In that situation too, if you apply the but-for test, Robert Blaue's actions are indeed connected to the girl's death, but I think it would be correct to view the active act of suicide as breaking the existing causal chain."
Sein, who had been listening to my conversation with Michael, offered her opinion. She was someone who had properly understood Professor Lindberg's lecture.
"That's right. I agree too. But what I'm curious about is why the court would distinguish between the two."
"Distinguish?"
"Ah, well, the second scenario is hypothetical, so it's a bit off to say 'distinguished.' But if the girl had committed suicide as you said, I think the court would have viewed that act as an independent superseding act. If so, what would enable the court to distinguish between the two actions? I mean, how can you draw the line legally."
"Between refusing a transfusion and suicide?"
"Yeah. Refusing a transfusion is also disregarding the doctor's warning that she could die, so it's essentially a decision that leads to the same result as suicide."
"I think the explanation for that appears in the judgment."
"Which part?"
"Something to the effect of 'Unlike civil law, criminal law aims to maintain law and order and protect the public, so the criminal cannot evade responsibility by citing the victim's religious beliefs,' wasn't it?"
Right. There was such a mention in the judgment.
"That's it."
"That's it?"
"Yeah."
"What do you mean that's it? Go Jae-suk's husband didn't commit suicide. It's more similar to refusing a transfusion—he refused treatment and left."
On the day of the incident, Go Jae-suk's husband, Go Hyeon-muk, was discharged against the advice of the doctor at Queens Medical Clinic.
He had been informed of the risk of cerebral hemorrhage and warned that he could die, but Go Hyeon-muk, claiming he couldn't afford the expensive hospital fees, signed a waiver (a document exempting the hospital from liability) and walked out on his own two feet.
Five days after discharge, he died from excessive bleeding at a rupture that had gone undetected during the examination.
"Have you read the R v Holland case, by any chance?"
R v Holland was another British case concerning a robber who cut the victim's finger with a knife during the commission of the crime.
Holland had threatened Thomas Garland with a knife in order to steal money and cut his thumb.
Garland, who had gone to the hospital to treat his wound, was advised by the doctor that gangrene had set in and tetanus symptoms were appearing, and was recommended amputation.
Garland refused amputation and chose treatment instead. However, his condition worsened and he eventually had to undergo amputation.
The problem occurred next. The amputation was performed too late, and Garland ultimately died of sepsis.
"The case cited in R v Blaue, right?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"But in that case too, the court applied murder. The reason is exactly the same as in the Blaue case: 'It is rational to legally punish crime for the sake of public order.'"
"Right."
"Hey, you've been saying 'right' since earlier, but what exactly are you agreeing to? Both were punished for murder."
"Sein, didn't you sense anything odd while reading the precedents of the two cases?"
"Something odd?"
There is something odd.
"In both cases, the cause of the victim's death was recognized as an event that intervened in the middle, not the criminal act itself. They viewed the causal chain as broken."
"Novus actus interveniens."
"Yet the court punished the crime. Why? As you said, Sein, the court judged that it was rational for 'public order' and 'protection of the public.'"
"Even though it's not the cause of the result."
"Exactly!"
"You don't mean..."
"The truly important question in this case is not the causation between Go Jae-suk's actions and Go Hyeon-muk's death. It's whether Go Jae-suk's actions were ones that should be punished for the sake of 'public order' and 'protection of the public.'"
Carl Jung said that half of solving a case begins with asking the right question.
I found the question.
Now I just needed to find the answer.
"Hey, Heon, where are you going all of a sudden?"
"I need to meet Go Jae-suk's daughter."
Go Hyeon-muk's usual behavior was important.
If the Case from Extraordinary Attorney Woo Happened in America (6)
Late at night, Denny Duncan, who had had a drink for the first time in a while, returned to the office.
A shared office used by fifteen lawyers. Except for Benjamin McKane, who occupied the corner office on the left, everyone had already left and the place was empty.
"Ambulance chasers, and you all leave this early? That's why you're still stuck in an office like this."
It was a self-deprecating remark. After all, he too was renting a room in that office.
Still, Benjamin McKane was somewhat special.
He always arrived earliest and worked latest.
Denny, who had been looking toward McKane's room, shook his head and entered his own room.
He desperately wanted someone to trade barbs with, but he had no intention of talking to him.
Once, he had taken a cherished bottle of whiskey to his room. Last Christmas, or maybe Thanksgiving—around this time of year.
"To think you'd bring that filthy trash into my room—have you lost your mind? Get out right now!"
Those were the words he had spat.
"Filthy trash? You've got some nerve. If you've gone senile, you've gone properly senile. It's Talisker 25, a gift from Clinton."
Denny Duncan mumbled as he took out the whiskey bottle hidden in the cabinet at the back of his office.
There was barely a sip's worth of liquid left in the bottle.
Denny carefully peeled off the tape wrapped around the cap and poured the liquor into a coffee cup.
"Haah—this salty sea breeze. Truly a drink that Jim Beam can't hold a candle to."
Denny, sniffing and inhaling the aroma, drew the whiskey into his mouth.
As expected, the salty peat (turf) scent spread first, followed by fruit and oak. And finally, the sweetness of vanilla and sugar lingered.
"Haah—."
It felt like he could forgive everything.
The fitness instructor his wife had rolled around in bed with in his own bed, McKane who had called this heavenly drink filthy trash, and,
that afternoon, the cocky 1L student who had looked at him with eyes asking, "And you still call yourself a lawyer?"
Denny Duncan stared blankly at the document folder the student had left on the desk.
He didn't want to look. It was probably all content he already knew. It would just be a waste of time.
But it was the reason he hadn't gone home and had come back to the office.
Denny Duncan began reading the brief Jeheon had left behind.