Randy L. Brackett v. Howard Peters and Roland W. Burris
1993 WL 491414, 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 31126, 11 F.3d 78 (1993)
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Rule of Law:
An act is a legal cause of an event if the event would not have occurred but for the act and the act made the event more likely. Under this principle, a defendant's criminal act that precipitates a chain of events leading to a victim's death is a cause of that death, even if the victim's pre-existing vulnerabilities or subsequent non-supervening medical care also contributed to the outcome.
Facts:
- Randy Brackett, age 21, raped and severely beat 85-year-old Mrs. Winslow.
- Mrs. Winslow was hospitalized with a broken arm, a broken rib, and extensive bruises.
- Previously described as 'feisty,' Mrs. Winslow became depressed after the assault, resisted efforts to feed her, and her health progressively weakened even as her physical injuries healed.
- She was transferred to a nursing home where her appetite remained poor.
- Facial injuries inflicted by Brackett made the insertion of a nasal gastric feeding tube too painful.
- Approximately one month after the assault, while a nurse was feeding her, Mrs. Winslow asphyxiated on a large quantity of food that lodged in her trachea and died.
Procedural Posture:
- Randy Brackett was convicted of felony murder in an Illinois state court following a bench trial.
- The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed Brackett's conviction on appeal.
- Brackett filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in a federal district court.
- The district judge reviewed the trial record and denied Brackett's application.
- Brackett (appellant) appealed the district court's denial to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
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Issue:
Does a defendant's criminal act legally cause a victim's death for the purposes of felony murder when the act initiates a chain of events, including the victim's physical and psychological deterioration and a subsequent medical incident, that culminates in death?
Opinions:
Majority - Posner, Chief Judge
Yes. A defendant's act legally causes a victim's death if it sets in motion a continuous chain of events culminating in that death. The court established a two-part test for legal causation: 1) the event would not have occurred but for the act, and 2) the act made the event more likely. Both conditions were met here. But for Brackett's assault, Mrs. Winslow would not have experienced the rapid decline in health that placed her in the nursing home where she died. The assault made her death more likely, as severely beating an elderly person creates a foreseeable risk of death. The court held that the victim's age, senility, and depression were pre-existing vulnerabilities, not intervening causes, under the 'eggshell skull' rule that an injurer takes their victim as they find them. Furthermore, the nurse's actions were, at most, a concurrent cause and not a 'supervening act disconnected from any act of the defendant' that would break the chain of causation.
Analysis:
This decision provides a clear and modern two-part test for criminal causation, blending the concepts of actual cause ('but-for') and proximate cause ('making the event more likely'). It strongly affirms the application of the tort law 'eggshell skull' rule to felony murder cases, ensuring defendants are responsible for the full consequences of their actions on vulnerable victims. The case significantly clarifies that subsequent medical complications or non-extraordinary negligence during treatment do not sever the causal chain, thereby limiting a defendant's ability to escape liability by pointing to contributing factors that arose directly from the initial criminal act.
