State v. Cecil Grose
1997 WL 567915, 1997 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 875, 982 S.W.2d 349 (1997)
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Rule of Law:
A decision by a victim's family to issue a 'do not resuscitate' order is not a legally sufficient intervening cause to relieve a defendant of criminal liability for homicide when the defendant's actions rendered the victim comatose and unable to make their own medical decisions.
Facts:
- Cecil C. Grose and the victim, Jamie Forbes, were in a romantic relationship that had deteriorated.
- Forbes had instituted stalking and harassment charges against Grose.
- The day before a scheduled hearing on the charges, Grose told his friend, William Carter, that he intended to kill Forbes and showed Carter the rifle he planned to use.
- Grose found Forbes driving her car, pulled up behind her, and shot her with a high-powered rifle.
- As a result of the shooting, Forbes suffered tremendous trauma and was left a quadriplegic.
- Approximately two weeks after being released from the hospital, Forbes was readmitted with a high fever and fell into a coma.
- After Forbes was in a coma for nearly eight days, her family decided she should not be resuscitated in the event of cardiac or pulmonary arrest.
- Forbes died soon after the family's decision.
Procedural Posture:
- Cecil C. Grose was prosecuted by the state for first-degree murder in a trial court.
- A jury found Grose guilty of first-degree murder.
- The trial court judge sentenced Grose to life in prison.
- Grose (appellant) appealed his conviction to the Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, an intermediate appellate court.
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Issue:
Does a 'do not resuscitate' order, issued by the family of a comatose victim, constitute a superseding intervening cause that breaks the chain of causation and relieves the defendant of criminal liability for murder?
Opinions:
Majority - Summers, Judge
No, a 'do not resuscitate' order issued by the family of a comatose victim does not constitute a superseding intervening cause that breaks the chain of causation. One who unlawfully inflicts a dangerous wound is held responsible for all consequences flowing from that injury, including those that arise through intermediate agencies. The court reasoned that the defendant's actions put the victim in a vegetative state, preventing her from participating in her own medical decisions. In this situation, the family acts as the victim's agent, and their decision to withhold extraordinary medical care is a natural and probable result of the defendant's initial criminal act. Allowing a defendant to escape homicide liability because they merely left a victim comatose rather than killing them instantly would be illogical. Therefore, the decision to abstain from heroic intervention simply permitted the natural consequence of the defendant's actions to occur and did not break the chain of legal causation.
Analysis:
This decision extends the legal principle established in cases like State v. Ruane, which held that a competent victim's decision to refuse medical care is not a superseding cause. Grose applies this logic to situations where the victim is incapacitated and their family must make the decision, treating the family as the victim's agent. The ruling solidifies the legal doctrine that defendants cannot use subsequent, foreseeable medical decisions—even those that hasten death—as a shield against liability for homicide. It ensures that the focus of causation remains on the defendant's initial unlawful act that set the fatal chain of events in motion, preventing a potential loophole for defendants whose victims linger in a vegetative state before dying.
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