People v. Kibbe

Facts

During the early evening of December 30, 1970, Kibbe and Krall were drinking in a Rochester tavern with George Stafford. The bartender testified that Stafford was flashing one hundred dollar bills and was thoroughly intoxicated. By their own statements, the defendants had already decided to steal his money. They agreed to drive him toward Canandaigua in Kibbe's car. During the drive, Kibbe slapped Stafford, took his money, and made him lower his trousers and take off his shoes to check that no money remained. The defendants then forced Stafford out of the car onto the shoulder of a rural two-lane highway. His trousers were still down around his ankles. Kibbe left Stafford's shoes and jacket on the shoulder, but the defendants did not give back his eyeglasses. The temperature was near zero. There was no artificial lighting on that stretch of road, and the nearest building was a gas station nearly half a mile away. At approximately 10:00 p.m., Blake, a college student, was driving a pickup truck. He stated that he was going about 50 miles per hour. Blake saw Stafford sitting in the middle of the northbound lane with his hands up. He had no time to react and struck him. The Medical Examiner testified that death had occurred fairly rapidly from massive head injuries.

Issues

1. Were the defendants' acts a sufficiently direct cause of Stafford's death to support a murder conviction, even though a passing driver's truck struck and killed him?
2. Did Blake's driving amount to an intervening and superseding cause that relieved the defendants of criminal responsibility for Stafford's death?

Holding

The defendants' conduct, which left a helplessly intoxicated and partly undressed man on a dark rural highway in near-zero temperature, was a sufficiently direct cause of his death. Under the conditions of Blake's driving, no supervening wrongful act relieved them of responsibility, so the murder convictions stood.