AJ 014 Lecture Notes - Lecture 31: Lesser Included Offense, Fire Extinguisher, Gross Negligence

• School: College of The Sequoias
• Department: Administration of Justice (AJ)
• Course: AJ 014
• Professor: green

Document Summary

The difference between an unintentional second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter is the defendant"s degree of awareness of the risk of harm at the time of the fatal act. Specifically, the government must show that sandy was unreasonably unaware of the risk of death: here, sandy clearly caused debbie"s death because she sprayed the toxic substance that caused debbie to die of asphyxiation. Sandy was trying to clear the crowd out of her house and a stampede or mad dash was the likely and probable result of spraying the crowd with any substance. Sandy"s action, therefore, created an extreme risk of death or serious bodily injury to everyone in the crowd. Her conduct is made worse by the fact that she was unaware (and did not check) the toxicity of the substance she was indiscriminately spraying into a crowd of people.