Timothy P. O'Neill
Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
Volume 150, No. 223
Copyright (c) 2004 by Law Bulletin Publishing Company
November 12, 2004
CONDUCT, RESULTS AND KNOWLEDGE
There is a remarkable piece of film ESPN shows whenever they do one of their salutes to "Baseball's Oddest Moments."
It involves Randy Johnson throwing one of his 95 mph fastballs. The film shows the pitch in slow motion. At the moment the ball is halfway to home plate, a bird swoops into the picture from the left. In a nanosecond, ball and bird meet in mid-air. Then there's an explosion of feathers.
Unbelievable.
Today's criminal law issue is this: Did Randy Johnson knowingly kill the bird?
The prosecutor says: "Absolutely. Johnson was consciously aware that that he was hurling a hard projectile. He also was aware that a hardball traveling 95 mph would be practically certain to kill any defenseless bird that would fly into its path. Therefore it is clear that Johnson knowingly killed the bird."
It does not take a rocket scientist to find the fallacy in the argument. Our prosecutor, of course, is confusing two different kinds of knowledge: knowledge of "conduct" is different from knowledge of "results."
True, Johnson has "knowledge" that he was engaging in the act of throwing a baseball; no question he "knowingly" threw the ball.
But that is different from the issue of whether he "knowingly" caused the death of the bird. It is clear he had no way of knowing that a bird would happen to be in the exact spot his fastball would be.
Thus, you can knowingly perform an act without knowingly causing the result of that act.
Or, put another way, "knowing acts" can produce merely accidental results. This is the stuff of first-year law school. But a recent case shows that misunderstanding this distinction can cause serious problems, especially in homicide cases.
Take a look at People v. Griffin, 815 N.E.2d 52 (4th Dist. 2004). Lona Griffin was charged with first-degree murder of her infant son Joseph. Specifically, the state charged her with knowingly performing the acts that caused Joseph's death when she forcefully pressed his face and chest into her chest, both causing him to suffocate and knowing that these acts created a strong probability of death or great bodily harm.
Griffin admitted to all the acts alleged by the state, including holding Joseph during the time he suffocated. The only contested issue was one of mental state: Did she know that her acts created a strong probability of death or great bodily harm?
The trial evidence was problematic enough that the trial judge granted a defense request that the jury be instructed on the lesser-included offense of involuntary manslaughter. If the jury found that the defendant was merely reckless as to the possibility of death -- that is, merely consciously disregarded a substantial risk of death, rather than actually knew there was a strong probability of death -- then the jury must convict on involuntary manslaughter rather than first-degree murder.
During deliberations it became clear that the jury needed to be instructed on exactly what 'knowledge" is. Illinois Pattern Instruction, Criminal 4th, 5.01B acknowledges that the law recognizes two different kinds of knowledge: knowledge in terms of prohibited conduct and knowledge in terms of a prohibited result. IPI 5.01B covers these two very different subjects in two different paragraphs.
In other words, whether Randy Johnson knew he was throwing a ball is different from whether he knew he was killing a bird in flight.
Over a defense objection, the trial judge chose the wrong paragraph of IPI 5.01B. It erroneously instructed the jury on what it means to know you are performing conduct when the real issue was whether the defendant was consciously aware that her acts were practically certain to result in the death of her son. Again, a "knowing act" does not necessarily produce a "knowing result."
The 4th District Appellate Court found this error to be so serious that it reversed the conviction despite the fact that the defendant had not raised the issue in her motion for a new trial. Thus, a conviction for first-degree murder had to be reversed because of a misunderstanding about a fairly fundamental distinction in criminal law: the distinction between acts and results. And what is more inexplicable is that the Illinois Supreme Court had decided a very similar case only six years ago.
Vincent DiVincenzo was charged with first-degree murder in a case arising out of a fistfight. People v. DiVincenzo, 183 Ill.2d 239 (1998). The defense claimed that, at worst, he had only recklessly caused the death and that the jury therefore should be instructed on involuntary manslaughter.
Both the trial judge and the Appellate Court agreed that such an instruction was unwarranted because the defendant purposely initiated the fight and that his kicks and punches were performed knowingly.
The Supreme Court rejected this analysis. The justices found that the lower courts did not understand the distinction that acting recklessly is separate from being reckless as to results. True, the defendant intentionally acted when he punched and kicked the victim. But the issue in the case was whether he was merely reckless as to the result -- whether his intentional attack was accompanied by a conscious disregard that death was a substantial and unjustifiable result of his conduct.
As the court succinctly expressed it, "[A] defendant may act recklessly where he commits deliberate acts but disregards the risks of his conduct." At 252.
Thus, in the past six years two Illinois murder convictions have been reversed because of a mistake that should not be made by a first-year law student. Randy Johnson is lucky he doesn't pitch much in Illinois or today he could be serving 30 years for the murder of Cock Robin. |
