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If a person dies from 1000 paper cuts received from 1000 different people (none of whom intended to kill the victim - it is only a paper cut) and all the cutters are later caught, will each cutter be tried for murder?

gcor
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    famous novel version: Death by stabbing from 12 vigilantees (murder on orient expres). Famous History version: Death by 23 stabs in senate (Caesar). – Trish Dec 13 '23 at 23:23
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    Are all the alleged paper cut murderers acting in sequence? It's reasonable that the first few paper cutters in the sequence (e.g. 1, 2, 3) did not intend serious bodily injury. But for the last paper cutters in the sequence (998, 999, 1000)? For those paper cutters, why did they not notice that the victim was currently suffering from hundreds of small paper cuts already? – Brandin Dec 14 '23 at 06:37
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    @Trish : in both cases every individual stab was potentially fatal, and the stabbers intended to kill the victim. – vsz Dec 14 '23 at 07:31
  • @Brandin: One might just as well argue that the last cutters did not cause a death that would otherwise not have happened. The issue here isn't the sequencing, it's the compartmentalization of the individual "crimes" which makes it impossible to pin down guilt to each individual party. The attribution of guilt hinges on the concept that "had you not done [X], [Y] would not have happened". But it would be incorrect to claim that cutter #483 was to blame and that the victim would have survived the other 999 cuts. – Flater Dec 15 '23 at 04:01
  • To elaborate on the "had you not done [X], [Y] would not have happened" point: if Y didn't happen either way, then X was an irrelevant action with regards to Y. If Y would always have happened, then X was also an irrelevant action with regards to Y. The only meaningful attribution of guilt is X actually causing Y (whether knowingly or through reckless indifference is a different fish to fry), and you can't pinpoint one cut that caused the victim's death. – Flater Dec 15 '23 at 04:04

2 Answers2

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Murder requires the subjective mens rea of

  • an intention to cause death or
  • an intention to inflict bodily harm that he knows is likely to cause death, and is reckless whether death ensues or not.

So the answer will depend on whether the accused inflicted the paper cut with the knowledge that the paper cut is likely to cause death and was reckless as to whether death ensues or not.

It is also required that the accused's act be a "significant contributing cause." This is "not limited to the direct and immediate cause, nor is it limited to the most significant cause." See R. v. Maybin, 2012 SCC.

Last, every one of the assaulters can be considered on the same footing and convicted identically if they acted together as parties with a common intention to commit an unlawful act knowing that the offence of murder — by any one of them — is a probable consequence, and if it actually ensues. Criminal Code, s. 21(2).

Jen
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  • This means that the first one, or first few will likely not be guilty. But the 900th one, for example, seeing a bloodied victim on the verge of death, would be guilty (depending on the jurisdiction) even without inflicting any more cuts, just by not helping or not alerting emergency services. – vsz Dec 14 '23 at 07:33
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    @vsz I would hope that if (there was evidence that) the first few knew they were at the head of a line of 1,000 cutters, then they would also be found guilty. – TripeHound Dec 14 '23 at 07:47
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    @vsz In the US there is generally no legal obligation to render aid to someone who needs it. https://www.enjuris.com/blog/questions/good-samaritan/ – nasch Dec 14 '23 at 18:15
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    @vsz In many jurisdictions anyone proven to be an accessory to a crime can be charged with that crime. So if the crime is determined to be murder not only is the first cutter also guilty but anyone simply handing out sheets of paper with knowledge of what they are used for would also potentially be charged with murder. – jesse_b Dec 15 '23 at 13:03
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Murder is a homicide with any of the enumerated aggravating factors, which mostly center upon motive. If all thousand perpetrators truly did not want a lethal outcome, odds are that they would be found gulty of manslaughter (Totschlag, §212 StGB) or more likely assault with lethal results (Körperverletzung mit Todesfolge, §227 StGB). They did intent an assault (even a papercut is an assault, if deliberately inflicted) but their defense argues that the death was both unintended and unforeseeable.

The prosecution might argue at least for some of the perpetrators that after, say, 500 or 900 or 990 cuts, the victim would have been in such a condition that it should have been obvious that more cuts could cause the death.

Which could bring us back to murder (Mord, §211 StGB). One of the aggravating factors mentioned above is special cruelty, and paper-cutting someone who has received hundreds of papercuts before might be regarded that way. The assessment by the court (and possibly by the medical experts) would matter of the state of mind of the perpetrators. Which perpetrators believed that death could not possibly happen from papercuts, even a thousand cuts? Which perpetrators decided to ignore the possibility that death could happen from so many papercuts, and inflicted cuts anyway? There might well be a difference between those inflicting the first cut and those coming later.

This distinction became relevant in the precedent-making case of homicide through an illegal car race on the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. The perpetrator did not want to hit the crossing car, but he accepted the possibility with disregard for the conseqences. The sentence was murder.

o.m.
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