Casual homicide

Casual homicide which was not intended in itself, but which was the consequence of doing some dangerous action, as furious driving in a frequented street, is imputable to the agent if he adverted to the probable danger of killing someone, If such probable danger did not exist, or was not adverted to, casual homicide will not be imputable in conscience, although if the action be forbidden by law, even on other grounds than the chance of its causing another’s death, and someone is killed by it, English law punishes it as manslaughter.

Accidental Homicide.—Accidental homicide is that which happens without any direct purpose to kill. But the following cases should be distinguished:

(a) when the homicide is not voluntary, either in itself or in its cause (see 35, 94), that is, when the slayer had no intention to kill and could not foresee that death would result from his act or omission;

(b) when the homicide is voluntary only in its cause, inasmuch as the person who kills is guilty of negligence in a lawful thing, or of something unlawful, and death results from the negligence or from that which is unlawful, although there was no direct wish to kill.

The Case of One From Whose Lawful Act or Omission Homicide Accidentally Results.—(a) If this person was not guilty of negligence, he is not responsible for the resultant homicide, since it was not voluntary, either directly or indirectly. Thus, if a man who was said to be dead, but who knows nothing about the report, calls at his home and his wife drops dead on seeing him, he is not responsible for her death.

(b) If the person in question was negligent, he is guilty of homicide in a greater or less degree according to the seriousness of his neglect. Thus, a sane man who flourishes a loaded revolver in a crowded room is responsible if the revolver goes off and kills someone present; but a nurse who leaves a sick room for just a moment with the result that her patient falls out of bed and is killed, is only slightly responsible at the most, if there was little reason to expect what happened.

The Case of One From Whose Unlawful Act or Omission Homicide Accidentally Results.—(a) If this person was not negligent and his conduct was not dangerous to the lives of others, he is not guilty of homicide; for the death that ensued was not voluntary, either directly or indirectly. Thus, if a thief is driving away carefully with a stolen automobile and a reckless pedestrian gets in front of the car and is killed, the driver is guilty of theft, but not of homicide.

(b) If the person in question was not negligent but his conduct was nevertheless dangerous to the lives of others, he is guilty of homicide; for the death that followed was voluntary indirectly, since he could have foreseen the homicide and should have avoided the conduct. Thus, if a person strikes lightly a pregnant woman and she suffers an abortion, or if one who is not a surgeon tries to mutilate an innocent person and kills him, he is responsible for the death, since the acts committed remained dangerous to life, no matter how careful the offender may have been to avoid killing.

Moral and Legal Guilt.—The law may hold one responsible for homicide, even though there is no theological guilt (see 1766 sqq.). (a) Thus, one may be held responsible for the consequence of acts only juridically negligent, as when an automobilist while driving at a speed unreasonable in law, but not in fact, kills a pedestrian. (b) One may be held responsible for acts committed by those subject to one’s care or control, as when a man keeps a dog loose not knowing that it is vicious and it kills a neighbor’s child, or when he illegally lends his car to a minor, thinking the latter is a good driver, and the minor carelessly runs down a person in the road.

a) The involuntary killing of a human being (homicidium involuntarium), commonly called manslaughter, is usually committed in a moment of passion and is imputable and punishable in proportion to the measure in which the use of free will was not hindered. Infanticide, i. e., the killing of an illegitimate child by its own mother during or soon after birth, is classed as manslaughter by the criminal law of some countries. But as passion does not always diminish imputability, the moralist must judge each case on its own merits. Morally equal to infanticide is the exposure of an infant, i. e., the intentional abandonment of the same in a helpless condition, unless there is the greatest probability that it will be picked up and cared for.

In regard to the killing of babies by their own mothers it should be remembered that this crime is quite often committed under compulsion, rather than voluntarily, for which reason the civil law usually deals with it le- niently. Great excitement, a delirious condition, bodily weakness, loss of blood, pains, the feeling of being deserted, worry about the future, fear of disgrace,—all these and other circumstances may conspire to create an exceptional state of mind in which the responsibility for the crime is realized either not at all, or but dimly.⁵

⁵ Huber, Hemmnisse der Willensfreiheit, 2nd ed., p. 234, note 1.

b) Accidental killing (homicidium casuale) i. e., homicide not by direct intention, but as a consequence of some dangerous act (voluntarium in causa), is imputable to the agent if he is aware of the danger of killing some one at the time he performs the act, e. g., driving at great speed in a crowded street, handling a gun carelessly, letting dangerous animals run amuck, and so forth. When no such probable danger exists, or when it is not adverted to, casual homicide is not imputable in conscience, although if the act is legally forbidden, even on other grounds than the chance of causing another’s death, and some one is killed by it, the secular law in many countries punishes it as manslaughter.

Accidental killing is committed by physicians, surgeons, and midwives who cause the death of their patients by culpable incompetency or lack of attention; by druggists who through ignorance or carelessness compound deadly medicines; by nurses and attendants who do not give proper care to their patients; by factory owners and mine operators who omit to take reasonable precautions for the protection of their employees and thus become responsible for serious accidents,—in short by all who cause the death of others by acts which, in virtue of their position, profession, or office, they know or ought to know are dangerous to life.⁶

⁶ Ex. XXI, 28 sq.—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 64, art. 8.—P. G. Antoine, Theol. Mor. Universa, t. III, tr. De Iust. et Iure, P. III, c. 2, qu. 12: “Wholly accidental homicide, namely, that which is voluntary neither in itself nor in its cause, is not a sin, indeed not properly homicide, but a simple killing. Because sin is essentially voluntary, therefore that which is voluntary in no way is in no respect a sin. Hence one who kills another in inculpable drunkenness is not guilty of homicide, nor is he bound to restitution, because that killing is not voluntary, either in itself, since the use of reason is absent, or in its cause, namely drunkenness, since this was in no way willed or culpable. It is otherwise if the drunkenness was culpable and the drunk man foresaw or could have foreseen this event, for then the killing is voluntary in its cause and therefore imputable as guilt and damage.”—M. Cronin, The Science of Ethics, Vol. II, pp. 103 sqq.—For an interesting case at law see Pollock, Law of Torts, 8th ed. pp. 48 sqq.

Midwives or nurses who receive children with the silent understanding that they dispose of them, and then let them starve to death, are guilty of premeditated murder, unless their conduct is attributable to carelessness.

360. Thesis III. Indirect killing generally is not licit, unless from a just and proportionately grave cause, that is, from a greater good which immediately follows from the action and not by means of the killing.

It is proved: For it is not licit to cause an evil effect, the death of another, unless the cause also immediately produces an effect so good that it compensates the evil; as was said in qu. 2, n. 352.

Hence 1) it is not illicit: in a just war to direct engines of war against a besieged city, although many innocent persons perhaps are killed, provided that it is an efficacious means for attacking the city; to give a necessary medicine to a pregnant mother, although perhaps abortion and the death of the fetus follow; to pierce through an innocent child whom an unjust aggressor has placed before himself lest he be wounded, because the unjust aggression redounds upon the child, indeed, according to some, to flee through a narrow way, while an enemy is pursuing, with danger of trampling a child (if that child has been baptized); but otherwise if the danger of death were from a just cause or from a natural cause such as fire.

2. On the contrary it is illicit for a physician, for the sake of experiment, to use a new remedy or perform a dangerous operation, when a more efficacious and less rash remedy is at hand; likewise to throw a child before pursuing wolves, who otherwise would devour several others, or to cast some into the sea for lightening a boat otherwise to be sunk, unless those who were last to go down into it are the cause why it is to be sunk: for these alone are harmful; the rest are innocent.

3. It is licit, for sparing a city, to hand over an innocent person whose life a tyrant or enemy demands, indeed even to command him himself to hand himself over for the common good; but not to kill him, even if he consents.

Casual homicide is that which takes place beyond intention, as St. Bonaventure teaches serm. 6. in Decal.; St. Thomas 2. 2. quaest. 64. art. 8.

For casual homicide, therefore, the Saintly Doctor gives this rule: if, while engaging in a licit undertaking, he applied sufficient diligence that homicide should not follow, and it should nevertheless follow, it will in no way be imputed to him, because that death was willed neither in itself nor in its cause; wherefore he will not be irregular. So with St. Bonaventure; Lessius Tom. 1. Lib. 2. dub. 15. num. 703; Suarez de censur. disp. 45. sect. 5. and 6; Farinac. Tom. 4. quaest. 126. n. 74; Ayrenius Tract. de homic. casuali, part. 3. num. 10; Tolet. Lib. 5. sum. cap. 7; Fagundez L. 5. cap. 14. num. 10; Bassaeus, V. Homic. 2. num. 1; with St. Thomas quaest. 64. art. 8, where see Sylvestrus and Cajetan ad 1.

They state the same even if he were engaging in an illicit undertaking; because, although in this there would be fault in order to the prohibition, say the exploding of a war engine, or hunting, yet there would not be fault in order to the homicide or mutilation; and this perhaps is what the Saintly Doctor means when he says that then the killer is excused from so much, not from all.

You will ask: whether one who kills another in a sudden and unexpected brawl can be dispensed from irregularity by the Bishop, who, according to the Council of Trent, sess. 14. cap. 7, can dispense from irregularities contracted through occult casual homicide.

Molina denies it Tom. 4. de iustitia, tract. 3. disp. 70; so too Suarez in 3. part. tit. 5. de censur. disput. 94. sect. 1.

Diana maintains it p. p. Tract. 1. Miscell. resol. 19; so too Didacus Perez Lib. 8. ordin. tit. 13. in Rubr. fol. 256; Avila Tract. de censur. part. 7. disp. 6. sect. 2. dub. 1. and sect. 5. dub. 5; Coninchyus de sacr. disp. 18. dub. 14. num. 11; Rodriquez in summa, p. p. cap. 177; Henriquez, and Salzedo, as cited by Diana; Fagundez L. 5. cap. 12. num. 11.

In St. Bonaventure I find only in confessionali, cap. 5. particula 49. casu 1 that the dispensation of casual homicide is referred to the Bishop, not of voluntary homicide; but this is voluntary.