§ 14.04 MODEL PENAL CODE

• Jurisdiction: North Carolina

§ 14.04. Model Penal Code⁷⁷

[A] Actual Cause

The Model Penal Code applies the but-for (sine qua non) rule. To be guilty of an offense, a person's conduct must cause the prohibited result. "Cause" is defined under the Code as "an antecedent but for which the result in question would not have occurred."⁷⁸

The common law principles that clarify the meaning of this test also apply in Code jurisdictions. In the case of concurrent sufficient causes⁷⁹ — e.g., when D1 and D2 independently inflict immediately lethal wounds on V— the Commentary to the Code states that "the result in question" should be described as "death from two mortal wounds."⁸⁰ Thus, the jury would determine whether "but for [D1's]/[D2's] act, the result [death from two mortal wounds] would have occurred when it did." This way, each party is a but-for cause of the result, and a court need not apply the "substantial factor" test.

[B] Proximate Cause (Actually, Culpability)

Unlike the common law, the Model Penal Code treats but-for causation as the exclusive meaning of "causation" in the criminal law. The Code treats matters of "proximate causation" as issues relating instead to the actor's culpability.

Specifically, subsections (2)(b) and (3)(b)⁸¹ of Section 2.03 deal with situations in which the actual result of the defendant's conduct (considering both the precise harm caused and the manner in which it occurred) diverges from that which was designed, contemplated, or risked. In such circumstances, the issue in a Model Code jurisdiction is not whether, in light of the divergences, the defendant was a "proximate cause" of the resulting harm, but rather whether it may still be said that he caused the prohibited result with the level of culpability—purpose, knowledge, recklessness, or negligence, as the case may be — required by the definition of the offense.

Under the Code, the defendant has not acted with the requisite culpability unless the actual result, including the way in which it occurred, was not "too remote or accidental in its occurrence to have a [just] bearing on the actor's liability or on the gravity of his offense."⁸² Thus, the "varying and sometimes inconsistent"⁸³ proximate causation factors developed by the common law are replaced with a single standard, which expressly invites the jury to reach a commonsense, or just, result.

In the rare circumstance of an offense containing no culpability requirement,⁸⁴ the Code provides that causation "is not established unless the actual...