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Criminal Law Simons, Volumes I and II
Resource 4 . 1 . 5
1 minute

Note on Coincidental & Responsive Intervening Causes (LaFave)

Michael A. Simons

In Rideout, the court discussed the difference between responsive and coincidental intervening causes, a distinction that was first developed by Professors LaFave and Scott in their influential treatise on the criminal law. Here is an excerpt from that treatise explaining the distinction. (It is important to remember that LaFave and Scott were not announcing a new doctrine; rather, they were developing a framework to explain what they were seeing in various cases as courts and juries struggled with questions of proximate causation.)

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