Notes & Questions (Walker v. Superior Court)

Notes and Questions

1.    Causation and Concurrence of the Elements. As in any case, in order to find Walker guilty, the prosecution must establish that the defendant's act, or failure to act, was the proximate cause of the victim's death. In addition, in every case, there must be a concurrence of mens rea and actus reus at the specific time of the alleged crime. Typically, causation and concurrence of the elements are self-evident: X shoots Y, intending to cause death, and Y dies. X's act occurred concurrently with the requisite mens rea, and is the proximate cause of Y's death.

These two requirements can be complicated to establish in cases of alleged failure to act. Note how the outcome of this case turns on the fact that Walker continued to pursue spiritual healing, in spite of the fact that the disease was worsening. Yet it is not a crime to pursue spiritual (or any alternative) healing in the first place. The interesting legal question involves discerning the point at which not getting Western medical care became a crime. To convict Walker, the state had to show that she had a duty to act, and the breach of that duty caused Shauntay's death.

Would the result in Walker change if Shauntay’s illness had progressed far more rapidly, such that Shauntay died 48 hours after first spiking a fever? How might the defense raise a "concurrence of the elements" challenge in such a case? How might the defense argue against proximate cause? 

What result if Walker had tried faith healing for the first four days of Shauntay’s illness, and then, when the stiff neck developed, brought her daughter to doctors, who tried, but failed to save Shauntay’s life because the illness was too far advanced? Can you articulate the concurrence of the elements and the causation challenge? How must the state respond to it?

2.    Ordinary Negligence. Was Walker negligent in seeking only spiritual treatment for her child in the ordinary (tort/civil) sense? That is, would a reasonable person have done what she did in that situation? Did it matter that Walker was a Christian Scientist, and believed in the power of prayer to heal? Recall the provocation standard illustrated under Beltran (note 3, supra). Do we look at the reasonable Christian Scientist? The reasonable person, irrespective of religion? 

Consider additional fact changes. If Walker was raised within her church, and had never obtained Western medical care nor been educated about its benefits, should a court take these facts into consideration when determining guilt? What if, instead, if Walker could not afford medical treatment. Should a court take into account her financial situation?

3.    Criminal Negligence. The standard applied in California (and almost everywhere else today) is not ordinary negligence but criminal negligence. As the California Supreme Court put it, criminal negligence is “aggravated, culpable, gross, or reckless” such that the conduct is such a departure from that of an ordinary person “as to be incompatible with a proper regard for human life.” In criminal law, the phrase “gross negligence” is sometimes used interchangeably with "criminal negligence."  

4.    Objective and Subjective. Part of the criminal negligence standard, as discussed above, is objective in asking about the conduct of an ordinary (reasonable) person. However, there is also a subjective component. This excerpt from renowned jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, explains:

The test of foresight is not what this very criminal foresaw, but what a man of reasonable prudence would have foreseen.

On the other hand, there must be actual present knowledge of the present facts which make an act dangerous. The act is not enough by itself. * * *

* * * For instance, if a workman on a house-top at mid-day knows that the space below him is a street in a great city, he knows facts from which a man of common understanding would infer that there were people passing below. He is therefore bound to draw that inference, or, in other words, is chargeable with knowledge of that fact also, whether he draws the inference or not. If, then, he throws down a heavy beam into the street, he does an act which a person of ordinary prudence would foresee is likely to cause death, or grievous bodily harm, and he is dealt with as if he foresaw it, whether he does so or not. O.W. Holmes, Jr., The Common Law 53–55 (1881).

5.    The Model Penal Code. Consider the Model Penal Code’s definition of negligence in § 2.02(2)(d):

(d)    Negligently. A person acts negligently with respect to a material element of an offense when he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the actor’s failure to perceive it, considering the nature and purpose of his conduct and the circumstances known to him, involves a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the actor’s situation

Does the MPC contain a subjective component, as well? If Walker were tried in a MPC jurisdiction, what form of homicide would she be guilty of (if any)? (See MPC Sections 210-210.4)

6.    What to Charge? Prosecutors are planning to bring homicide charges against D after her 10-month-old son died in a vehicle parked outside her home last June. D admitted to having left her son in the car for an hour while her son’s father, who did not reside with them, came to visit. While her son was inside the car, the outside temperature rose to 89 degrees, making it over 100 degrees inside the vehicle. An autopsy confirmed that her son's body temperature had been dangerously elevated. D also admitted to having smoked marijuana the day of her son’s death.

You are a law clerk in the District Attorney’s office. Consider how these facts might support prosecution under the statutes below, and advise the prosecution on how to proceed.

MS Code § 97-3-19 (2014)

(1) The killing of a human being without the authority of law by any means or in any manner shall be murder in the following cases:…

(b) When done in the commission of an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved heart, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual, shall be second-degree murder;…

MS Code § 97-3-47 (2013)

Every other killing of a human being, by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, and without authority of law, not provided for in this title, shall be manslaughter.

7.    A True Hypothetical. One particularly complex illustration of the complicated relationship between parental autonomy and criminal negligence arises when parents avoid taking children for medical care because they fear loss of custody. Between 1958 and 1967, the Child Welfare League of America campaigned to remove Native-American children from their families and place them with white families. Deb Haaland, My grandparents were stolen from their families as children. We must learn about this history, Wash. Post (Jun. 25, 2021). During this period of time, between 25-35% of Native children were removed from their families; of those, 85% were placed outside of their communities, even if relatives were fit and willing to take in the children. Id. (In Summer 2021, the discovery of the graves of over 315 Indigenous children on the grounds of government residential boarding schools in Canada catalyzed a reckoning with the child-removal policies that marked official government policies in both the United States and Canada. For more background, see  My grandparents were stolen from their families as children. We must learn about this history).

Case study: H and W have a son, C (14 months old). Both H and W are Indigenous persons. Neither attended school beyond 6th grade. Between September 1, 1968, and September 12, 1968, C became ill. They noticed that C was sick approximately 2 weeks before C died. He was fussy, could not keep his food down, and had a swollen cheek. C’s cheek swelling went up and down, but did not disappear. His cheek also turned a bluish color. They suspected C had a toothache and provided aspirin in hopes of improving C’s condition. H had heard that neither doctors nor dentists would pull a tooth out when it’s “swollen up like that,” but also said he and W did not take C to a medical doctor because they feared that the Welfare Department would take C away from them. H and W said that H’s cousin lost a child that way.

C died on September 12, 1968. An autopsy revealed that C had an abscessed tooth that developed into an infection of the mouth and cheeks, eventually becoming gangrenous. Experts testified that stated that the odor generally associated with gangrene would have been present for approximately 10 days before C’s death. The experts also stated that if medical care had been obtained in the last week before C’s death, such care would have been obtained too late to save C’s life. (See State v. Williams, 4 Wash.App 908, 484 P.2d 1167 (1971).

Were you the defense lawyer on appeal for the convictions in State v. Williams, can you think of a way to use this background to argue that your clients should have been found non-negligent, and therefore not guilty? 

If you would acquit H and W, would you do so under the same facts, save that the parents decided against taking their child to the doctor because they lacked proof of citizenship? Because they lacked health insurance?