ProfessorScott Caron
CaseCast™ – "What you need to know"
Brief Fact Summary. Defendant Jones was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter of his friend’s 10-month-old baby where he failed to provide for the child and such failure resulted in the child’s death.
Synopsis of Rule of Law. Where a penal statute does not impose a legal duty to perform a particular action, criminal liability for the omission of such action only arises where legal duty is imposed by some other law.
The law recognizes that under some circumstances the omission of a duty owed by one individual to another, where such omission results in the death of the one to whom the duty is owing, will make the other chargeable with manslaughter.
View Full Point of LawIssue. Was failure to instruct the jury that it must find beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant was under a legal duty to provide for the child plain error?
Held. Yes. Judgment reversed and remanded.
Omission of an act is only punishable where the duty neglected is a legal duty and not merely a moral obligation.
A legal duty can be imposed by statue, by virtue of relationship to another, where one has assumed a contractual duty to care for another and where one has volunteered to care for another and in doing so secluded the person in manner that prevents others from rendering aid.
Discussion. This case reflect the position taken by the Model Penal Code that liability for failure to act may only be imposed where the person who failed to act had a legal duty to perform such act. It also illustrates the difficulty of convicting a person of failure to protect a child where that person is not a child’s parent or guardian