Is Alan liable for murder of the homeless man? Murder is a homicidecommitted with malice aforethought without justification, excuse or mitigation.
Homicideis the death of a human being caused by another.
Here, we have the death of the homeless man that was sleeping in the shed. It was caused by another as it wasn’t a suicide act by the homeless men and he died by the fire set up by Alan. Therefore, there is a homicide.
Causation The defendant's action must be the actual and proximate cause of the victim’s death. But for Alan’s smoldering the shed, the winds would not have picked up the sparks and burned the shed. The winds are a foreseeable intervening cause of Alan’s action and will not cut off his liability. Thus, proximate cause is also established.
Malice exists if the defendant acted with intent to kill,intent to cause serious bodily injury, wanton or willful disregard to human life, or if killing was committed during the commision of a dangerous felony.
Here, Brian raised the possibility that someone might be in the shed and get hurt. Alan was negligent, because he concluded that probably no one will be there at night. It is a sports equipment shed at school that gets closed at night and no one is expected to be there. For malice to exist the reckless conduct must involve a substantial or very high degree of risk to human life. Alan’s negligence is unlikely to rise to that level. However, the death resulted due to the burning of the shed, which Alan is liable for. Therefore, malice can be established through felony murder rule. The underlying felony, arson, is an inherently dangerous felony and death is a foreseeable result of the commission of that felony. Alan will argue that he was not in the commission of the felony when the homeless man died. That he was long gone and left the school two hours earlier. However, he smoldered the shed and left it smoldering. He started the events that led to the burning and he is likely liable for arson. Therefore, the prosecution will be able to establish malice through felony murder rule.
Conclusion: Alan will be liable for murder of the homeless man, because he died as a result of the arson commited by Alan.
