California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Allen, A148658 (Cal. App. 2018):
" 'When the defendant or his accomplice, with a conscious disregard for life, intentionally commits an act that is likely to cause death, and his victim or a police officer kills in reasonable response to such act, the defendant is guilty of murder.' " (People v. Cervantes (2001) 26 Cal.4th 860, 868.) " '[T]he victim's self-defensive killing or the police officer's killing in the performance of his duty cannot be considered an independent intervening cause for which the defendant is not liable, for it is a reasonable response to the dilemma thrust upon the victim or the policeman by the intentional act of the defendant or his accomplice.' " (Ibid.) In contrast, "no criminal liability attaches to an initial remote actor for an unlawful killing that results from an independent intervening cause (i.e., a superseding cause)." (Ibid.) Thus " '[t]he free, deliberate, and informed intervention of a second person, who intends to exploit the situation created by the first, but is not acting in concert with him, is normally held to relieve the first actor of criminal responsibility.' " (Id. at p. 871.)
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II. Analysis
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