What is the test for determining whether an act has caused a death?

death or other harm which constitutes the crime.' [Citation.]" (People v. Schmies (1996) 44 Cal.App.4th 38, 46-47.) Under California law, an act has caused a death if the death "is the direct, natural, and probable consequence of the act" and the death would not have happened without the act. (CALCRIM No. 240.) "A natural and probable consequence is one that a reasonable person would know is likely to happen if nothing unusual intervenes." (Ibid.) If the case involves multiple potential causes, the following instruction should also be given: "There may be more than one cause of [death]. An act . . . causes [death], only if it is a substantial factor in causing the [death]. A substantial factor is more than a trivial or remote factor. However, it does not have to be the only factor that causes the [death]."¹⁹ (Ibid.)

Indeed, "[a] defendant may be criminally liable for a result directly caused by his act even if there is another contributing cause. If an intervening cause is a normal and reasonably foreseeable result of defendant's original act the intervening act is 'dependent' and not a superseding cause, and will not relieve defendant of liability. [Citation.] '. . . The consequence need not have been a strong probability; a possible consequence which might reasonably have been contemplated is enough. . . . The precise consequence need not have been foreseen; it is enough that the defendant should have foreseen the possibility of some harm of the kind which might result from his act.' [Citation.]" (People v. Harris (1975) 52 Cal.App.3d 419, 427.)

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