You are pushed off a building and someone shoots you on the way down.....

[GePap]

Intention matters in both cases.

Given that the person died of a gunshot, you could charge the shooter with murder some form of homicide, and the pushed with attempted homicide.

If anyone is hurt or killed when the body hits the ground that is on the pusher.

now the shooter may use some affirmative defense, but I see none for the pusher.

[Blake]

Um. How can you possibly not charge the pusher with murder? How can that be moral? He engaged in a course of action which WILL result in death.

Lets try a topologically similar scenario.

You're chasing the victim through a forest, you have a handgun. You're a bit of a bad shot and he keeps dodging but you have plenty of ammo and victim is rapidly tiring. Then victim runs out onto train tracks and gets hit by a train.

Lets blame the train driver and go home.

Attempted murder is when you engage in a course of action which is intended to result in death, but it fails.

Murder is when you engage in a course of action which is intended to result in death, and death is the result.

Depending precisely on the nature of shooter, the ethical legality might vary.
First is the ACCIDENTAL shooting, shooter was aiming for his wife. In this case Pusher is 100% responsible, it's like chasing the victim in front of the train. Didn't unfold exactly as was planned, but the result is the same. Malicious intent, dead victim.
Then there's the case when shooter is dead set on shooting victim dead. Lets say that pusher is sneaking up on victim, is about to push, when BANG, shooter shoots victim and victim falls off. While Pusher still has the intent, and there is still death, he didn't actually play any part in the process. He is innocent in the eyes of the law at least - MAINLY because of burden of proof (no-one can prove Pusher intended to commit murder), but you'd hardly weep if God decides to punish him anyway. The parallel to this case is when Shooter was going to shoot, then holds fire because Victim is going to die.
And then there's the case where shooter is preparing to shoot victim, and pusher pushes victim, and shooter tracks victim and shoots him anyway. I think in this case both are guilty - both have intent, both used deadly force and victim ends up dead.

Another parallel case would be two people taking part in murder - one gives the victim a lethal overdose, and a little while later the other shoots the victim in the head.
This is not exactly the same as one person putting ducttape over victims mouth, then another person coming in later and pinches shut victims nose. While both actions were required to result in victims death, Tapeman can't really be said to be guilty of homicide. He's probably guilty of SOMETHING but Noseman is definitely the murderer - if not for Noseman's actions, Victim would definitely have lived. (Of course if Noseman is a ****** with a morbid fascination for pinching noses, and if Tapeman knew this and set everything up, then Tapeman is the murderer)


Getting back to pusher and shooter.
Maybe it would be best to look at it from the perspective of capitalism most holy and sacred, hail money!
Pusher and Shooter are bounty hunters. Pusher prefers to get up close and personal and giggle insanely, Shooter prefers a sniper rifle and cool shades. They've both accepted a contract to kill Victim, and whoever makes the kill gets paid.

Pusher pushes while shooter shoots and victim ends up dead. Which one do you pay? Or do you halve the bounty?
I say that you give them each half the bounty - they both went through all the motions and ensured the death of Victim which is what the contract was for. You might even pay them both full, or half, but add a bonus - for a job well done - like Victim wont be about to fake his death after a double dose of lethal force.
Then again depending on the evidence you might decide to not pay shooter at all - like say both use cameras, Pusher has a camera mounted to his helmet and you see him sneak up and push then see Victim falling to his death arms flailing. A job well done.
Shooter has a gun-cam, and on gun-cam you see Victim's flailing, falling body gain some new holes.

Given the solid evidence, you probably wouldn't pay Shooter. Or maybe you'd pay his costs for "trying", or for "ensuring death". But clearly he mainly just wasted his time and is trying to waste your money, Pusher beat him to the punch. Shooter may as well have shot the dead body for all the good he did. Maybe you'd give Pusher 2/3rds and Shooter 1/3rd.

If the evidence was less clear, like a body with bullet holes and mangled by a fall is the only evidence, then you'd have to do things as fairly as possible and say "Look, I don't know whether shooter shot him then pusher pushed him off the building, or if pusher pushed him then shooter shot him and you guys didn't wear cameras, so I'm just going to have to give you half the bounty each", or maybe you'd give shooter most the money and pusher nothing or little, because the evidence was clear that Shooter HAD shot victim with his sniper rifle, while Pusher could be lying about being the one who pushed - like maybe Victim just fell off after being shot.

Regardless, with full evidence available, I say that Pusher is the most guilty one.

[GePap]

Criminal law is not built around "morality" as much as you want to claim.

Given the facts, the pusher DID NOT KILL the person. The shooter did. now, it was the intention of the pusher to kill, but intention gets you only so far. You need a body to have homicide. And when the Medical examiner comes and says : guy died before hitting the ground, well, how could you pin the death on the pusher?

All the other specualtion you lay out is rather irrelevant.

Criminal law is a set of statues. You can;t be guilty of homicide if you did not cause the death intentionally, recklessly, or through negligence. Again, guy died of a gunshot, not because he hit the ground.

You can certainly charge the pusher with attempted murder, and perhaps a slew of other crimes depending on the locality.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Wezil
It is a classic law school question. Variants of this have been around for awhile.

The best version:

On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald
Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head.
The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten-story building
intending to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his
despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was
interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him
instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a
safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect
some window washers and that Opus would not have been able to
complete his suicide anyway because of this.

Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, a person who sets out to commit
suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not
be what he intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain
death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode
of death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicidal
intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner
to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. The room on the
ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by and
elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was
threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he
pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and pellets went
through the window striking Opus. When one intends to kill
subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the
murder of subject B.

When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were
both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The
old man said it was his long standing habit to threaten his wife
with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her -
therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident. That
is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old
couple’s son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to
the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off
her son’s financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of
his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with
the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case
now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of
Ronald Opus.

There was an exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that
the son, one Ronald Opus, had become increasingly despondent over
the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother’s murder. This
led him to jump off the ten- story building on March 23, only to
be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window.

The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

[Wezil]

That is the exact case from Magnolia.

[Darius871]

I don't need to watch no stinkin ripoff.

[Wezil]

I never saw the original.....

[Darius871]

I don't think it was a remake of anything, I just mean if the stories are identical as you say, the writers totally ripped off Don Harper Mills.

[Lancer]

The faller is guilty. Obviously he had it coming.

[Darius871]

So the abusive husband should get off scot-free?

[Lancer]

What?

[Darius871]

Actually, the banana was the culprit.

[Lancer]

Potassium poisoning!

[Darius871]

Plus polonium!

[Lancer]

I was just wondering what to have for breakfast.