4.1.2: Lawful Homicide

Excusable Homicide, as defined in section 195 of the California Penal Code states a homicide is excusable in the following cases:

(1) When committed by accident and misfortune, or in doing any other lawful act by lawful means, with usual and ordinary caution, and without any unlawful intent.

(2) When committed by accident and misfortune, in the heat of passion, upon any sudden and sufficient provocation, or upon a sudden combat, when no undue advantage is taken, nor any dangerous weapon used, and when the killing is not done in a cruel or unusual manner.²⁹

Justifiable Homicide

Homicide is also justifiable when committed by any person in any of the following cases:

(1) When resisting any attempt to murder any person, or to commit a felony, or to do some great bodily injury upon any person.

(2) When committed in defense of habitation, property, or person, against one who manifestly intends or endeavors, by violence or surprise, to commit a felony, or against one who manifestly intends and endeavors, in a violent, riotous, or tumultuous manner, to enter the habitation of another for the purpose of offering violence to any person therein.

(3) When committed in the lawful defense of such person, or of a spouse, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant of such person, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony or to do some great bodily injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished; but such person, or the person in whose behalf the defense was made, if he or she was the assailant or engaged in mutual combat, must really and in good faith have endeavored to decline any further struggle before the homicide was committed.

(4) When necessarily committed in attempting, by lawful ways and means, to apprehend any person for any felony committed, or in lawfully suppressing any riot, or in lawfully keeping and preserving the peace.³⁰

Proximate Cause

In law, a proximate cause is an event sufficiently related to an injury that the courts deem the event to be the cause of that injury. There are two types of causation in the law: cause-in-fact, and proximate (or legal) cause. Cause-in-fact is determined by the "but for" test: But for the action, the result would not have happened. (For example, but for running the red light, the collision would not have occurred.) The action is a necessary condition, but may not be a sufficient condition, for the resulting injury. A few circumstances exist where the but-for test is ineffective (see But-for test below). Since but-for causation is extremely easy to show (but for stopping to tie your shoe, you would not have missed the train and would not have been mugged).

A second test is used to determine if an action is close enough to harm in a "chain of events" to be legally valid. This test is called proximate cause. Proximate cause is a key principle of insurance and is concerned with how the loss or damage actually occurred. There are several competing theories of proximate cause. For an act to be deemed to cause a harm, both tests must be met; proximate cause is a legal limitation on cause-in-fact.³¹

Case Study - Larrisa Shuster

Larissa Schuster is an American convicted murderer who was sentenced to life, in prison, without parole. In 2008, she murdered her estranged husband, Timothy Schuster, by submerging his body in hydrochloric acid. Due to the unusual manner in which she committed the murder, Larissa's case made national headlines. She has been dubbed "the Acid Lady." While working at a nursing home, Larissa met Timothy Schuster, who was attending nursing school. In 1982, the couple married. They had a daughter, Kristin, in 1985, followed by a son, Tyler, in 1990. In 1989, the family moved west to Fresno, California, where Larissa took a job at an agricultural research lab. She later went on to open her own laboratory, Central California Research Labs. The family was able to move to a larger home in Clovis, California in 2000. By 2001, she was earning twice Tim's annual salary.

By 2001, the Schuster marriage had deteriorated. In February 2002, Larissa filed for divorce, which proved to be acrimonious. Larissa and Tim fought over custody of their son Tyler and the splitting of their joint assets. Larissa was eventually awarded primary custody of Tyler and was allowed to stay in the couple's house. Tim moved into a condominium, but in August 2002, Larissa and her lab assistant James Fagone broke into Tim's home to retrieve some of her belongings. Larissa reportedly stated to her friend, Terri Lopez: "Well, I want [my husband] dead. You don't understand. I could do it and get away with it."

On the morning of July 10, 2003, Tim Schuster was supposed to meet with a co-worker for breakfast but had apparently missed the appointment. Later that day, he was supposed to retrieve his son from Larissa, but he never showed up. Larissa immediately became the prime suspect in her estranged husband's disappearance. She was initially interviewed by the Clovis Police Department but was not charged. Despite her husband being missing, Larissa and her son took a planned vacation to Disney World and then to Missouri. In the meantime, police interviewed Larissa's co-worker James Fagone, who was more forthcoming in his interrogation. During his police interrogation, James Fagone revealed that he and Larissa Schuster were responsible for the disappearance and murder of Timothy Schuster. James admitted that on the night of July 9, 2003, he and Larissa lured Tim from his home. The pair then used chloroform and a stun gun to incapacitate Tim, then disposed of his unconscious body in a 55-gallon barrel. They attempted to dissolve his body with hydrochloric acid. Larissa Schuster was arrested for first-degree murder at the St. Louis Airport.

James Fagone, who had also been charged with first-degree murder as well as kidnapping, went to trial in November 2006. His defense was that Larissa Schuster was the mastermind of Timothy Schuster's murder, and that he only acted as an accessory to murder after the fact under duress, maintaining that Larissa had threatened his life. Defense testimony came from James' friends, co-workers, and Larissa's friend Terri Lopez, all of whom stated that Larissa was a very controlling and forceful person. However, James had already confessed to the crime, which he had unsuccessfully tried to recant. Jurors were shown the video of James' police interrogation, where he is shown saying: "I held the barrel for her, put him in, poured all the solution and she like couldn't stand it. So, she said, put it on, the lid on. So, I helped her put the lid on and she put it in the shed." Although James Fagone was acquitted of kidnapping, he was found guilty of first-degree murder, and despite jurors' pleas for leniency, he was sentenced to life without parole.

Larissa Schuster's murder trial began on October 22, 2007, more than four years after she was charged. Her trial had to be moved from Clovis, California to Los Angeles due to the pre-trial publicity. She had been dubbed the "Acid Lady" by various media outlets in Fresno. Prosecutors had alleged to the jury that Larissa Schuster had attempted to solicit Tim's murder before, believing that she could get away with it. They also played graphic and berating phone messages from Larissa that Tim had saved on his answering machine. Prosecutors also stated how Larissa had access to all the chemicals used in the murder, being that she was a biochemist in a research lab.

Although her accomplice, James Fagone, did not testify in Larissa's trial, Larissa decided to take the witness stand in her own defense. Her attorney admitted that she had made a series of bad decisions, but that she was not guilty of the crime alleged against her. On the stand, Larissa testified how she had no foreknowledge of the murder, and that James Fagone was actually Tim Schuster's killer. She stated that James had told her: "I heard him say something like 'there had been an accident and Tim is dead.' I thought he was joking." She did however, admit to moving Tim's body. When confronted over the phone messages on Tim's answering machine, Larissa replied with: "It is something I'm really ashamed about. You have to realize that is something... a result of many accumulative things." She also maintained that the reason for the substantial amounts of chemicals at her laboratory were not to be used for the murder of Timothy Schuster, but for a wholesale cleaning of the items at the lab. Her testimony proved to have not swayed the jury; she was found guilty of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of financial gain. On May 16, 2008, Larissa Schuster was sentenced to life in prison without parole.³²

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²⁹California Penal Code (2024)

³⁰California Penal Code (2024)

³¹Wikipedia

³²Wikipedia