[troutman]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/b...egal-causation

Legal causation defined

To raise doubt about the claim that Chauvin's actions caused Floyd's death, the defense would need to give the jurors reason to think Floyd's death was an accident or was caused by something other than Chauvin's actions.

An action legally causes a harmful outcome only if it passes what is also known as the but-for test. If it is true that but for the action, the harm would not have occurred, then the action is said to be an actual cause of the harm.

An action is relevant to legal culpability only if it’s a proximate cause, which means that the action is deemed temporally and spatially close enough to the harmful outcome in an "unbroken chain of events."

A standard test of whether an action is a proximate cause is reasonable foreseeability. A harmful outcome is reasonably foreseeable if that outcome could reasonably have been predicted.

For Chauvin's actions to have caused Floyd's death, they must pass the but-for test. To determine whether they pass the but-for test, we can ask, "Is it true that Floyd would not have died when he did but for Chauvin's actions?"

It does not seem reasonable to doubt that Floyd would have died on that fatal day, had Chauvin not performed the actions he did. It seems, then, that Chauvin's actions were an actual cause of Floyd's death.

But proving actual causation does not suffice for establishing legal causation. The prosecution must also prove that Chauvin's actions were a proximate cause of Floyd's death. One way to establish that his actions were a proximate cause of Floyd's death is to show that Floyd's death could reasonably have been predicted to occur as a result of Chauvin's actions.

To determine reasonable foreseeability, we can ask, "Could Floyd's death reasonably have been predicted to occur as a result of Chauvin's actions?"

The answer, it seems, is "yes." Not only could Floyd's death reasonably have been predicted to occur, but there was, in fact, broad agreement among the prosecution's witnesses that Chauvin was going to kill Floyd. So, it is hard to see how the defense will go about raising reasonable doubt about the claim that Chauvin's actions caused Floyd's death.