A man on trial for the murder of his father blames inept medical care--not the son's gunshots--for the man's death. The defense attorney for Alex Crank Jr. tells jurors the bullets were "non-fatal" and that a "second medical emergency" was what killed the victim. This sounds like a fact pattern for a criminal law class exam.
When the victim died 10 days after getting shot, the DA's office upgraded the charges from attempted murder to murder. I know that in tort law, ineffective medical treatment is a foreseeable consequence of the tortious conduct, and I'm pretty sure it's the same in criminal law.
Also, an interesting angle to the punishment phase of the trial: As the Express-News and KSAT point out in their stories, the defendant is ineligible for community supervision, thanks to a recent change in state law that forbids probation for defendants convicted of murder, even if it is their first felony.
Hat tip: Man O' Law, who tells the defense attorney nice try, but "Your client will be convicted, he will lose his appeal and then you will [be wrongly] blamed for rendering ineffective assistance of counsel in a post-conviction writ."
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