## Facts

- Joseph A. Bailey and Gordon E. Murdock had a history of hostile citizens band radio disputes.
- On May 21, 1983, both men were intoxicated; Murdock’s blood alcohol content was .271%.
- Murdock was legally blind, possessed a handgun, and was easily agitated; Bailey knew of Murdock’s visual impairment, intoxication, volatility, and access to a firearm.
- During an extended radio argument, Bailey taunted Murdock and repeatedly demanded that Murdock arm himself and wait on his front porch for a confrontation.
- Bailey anonymously called police reporting a man at Murdock’s address “waving a gun”; officers responded but found no one on the porch.
- Bailey resumed the radio exchange, again urged Murdock to go onto the porch with his gun, then made a second anonymous call reporting the man was on the porch threatening to “shoot up everything in the neighborhood.”
- Three officers responded, observed Murdock on the porch with a shiny object nearby, and ordered him to move away from it.
- Murdock instead grabbed the gun, advanced toward an officer, and fired; officers returned fire and fatally shot Murdock.
- Bailey was indicted and convicted by a jury of involuntary manslaughter; the trial court imposed the jury’s sentence, and Bailey appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether evidence was sufficient to treat Bailey’s conduct as criminal negligence that proximately caused Murdock’s death, despite Bailey’s absence from the scene and police firing the fatal shots.
2. Whether Murdock’s decision to shoot and the officers’ return fire were independent, intervening causes that broke causation.
3. Whether Bailey could be treated as a principal in the first degree under an “innocent or unwitting agent” theory when the officers pulled the trigger.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the involuntary manslaughter conviction.
- The court held the jury could find Bailey’s conduct was gross criminal negligence and a proximate (or concurring) cause of death.
- The court held Murdock’s and the officers’ actions were reasonably foreseeable consequences of Bailey’s conduct and did not break the causal chain.
- The court held Bailey could be treated as a principal in the first degree because he effected the criminal act through innocent or unwitting agents (the officers responding to false reports).

## Legal Principles

- In involuntary manslaughter, criminal liability may attach where the defendant’s gross negligence proximately causes death even if another person inflicts the fatal injury.
- An intervening act that is reasonably foreseeable does not supersede the defendant’s negligence or break proximate causation in a homicide prosecution.
- One who effects a criminal act through an innocent or unwitting agent is a principal in the first degree.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Bailey’s involuntary manslaughter conviction because his deliberate provocation of an intoxicated, visually impaired armed man and his false reports to police foreseeably produced an armed police response and a fatal shooting, and the officers’ actions were treated as the conduct of unwitting agents rather than superseding causes.


Bailey v. Commonwealth, 229 Va. 258, 329 S.E.2d 37 (Va. 1985)