## Facts

- Lucy Ann Mink was engaged to Charles Ricker.
- In Lowell, Massachusetts, Ricker died from a pistol shot fired from a weapon in Mink’s hand.
- Mink’s evidence tended to show Ricker told her he would break off the engagement and abandon her.
- Mink retrieved a pistol from her trunk and put it to herself intending to kill herself.
- Ricker seized Mink to stop the suicide, and the two struggled over the pistol.
- During the struggle, the pistol discharged and fatally wounded Ricker.
- Mink argued the shooting was an excusable accident because the discharge was unintended during Ricker’s intervention.

## Issues

1. Whether attempted suicide is an “unlawful act” sufficient to support unlawful-act involuntary manslaughter when a bystander is unintentionally killed during the attempt.
2. Whether an unintended killing that occurs during a struggle prompted by the defendant’s attempted suicide may be treated as excusable accident rather than criminal homicide.

## Decision

- Mink was convicted of manslaughter after the trial court instructed that attempted suicide is a criminal, unlawful act and that a death caused in the course of that act is at least manslaughter.
- The Supreme Judicial Court overruled Mink’s exceptions and let the manslaughter conviction stand.
- The court accepted that suicide is a crime recognized by law and that an attempt to commit suicide is likewise unlawful.
- Because Mink was engaged in an unlawful act, the accidental discharge did not render the killing excusable.

## Legal Principles

- A homicide unintentionally caused in the course of committing an unlawful act constitutes at least manslaughter under the unlawful-act theory of involuntary manslaughter.
- Suicide is treated as criminal at common law as recognized in Massachusetts; an attempt to commit suicide is also criminal and unlawful.
- A bystander may lawfully interfere, including by using force, to prevent an attempted suicide.
- A killing is not excusable accident when the defendant’s conduct at the time was unlawful and directly generated the dangerous circumstances producing death.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a manslaughter conviction where the defendant, while attempting suicide, unintentionally killed another during a struggle to prevent the attempt, holding that attempted suicide is an unlawful act that can supply the predicate for unlawful-act involuntary manslaughter and defeats an excusable-accident claim.


Commonwealth v. Mink, 123 Mass. 422 (1877)