## Facts

- Dowden went to a police station housing the city jail to free his jailed brother.
- Dowden arrived with a sister-in-law and Clifford Blansett, carrying a rifle and a pistol.
- Dowden entered the station, pointed a gun at officers, and announced he was there to get his brother.
- Captain Danny Gray confronted Dowden, grabbed him, and forced him into a hallway; the door to the adjacent office closed.
- Officer Windham and dispatcher Denton, unable to see the hallway, heard gunfire and believed Dowden had shot Gray.
- During a gunfight through the closed door, Windham fired when the door opened; Windham’s shots struck and killed Captain Gray as Gray came through the doorway.
- Ballistics established that Windham’s bullets, not Dowden’s, caused Gray’s death.
- Dowden gave a statement admitting he entered armed to free his brother and began shooting after an officer lunged at him.
- Dowden was indicted and convicted of capital murder for intentionally killing a known peace officer.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support capital murder when the fatal shots were fired by another officer rather than by Dowden.
2. Whether Texas Penal Code § 6.04(a) causation was satisfied because Gray’s death would not have occurred but for Dowden’s conduct, despite Windham’s intervening shooting.
3. Whether Windham’s act was a concurrent cause “clearly sufficient” to produce the death while Dowden’s conduct was “clearly insufficient,” requiring acquittal or a directed verdict.

## Decision

- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the capital murder conviction.
- The court held the jury could rationally find that Gray’s death would not have occurred but for Dowden’s armed assault and gunfire at the station.
- The court held Windham’s shooting did not break causation under § 6.04(a) because Dowden’s conduct was not “clearly insufficient” to cause the death.
- The trial court did not err in denying a directed verdict based solely on proof that Windham fired the fatal bullets.

## Legal Principles

- Under Texas Penal Code § 6.04(a), an actor is responsible for a result if it would not have occurred but for the actor’s conduct, operating alone or concurrently with another cause, unless the concurrent cause was clearly sufficient to produce the result and the actor’s conduct clearly insufficient.
- A defendant’s intentional, dangerous conduct can satisfy causation for homicide even when a third party fires the fatal shot, if the death is a foreseeable product of the defendant’s conduct and the defendant’s conduct remains a substantial contributing cause.
- A concurrent act by another person responding to the danger created by the defendant does not relieve the defendant of liability when the defendant’s conduct creates the circumstances leading to the lethal response.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Dowden’s capital murder conviction because his armed invasion of the police station and resulting gunfire were a but-for cause of Captain Gray’s death, and the responding officer’s mistaken fatal shooting was a concurrent, foreseeable cause that did not render Dowden’s conduct clearly insufficient under Texas’s statutory causation rule.


Dowden v. State, 758 S.W.2d 264 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988)