## Facts

- Frank R. Johnson and Heather Takak were the parents of an infant, Christina Takak.
- Evidence indicated Takak severely starved Christina, leaving her emaciated.
- Evidence also indicated Takak dropped Christina on her head, causing significant head and brain trauma; Christina died within one to three days.
- The medical examiner testified that both starvation and head trauma were capable of causing Christina’s death.
- The State prosecuted Johnson on an omission theory: as a parent, he had a legal duty to protect Christina and recklessly failed to do so.
- The jury acquitted Johnson of second-degree murder but convicted him of the lesser-included offense of manslaughter.
- On a special verdict form, the jury found the “ultimate cause” of death was head trauma, not starvation.
- Johnson argued the special verdict negated causation if the manslaughter conviction rested on his failure to prevent starvation.

## Issues

1. In a criminal case predicated on recklessness, whether foreseeability for proximate cause may be satisfied by a civil negligence-style “general type of harm” test that does not explicitly account for remoteness.
2. Whether a manslaughter conviction based on an omission to prevent starvation can stand when the jury’s special verdict identified head trauma, not starvation, as the cause of death.

## Decision

- The Alaska Supreme Court vacated the Court of Appeals’ decision and remanded.
- The court held that criminal foreseeability in recklessness cases must include an explicit inquiry into whether the harm was too remote or accidental to impose liability.
- The court ruled the Court of Appeals used an incomplete standard by relying on a broad civil negligence-style foreseeability formulation.
- The court directed further proceedings applying a proximate-cause analysis that accounts for remoteness and potential superseding causes.

## Legal Principles

- Criminal proximate cause for reckless conduct requires more than showing the victim suffered a broadly foreseeable “general type of harm”; the analysis must also consider whether the actual harm is too remote or accidental to fairly attribute to the defendant.
- Foreseeability in criminal law operates with limits tied to remoteness and superseding cause; an intervening event may break causation when it is sufficiently unforeseeable or remote.
- When liability is premised on an omission to perform a legal duty (such as a parent’s duty to protect), the causal nexus between the omission and the death must be established under criminal proximate-cause standards, not civil negligence standards.
- A jury’s special finding on cause of death can constrain the permissible causal theory supporting a homicide conviction and requires careful reconciliation with the State’s omission-based theory.

## Conclusion

The Alaska Supreme Court held that proximate cause in criminal recklessness cases must expressly assess whether the actual fatal harm was too remote or accidental to justify liability, and it remanded for reconsideration of the manslaughter conviction under that standard in light of the jury’s special finding that head trauma was the ultimate cause of death.


Johnson v. State, 224 P.3d 105 (Alaska 2010)