## Facts

- Barry Warren Kibbe, a New York state prisoner, was convicted after a Monroe County (New York) jury trial of second-degree murder (depraved indifference), second-degree robbery, and third-degree grand larceny.
- On December 30, 1970, Kibbe and codefendant Roy Krall met George Stafford in a Rochester bar; Stafford was heavily intoxicated and displayed a $100 bill.
- After Stafford sought a ride out of town, Kibbe and Krall offered transportation, having already decided to rob him.
- After visiting additional bars, they drove on an unlit rural highway during cold, windy, snowy conditions.
- Kibbe demanded Stafford’s money, forced Stafford to remove clothing and boots, and Kibbe and Krall left him partially undressed, without glasses, on the roadside.
- Roughly 20–30 minutes later, a truck driven by Michael Blake struck Stafford, who was in the roadway; Stafford died from massive injuries.
- At trial, causation was contested: the defense argued the truck driver’s conduct was a superseding cause breaking the causal chain from defendants’ abandonment to Stafford’s death.
- The trial judge read the statutory language requiring that the defendant’s reckless conduct “thereby causes” death and charged generally on proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but gave no explanation of causation, proximate cause, or intervening/superseding causes.
- Defense counsel did not object to the omission.
- After state appellate affirmance, Kibbe sought federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254; the district court denied relief, and Kibbe appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court’s failure to give an explanatory instruction on causation of death, including intervening or superseding causes, violated due process by allowing conviction without a jury finding on every element beyond a reasonable doubt.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit reversed the denial of habeas relief in part.
- The court held the murder charge’s causation element was legally and factually central and that the instructions allowed the jury to disregard the defendant’s causation defense.
- The court concluded the omission created an unconstitutional risk that the jury did not find beyond a reasonable doubt that Kibbe’s conduct caused Stafford’s death.
- The court granted the writ as to the murder conviction, leaving the robbery and grand larceny convictions intact.
- The court rejected additional claims, including a Fourth Amendment challenge to seized evidence.

## Legal Principles

- Due process requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of a charged offense, and the jury must actually determine each element.
- When an element is materially disputed and depends on a technical legal standard (such as criminal proximate causation in the face of intervening acts), merely reading statutory language and giving generic reasonable-doubt instructions may be insufficient.
- A jury instruction that omits guidance on a contested element can violate due process if it permits jurors to treat the element as assumed or irrelevant, rather than resolved under the governing legal standard.
- Federal habeas relief may be granted where a state-court conviction rests on jury instructions that, viewed in context, allow conviction without a constitutionally required finding on an essential element.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit granted partial habeas relief, holding that the failure to instruct the jury on causation and intervening causes in a contested depraved-indifference murder case violated due process because it permitted a murder conviction without a reliable jury finding that the defendant’s conduct legally caused the victim’s death.


Kibbe v. Henderson, 534 F.2d 493 (2d Cir. 1976)