## Facts

- An early-morning explosion and fire occurred in a Waterbury building, killing two boys who were tenants’ children.
- Title to the building was in the name of Louis Leopold’s wife; furniture was stored there by a corporation in which Leopold was the majority stockholder.
- The State alleged Leopold, with a co-defendant, arranged for a third person to set the fire to collect insurance on the building and stored furniture; the alleged arsonist died in the fire.
- During the fire, the boys and their father attempted to save property from the building; the boys died from burns.
- Leopold sought to avoid criminal responsibility by claiming the boys’ conduct, and the father’s conduct in sending them back to retrieve property, broke the causal chain from the arson to the deaths.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in denying a change of venue based on claimed local prejudice from newspaper coverage.
2. Whether references at trial to other fires and a prosecutor’s remark required a mistrial or new trial due to unfair prejudice.
3. Whether the victims’ and the father’s conduct constituted an independent intervening cause that relieved Leopold of liability for homicide resulting from the arson.

## Decision

- The conviction for second-degree murder was affirmed.
- The denial of a change of venue was upheld because the record did not show an abuse of discretion or inability to obtain a fair trial.
- The denial of mistrial and new-trial motions was upheld; the challenged references and argument were not sufficiently prejudicial in context, and any prejudice was addressed by the court’s handling of the incidents.
- The trial court did not err in refusing instructions that treated the victims’ and father’s actions as an intervening cause; those actions were treated as natural responses to the fire and not a superseding cause.

## Legal Principles

- A change of venue in a criminal case is committed to the trial court’s discretion and will not be disturbed absent a clear abuse of that discretion.
- In homicide prosecutions based on an unlawful act or culpable negligence, the prosecution need not prove the victim exercised due care; the victim’s contributory negligence is not a defense.
- The defendant’s act need not be the immediate cause of death; liability remains when the direct cause includes an act of the victim or a third party that is not an independent, efficient cause and instead results naturally from, and is reasonably attributable to, the defendant’s unlawful act.
- Victims’ efforts to save property during a fire, and a parent’s direction to retrieve property, may be treated as foreseeable, ordinary reactions that do not break causation between the arson and resulting deaths.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed Leopold’s second-degree murder conviction arising from an arson that killed two children, holding that foreseeable, reactive conduct by victims and others during the emergency did not constitute a superseding cause, and also finding no reversible error in the venue ruling or in the trial court’s refusal to grant a mistrial or new trial.


State v. Leopold, 110 Conn. 55, 147 A. 118 (Conn. 1929)