| Court: | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
| Facts: | An old fellow wanders out of the retirement home and freezes to death. The home was understaffed, and possibly this made it hard to know who was wandering in and out at any given time. |
| Posture: | Found guilty at trial. Court of Appeals reverses |
| Issue: | Was the evidence sufficient to support a conviction of homicide by reckless conduct? How about twelve counts of abuse? |
| Holding: | Insufficient for homicide; the abuse stuff is edited out. |
| Rule: | In order to have recklessness, the conduct needs to be a substantial factor in causing the death. |
| Reasoning: | It's not clear that just having more staff would have caused the victim's escape to be detected. The door would not have been made more visible, and there's no proof that bed checks would have been more extensive. |
| Dicta: | |