Ett bortglömt brottsoffer - Om svårigheterna med bedömningen av en anstiftares ansvar vid gärningspersonens error in persona

Sammanfattning: The discussion regarding a long-debated legal phenomenon, aberratio ictus, reached its climax in the year of 2022. During that year, the Supreme Court granted leave to appeal in a case concerning just this; an individual had persuaded one or more shooters to kill a person, after which the perpetrator mistakenly confused the target with another person. To further complicate an already complex issue, the person who was inadvertently killed was a friend of the instigator. The legal question regarding the instigator's responsibility in such a situation was left unanswered in Swedish legal precedent. A case like this had never before reached the highest instance, but the legal situation would now be clarified. Historically, two main models have offered different ways to resolve a situation like this. The first is called the speciality model and involves treating situations of aberratio ictus as attempts of intentional crimes concerning the intended target, combined with a negligent crime against the actual victim. The instigator of such a crime is thus held responsible for the specific intent he had at the time of the crime. The opposing model is called the equivalence model, whereby the perpetrator's intent is instead linked to the necessary prerequisites set out in the legal text. The paragraph regulating murder is generally formulated as "whoever deprives another of life..." and thus does not require a specific person but only that the objects in a criminal law sense are equivalent. In other words, the equivalence model requires, spoken in simplified terms, that an instigator has intent for a murder to be committed, and if the instigated perpetrator murders another person, the instigator can still be held responsible for this. The case brought to trial in the Supreme Court has been extensively discussed in the lower instances; arguments for and against the different models have been interchanged with legal principles, foreign rulings, and other creative solutions. The District Court considered that the situation constituted a case of aberratio ictus to be assessed according to the equivalence model. According to their assessment, the instigator could not be held responsible for the death of the friend. Still, the Court of Appeal disagreed, preferring the speciality model. The Court of Appeal believed it had found the solution in a legal case from Germany ruled over a hundred years ago. The Supreme Court partially agreed with the German solution but still overturned the Court of Appeal's judgment. That said, the Supreme Court was not in full agreement with the District Court, even though consensus now is that the equivalence model is applied in similar situations. In this essay, the proposed solutions are analyzed using the legal dogmatic method to determine whether the solution presented by the Supreme Court is satisfactory or not. The pros and cons of the various judgments and solution models are weighed against each other, and my conclusion is that the only acceptable approach in a modern legal state is to prioritize the rights of crime victims to redress and compensation when that possibility exists. The lack of a crime victim perspective in the Supreme Court's judgment is noticeable. For that reason and several others I find, contrary to the Supreme Court's decision, that the specialty model should be used in cases like this. The instigator should be held accountable for - and be convicted for - the crimes he has caused. Historically, two main models have offered different ways to resolve a situation like this. The first is called the speciality model and involves treating situations of aberratio ictus as attempts of intentional crimes concerning the intended target, combined with a negligent crime against the actual victim. The instigator of such a crime is thus held responsible for the specific intent he had at the time of the crime. The opposing model is called the equivalence model, whereby the perpetrator's intent is instead linked to the necessary prerequisites set out in the legal text. The paragraph regulating murder is generally formulated as "whoever deprives another of life..." and thus does not require a specific person but only that the objects in a criminal law sense are equivalent. In other words, the equivalence model requires, spoken in simplified terms, that an instigator has intent for a murder to be committed, and if the instigated perpetrator murders another person, the instigator can still be held responsible for this. The case brought to trial in the Supreme Court has been extensively discussed in the lower instances; arguments for and against the different models have been interchanged with legal principles, foreign rulings, and other creative solutions. The District Court considered that the situation constituted a case of aberratio ictus to be assessed according to the equivalence model. According to their assessment, the instigator could not be held responsible for the death of the friend. Still, the Court of Appeal disagreed, preferring the speciality model. The Court of Appeal believed it had found the solution in a legal case from Germany ruled over a hundred years ago. The Supreme Court partially agreed with the German solution but still overturned the Court of Appeal's judgment. That said, the Supreme Court was not in full 4 agreement with the District Court, even though consensus now is that the equivalence model is applied in similar situations. This essay analyses the resolution models mentioned to determine whether the solution presented by the Supreme Court is satisfactory or not. My conclusion is that the only acceptable approach in a modern legal state is to prioritize the crime victim's right to redemption and compensation when that option exists. For this and several other reasons, contrary to the Supreme Court's decision, the speciality model should be used in cases like this. The instigator should be convicted of the crimes he caused.