23. If the employee is charged with murder in the first degree, should she be convicted?

D is correct. In this jurisdiction, the use of poison or acting with premeditation may elevate murder from second to first degree. However, murder requires that a killer has acted with malice aforethought, express or implied. Malice exists when a person intends to kill, intends to inflict great bodily harm, intends to commit an inherently dangerous felony, or acts with a reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life. The employee here did not intend to kill or cause serious injury to her boss when the employee dropped laxatives into her boss's coffee; the facts state that the employee only intended to cause her boss discomfort. Moreover, giving her boss laxatives that could be purchased over the counter does not rise to the level of reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life. Therefore, because the employee did not intend to kill, did not intend to cause serious bodily injury, did not act with reckless indifference, and was not in the course of committing a felony, she would not be guilty of any degree of murder.

A is incorrect. Laxatives are not poison, so an employee cannot be guilty of murder just for putting laxatives in coffee.

B is incorrect. As explained above, the employee acted with the intent to cause the boss discomfort, not to kill her.

C is incorrect. The employee lacked the intent to kill the boss, and spiking her boss' coffee with laxatives does not rise to the level of poison.