What is this? I saw Law & Order last night and a guy who shot a woman might have gotten off from a murder charge because of an intervening cause. A doctor had committed malpractice or something like that when he wanted to get a kidney to a hospital that offered him a job so he gave a woman who was pronounced braindead a painkiller to remove her organs. While she was alive she was basically brain dead and legally dead. The guy who shot the woman was getting off because of this act by the doctor. What does it mean?