Cory Goodine Case Study

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Fear often invokes the fight or flight syndrome in which we are compelled to either battle the fear firsthand or to run from the source of the fear despite the consequences. In the case of Cory Goodine, being witness to the unforeseen murder of Jason Boyd by none other than his own friend Todd Johnston sent a ripple of fear and shock through his body and paralyzed his mind resulting in the unfortunate events following the murder. Cory Goodine should not have been charged with accessory after the fact and/or aiding and abetting because the murder was not a conspiracy, he was in shock and terrified, and he was simply acting in self-defence. Nonetheless, some may argue that he did still aid Johnston’ although he did not have much of a choice given …show more content…

A conspiracy is generally defined as an agreement made between two or more people to commit an unlawful act intentionally. In Cory Goodine’s case, he had absolutely no idea what he would witness when he agreed to go for a drive with Todd Johnston, therefore during the court proceedings following the murder, Goodine was able to demonstrate that he was oblivious to what Johnston had planned. This is evident when he explains that “Shortly before 2.00 pm that day, Mr. Johnston telephoned Mr. Goodine at his home in Perth-Andover and asked Mr. Goodine to accompany him as Mr. Johnston was going to "dump" Mr. Boyd.” Cory Goodine didn’t pay much attention to Johnston’s word choice and didn’t question what he meant by “dump”, in fact “Mr. Goodine 's explanation for initially accompanying Mr. Johnston was that he thought at most there might be a fight between Mr. Boyd and Mr. Johnston, but he did not understand the word "dump" to mean Mr. Boyd would be killed.” These extractions from a summary of the case from the Court of Appeal in New Brunswick are essential to proving Cory Goodine’s innocence because they show that he was merely caught up in a mess created by none other than his former friend Todd Johnston. Granted, he could have read more into Johnston’s word choice on the earlier telephone call, but most people wouldn’t have thought anything of something like that coming from their friend. Cory …show more content…

The consequences of Cory Goodine’s choices took an unfortunate turn for the worse in which he had been held accountable for something that he hadn’t done intentionally. All in all, it was unreasonable to even consider charging Goodine with accessory after the fact and/or aiding and abetting due to the circumstances of this homicide. Not only did he have no intention to harm Jason Boyd, but he was also forced to protect himself from Todd Johnston after being consumed by fear after having to witness the murder of Jason

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