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Let's say we have a prankster, P, who is known for making prank calls. In these calls he enrages/bullies the call receiver; he is known for doing this in various ways (racism comes to mind).

He gets phone numbers to call in various ways, so he never knows upfront who he'll be calling.

He makes the calls anonymously, so the receiver has no way of knowing who's calling initially.

He received a call request with a number from a follower, F, to call some random person, R.

So, P calls R and makes him furious, to the point where R asks to meet up and deal with the thing they talked about. P accepts this offer over the phone, but has no intention to actually meet up with R.

R actually takes the offer to meet up seriously and shows up for the meeting. Not knowing P is not even coming, he meets 2 strangers. The 2 strangers have no idea why R is so angry with them; they end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Eventually R is so angry that in a blind rage he shoots both strangers, and both strangers end up dead.

Now what I'm interested in is who is responsible to what degree for this murder?

It seems pretty clear that R is guilty of the double murder.

But what are the roles of P and F in this whole case? Do they bear any responsibilities? Could they face jail time?

I'm most interested in any European country, but other places are welcome as well.

I'm also not certain to what degree European countries make a difference between homicide, murder and manslaughter. If I understand correctly, they are, respectively: killing in a somewhat legal way, unlawful killing with intention to kill, unlawful killing but without intention.

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Since this is actually a recent Dutch case, the primary answer will need to take into account Dutch laws.

R is guilty of the double murder. There's indeed no question about this. Even if there are other people who bear some guilt, this does not remove the guilt from R.

There is no doubt that there is a causal relationship between the call by P and the shooting. It does not matter who the victims are; the only question is whether the murder was a foreseeable consequence of the actions of P.

It's pretty well established in Dutch law that you can't just go out in a park and shoot someone. Shootings are also pretty rare, as gun onwership is very uncommon in the Netherland. We know from the question here and the actual case that P does not know R and was therefore not aware of any mental condition of R, or anything otherwise unusual that would warrant special consideration. Therefore, P had no reason to assume that R would shoot someone, let alone two random persons.

Since P has no reason whatsoever to expect that his actions would lead to two deaths, there is no intent to kill (not even manslaughter ("doodslag")), nor did he knowingly accept the risk ("voorwaardelijke opzet"). Even the weakest charge we can consider here ("dood door schuld"), i.e. negligent homicide requires an explicit finding of guilt (culpa) which is absent here.

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    I've accepted this answer, since it applies to the real-world case it's based on. I hope that doesn't stop people from answering with other jurisdictions. Commented yesterday
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    I expect that the answer would be the same in any common-law jurisdiction. A prank call cannot reasonably be expected to lead to the murder of unrelated third parties, so you'd probably have mens rea and proximate-causation problems preventing any liability from running to P, especially in the United States, where P would probably also have First Amendment protection. Commented yesterday
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    @bdb484 But if they didn't communicate this to P, the relative might bear some liability, but P wouldn't. Although the more steps you have in this Rube Goldberg murder, the less likely the expectation of a particular result is. Commented yesterday
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    @bdb484 That highlights that the culpability of F, while asked about in the question, is not (explicitly) treated in the answer. If F knew that R was prone to violence when provoked, could F be guilty even though the intermediary P is not? (Can the responsibility "skip over" P?) - The answer would be improved by explicitly addressing F's situation. Commented yesterday
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    @infinitezero Swatting is a very different scenario. If you'd like an analysis on that one, you're probably better off posting a separate question. Commented yesterday

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