Robert wasn't actually murdered, right?

[Lord Varys]

That is more for the people with a legal background.

In my understanding it would certainly be a minor crime to give Robert a stronger wine than he is used to. But that didn't kill him. The boar did. Cersei and Lancel certainly hoped Robert would have some fatal accident, but hoping for that and increasing the general likelihood for it is not murder.

My comparison here would be two people getting drunk together, one of them getting the other person drunker than they wanted to be ... and then not stopping them when they decide, on their own, to drive back home in their car. If they get themselves killed on the road they were not murdered, either. The other person acted like an asshole, to be sure, but I'm not even sure if that would be an offense in most countries.

In light of all that I actually find the whole in-universe talk about Robert being murdered rather strange in context.

If the wine hadn't been just stronger wine but had contained some other drug or poison and/or if it had caused Robert to pass out and suffer a fatal fall from his horse, say, without the involvement of a third party like the boar Robert himself insisted he wanted to face all by himself ... then we could perhaps talk about murder there. But not in the case we actually have.

[Ser Arthurs Dawn]

So in our world, that could be seen as second-degree murder. Extreme indifference to human life falls under that category, but I would argue that Cersei and Lancel go even further than that based off their intentions. If the intent is murder/death, then that changes everything. We know Lancel and Cersei intended for Robert to die. If you encourage drunk driving in the hopes of the victim's death, then you are absolutely responsible for whatever catastrophe follows. The problem is whether the law can prove it or not. You can't minimize such an atrocious act to "asshole behavior".

Another category to second-degree murder is attempting bodily harm that goes wrong and results in one's death.

Edited September 20 by Ser Arthurs Dawn

[SaffronLady]

1 hour ago, Ser Arthurs Dawn said:

Another category to second-degree murder is attempting bodily harm that goes wrong and results in one's death.

Strangulation-fetish induced deaths fall under this category, IIRC?

[Alester Florent]

Under English law, it might be hard to get a murder or manslaughter charge to stick, but you could certainly get them for conspiracy and probably on an attempt charge too. And given that the target in question is the king, it would also be high treason.

Passing off Jaime's kids at Robert's would also be treason under English (and Welsh and Northern Irish, and I think, but am not certain of, Scottish) law.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Cersei and Lancel certainly hoped Robert would have some fatal accident, but hoping for that and increasing the general likelihood for it is not murder.

I guess it all depends on whether Cersei knew that Robert would be hunting boars specifically.

Edited September 20 by Takiedevushkikakzvezdy

[Ser Arthurs Dawn]

33 minutes ago, SaffronLady said:

Strangulation-fetish induced deaths fall under this category, IIRC?

I think so, I know people have been charged for BDSM related manslaughter/homicide here in the US. I think most cases, if not every case, has an expert witness who assists at the trial. 2nd degree seems the most fitting for this.

Edited September 20 by Ser Arthurs Dawn

[SeanF]

In England and Wales, the starting point is Section 23 Offences Against the Person Act 1861.

Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously administer to or cause to be administered to or taken by any other person any poison or other destructive or noxious thing, so as thereby to endanger the life of such person, or so as thereby to inflict upon such person any grievous bodily harm, shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall be liable . . . F1 to be kept in penal servitude for any term not exceeding ten years .

There are plenty of cases that involve "spiking" drinks, by adding eg date rape drugs, or stronger forms of alcohol that render a person intoxicated, or unconscious. Suppose, say, a person orders ordinary wine, and you give that person fortified wine, and they believe that to be ordinary wine, that would amount to "maliciously administering" a "destructive or noxious thing."

It is an offence under the Act to administer or cause to be administered the substance so as "endanger the life" of that person.  Note, that the offence is committed even if the person does not die.

So, Lancel is in breach of the Act, by administering the strongwine, and Cersei is in breach of the Act, by causing the strongwine to be administered, alternatively, by conspiring with Lancel to do so.

However, Robert was mortally wounded by the boar.  So, that upgrades the offence to - at the very least - manslaughter. Here, the law is summarised by the Crown Prosecution Service Guidance. R V Creamer (1966) sets out the law on this point:

a person is guilty of involuntary manslaughter when he or she intends an unlawful act that is likely to do harm to the person, and death results which was neither foreseen nor intended.

The unlawful act is administering the destructive or noxious thing in breach of Section 23 of the 1861 Act.  The Crown Prosecution Service Guidance says:

Conduct taking the form of an unlawful act involving a danger of some harm that resulted in death ("unlawful and dangerous act manslaughter").

However, in this case the reader knows that the strongwine was administered *with intent* that it should result in Robert's death or grievous bodily harm.  That results in a charge of murder. The offence is committed (again, from CPS Guidance), when a person

• Of sound mind and discretion (i.e. sane);
• unlawfully kills (i.e. not self-defence or other justified killing);
• any reasonable creature (human being); 
• in being 
• under the King's Peace (not in war-time);
• with intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm (GBH).

Unlawful killing may be done by act or omission. It does not have to be the sole cause of death.  

The act or omission must be a substantial cause of death, but it need not be the sole or main cause of death. It must have "more than minimally negligibly or trivially contributed to the death" - Lord Woolf MR in R v HM Coroner for Inner London ex p Douglas-Williams [1999] 1 All ER 344.

Giving a person "spiked" wine that results in that person having an accident is not the sole or even main, cause of death, but it is certainly a substantial cause of death.

So, Lancel is guilty of murder, and Cersei is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and/or incitement to commit murder.

 

[sifth]

They spiked his drink and he did something stupid under the influence of a spiked drink. Pretty sure that’s murder, no matter what world you live in.

They basically gave a person with a drinking problem stronger wine, to increase the probability of him doing something stupid. 

Edited September 20 by sifth

[Craving Peaches]

From my (okay-ish? I think) knowledge of the subject:

Murder in Scotland requires two things: The 'Actus Reus', an action which causes the victim's death, and the 'Mens Rea', the criminal state of mind for murder, either 'wicked intention' or 'wicked recklessness'. 

I think it is safe to say that Cersei/Lancel had the 'wicked intention' required for murder in Scottish law. They clearly were intending to kill Robert, and there are no mitigating factors like mental disorders.

So, did the act of giving the fortified wine 'cause' Robert's death both factually and legally? It is important to note that we know Robert hunted drunk before and wasn't injured. This would suggest then, that the fortified wine was to blame, and so the 'but for' test establishes that Cersei/Lancel's action was the factual cause, because if they didn't give Robert the fortified wine, he wouldn't have died. But was it the legal cause? To determine this, we need to look at what exactly happens between Robert being given the wine and him dying.

• Robert engages the boar
• Robert is wounded by the boar but kills it
• Robert is taken back to the capital
• Robert is treated by Pycelle
• Robert dies

In order for Cersei/Lancel to be guilty, none of these events must break the 'chain of causation'. The 'chain' will be broken by events that are 'acts of God', irrational on the part of the victim, or done by a third party. So, firstly, was Robert's decision to hunt the boar while drunk irrational? This is quite interesting. Subjectively, it might not be considered irrational, because Robert hunted drunk before and was fine, but objectively, it probably is - even without the fortified wine, it would be seen as foolish to hunt while intoxicated. Overall, I am not sure whether a murder charge would land. There are cases where people have 'spiked' alcoholic drinks with another substance which lead to X acting irrationally, but here they haven't spiked it so much as given Robert a slightly stronger version of the wine. Robert arguably didn't act in a substantially different way to how he would have acted under the influence of less potent wine - Cersei might try and argue that their actions were not, in fact, the factual cause of death because Robert would have drunken alcohol regardless and died anyway. Alcohol is also not considered to totally impair your ability to reason, unlike some other drugs.

However, I think charges of incitement/conspiracy to murder would land (not sure about attempted murder though), as would charges of fraud, incest, treason, and possibly administration of a noxious substance.

However, in a scenario where Cersei was on trial in-universe, with no trial by combat or anything, I think she would be more likely to be found guilty. They don't seem to have such a rigorous idea of murder there.

I have found one relevant case so far: KEVIN McANGUS v. HER MAJESTY'S ADVOCATE (scotcourts.gov.uk)

In this case, the accused(s) supplied prohibited drugs to the victims who died as a result. They were not charged with murder because they did not have the mens rea for murder (I think). Cersei does, however, so it may be she could be charged. However, in this case the victims died as a direct result of the drugs supplied, whereas Robert is killed by the boar, not the wine.

Edited September 21 by Craving Peaches

[SeanF]

30 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

From my (okay-ish? I think) knowledge of the subject:

Murder in Scotland requires two things: The 'Actus Reus', an action which causes the victim's death, and the 'Mens Rea', the criminal state of mind for murder, either 'wicked intention' or 'wicked recklessness'. 

I think it is safe to say that Cersei/Lancel had the 'wicked intention' required for murder in Scottish law. They clearly were intending to kill Robert, and there are no mitigating factors like mental disorders.

So, did the act of giving the fortified wine 'cause' Robert's death both factually and legally? It is important to note that we know Robert hunted drunk before and wasn't injured. This would suggest then, that the fortified wine was to blame, and so the 'but for' test establishes that Cersei/Lancel's action was the factual cause, because if they didn't give Robert the fortified wine, he wouldn't have died. But was it the legal cause? To determine this, we need to look at what exactly happens between Robert being given the wine and him dying.

• Robert engages the boar
• Robert is wounded by the boar but kills it
• Robert is taken back to the capital
• Robert is treated by Pycelle
• Robert dies

In order for Cersei/Lancel to be guilty, none of these events must break the 'chain of causation'. The 'chain' will be broken by events that are 'acts of God', irrational on the part of the victim, or done by a third party. So, firstly, was Robert's decision to hunt the boar while drunk irrational? This is quite interesting. Subjectively, it might not be considered irrational, because Robert hunted drunk before and was fine, but objectively, it probably is - even without the fortified wine, it would be seen as foolish to hunt while intoxicated. Overall, I am not sure whether a murder charge would land. There are cases where people have 'spiked' alcoholic drinks with another substance which lead to X acting irrationally, but here they haven't spiked it so much as given Robert a slightly stronger version of the wine. Robert arguably didn't act in a substantially different way to how he would have acted under the influence of less potent wine - Cersei might try and argue that their actions were not, in fact, the factual cause of death because Robert would have drunken alcohol regardless and died anyway. Alcohol is also not considered to totally impair your ability to reason, unlike some other drugs.

However, I think charges of incitement/conspiracy to murder would land (not sure about attempted murder though), as would charges of fraud, incest, treason, and possibly administration of a noxious substance.

However, in a scenario where Cersei was on trial in-universe, with no trial by combat or anything, I think she would be more likely to be found guilty. They don't seem to have such a rigorous idea of murder there.

I will look further into this issue (see if I can find any similar cases) and come back.

I can’t comment on Scottish law, but under English law, giving someone a drink that’s stronger than they requested, so that their judgement is impaired, could be a criminal offence.

For example, if at dinner, I laced a guest’s table wine with port, so that he drove away unknowingly over the legal limit, and as a result, drove his car into a tree and died, I’d be guilty of manslaughter.

[Craving Peaches]

16 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I can’t comment on Scottish law, but under English law, giving someone a drink that’s stronger than they requested, so that their judgement is impaired, could be a criminal offence.

It would be a criminal offence in Scotland (I think administration of a noxious substance) but whether it qualifies as murder or not depends on whether the chain of causation was broken at any point or not. Cersei could argue that it was Robert's own reckless behaviour that lead to his death. I am trying to find similar cases (no luck so far) to see what the court would think. All the cases I can find involve the victim of drink spiking being the (attempted) murderer, not the murder victim, and they involve another substance being introduced into the alcohol, not just a stronger than expected beverage. The closest case I found so far was one where a drug dealer was guilty of culpable homicide (manslaughter) after someone he supplied drugs to died. Following this, it may be that Cersei could be found guilty of murder (in that case it was not murder due to absence of mens rea) but I am not sure.

Edited September 20 by Craving Peaches

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

In order for Cersei/Lancel to be guilty, none of these events must break the 'chain of causation'. The 'chain' will be broken by events that are 'acts of God', irrational on the part of the victim, or done by a third party. So, firstly, was Robert's decision to hunt the boar while drunk irrational? This is quite interesting. Subjectively, it might not be considered irrational, because Robert hunted drunk before and was fine, but objectively, it probably is - even without the fortified wine, it would be seen as foolish to hunt while intoxicated. Overall, I am not sure whether a murder charge would land. There are cases where people have 'spiked' alcoholic drinks with another substance which lead to X acting irrationally, but here they haven't spiked it so much as given Robert a slightly stronger version of the wine. Robert arguably didn't act in a substantially different way to how he would have acted under the influence of less potent wine - Cersei might try and argue that their actions were not, in fact, the factual cause of death because Robert would have drunken alcohol regardless and died anyway. Alcohol is also not considered to totally impair your ability to reason, unlike some other drugs.

Assuming we can consider Robert a functioning alcoholic, while the strongwine didn't affect his judgement, it did affect his physical capability of hunting. He was swaying when he faced the boar. His motor functions were definitely not as good as they were on other hunts where he survived even if drunk. So can that be a factor for the prosecution?

[Craving Peaches]

16 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Assuming we can consider Robert a functioning alcoholic, while the strongwine didn't affect his judgement, it did affect his physical capability of hunting. He was swaying when he faced the boar. His motor functions were definitely not as good as they were on other hunts where he survived even if drunk. So can that be a factor for the prosecution?

I think so. The issue would be, did regular wine also cause this? I don't think we have enough information to tell. Robert could have swayed in other hunts and just got unlucky with the timing this one.

The big problem here for a murder charge is, in my view, the boar. The boar is arguably a third party. If Robert died as a direct result of the wine (e.g. if it had been poisoned or something), I would have no hesitation in saying that Cersei would be found guilty of murder. But Cersei got 'lucky' with the boar. She did nothing to provoke the boar to kill Robert. Robert did all that himself. If X gave Y a stronger version of a drink they were used to, and under the influence Y provoked Z who then killed Y, would X be a murderer? It's hard for me to say because here in Scotland our law surrounding murder is mostly common law, so based on prior decisions of judges, but I can't really find any comparable cases to the Cersei-Robert situation.

Edited September 20 by Craving Peaches

[SeanF]

6 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I think so. The issue would be, did regular wine also cause this? Because if Robert knew the wine would effect him like this but chose to drink it anyway....

The big problem here for a murder charge is, in my view, the boar. The boar is arguably a third party. If Robert died as a direct result of the wine (e.g. if it had been poisoned or something), I would have no hesitation in saying that Cersei would be found guilty of murder. But Cersei got 'lucky' with the boar. She did nothing to provoke the boar to kill Robert. Robert did all that himself. If X gave Y a stronger version of a drink they were used to, and under the influence Y provoked Z who then killed Y, would X be a murderer? It's hard for me to say because here in Scotland our law surrounding murder is mostly common law, so based on prior decisions of judges, but I can't really find any comparable cases to the Cersei-Robert situation.

An English Judge would direct a jury to ask themselves whether a reasonable bystander would foresee that giving Robert strongwine would impair his judgement when hunting.

If say, Robert was attacked by some brigand, and died while under the influence of strongwine, unable to defend himself properly, such an event would not be reasonably foreseeable.

Edited September 20 by SeanF

[Craving Peaches]

5 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Robert strongwine would impair his judgement when hunting.

But when they first went hunting, it was to hunt a white hart. There was no mention of boar. Cersei got lucky that the boar even showed up. If Cersei placed the boar there, or the area was well known for boar hunting, or so on, then it would be clearer but I just don't think we have enough information to go on.

Edited September 20 by Craving Peaches

[Corvinus85]

3 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

But when they first went hunting, it was to hunt a white hart. There was no mention of boar. Cersei got lucky that the boar even showed up. 

But when did she have the strongwine sent along with instructions to Lancel? I'm not sure Lancel started getting Robert plastered right away. We know from Ned's POV that the court hears of Robert's intention to find a monstrous boar that some of the locals might have told him. There were messages traded between the court and the king's party during the hunt, like Ned telling Ser Robar Royce to send word to the king through his dad about Ned's judgement on Gregor Clegane.

[Craving Peaches]

8 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

But when did she have the strongwine sent along with instructions to Lancel? I'm not sure Lancel started getting Robert plastered right away. We know from Ned's POV that the court hears of Robert's intention to find a monstrous boar that some of the locals might have told him. There were messages traded between the court and the king's party during the hunt, like Ned telling Ser Robar Royce to send word to the king through his dad about Ned's judgement on Gregor Clegane.

That's true. But they don't go back to KL first, and Lancel seemed to be with Robert for the whole time, which means that Cersei must have sent Lancel with the wine from the get go, no? I mean it's possible Cersei sent a delivery of the wine along at some point but we never hear about it so I don't think we can say for sure.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

34 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I'm not sure Lancel started getting Robert plastered right away.

Knowing Robert, he probably didn't need much help to get plastered.

[Lee-Sensei]

9 hours ago, SeanF said:

In England and Wales, the starting point is Section 23 Offences Against the Person Act 1861.

Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously administer to or cause to be administered to or taken by any other person any poison or other destructive or noxious thing, so as thereby to endanger the life of such person, or so as thereby to inflict upon such person any grievous bodily harm, shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall be liable . . . F1 to be kept in penal servitude for any term not exceeding ten years .

There are plenty of cases that involve "spiking" drinks, by adding eg date rape drugs, or stronger forms of alcohol that render a person intoxicated, or unconscious. Suppose, say, a person orders ordinary wine, and you give that person fortified wine, and they believe that to be ordinary wine, that would amount to "maliciously administering" a "destructive or noxious thing."

It is an offence under the Act to administer or cause to be administered the substance so as "endanger the life" of that person.  Note, that the offence is committed even if the person does not die.

So, Lancel is in breach of the Act, by administering the strongwine, and Cersei is in breach of the Act, by causing the strongwine to be administered, alternatively, by conspiring with Lancel to do so.

However, Robert was mortally wounded by the boar.  So, that upgrades the offence to - at the very least - manslaughter. Here, the law is summarised by the Crown Prosecution Service Guidance. R V Creamer (1966) sets out the law on this point:

a person is guilty of involuntary manslaughter when he or she intends an unlawful act that is likely to do harm to the person, and death results which was neither foreseen nor intended.

The unlawful act is administering the destructive or noxious thing in breach of Section 23 of the 1861 Act.  The Crown Prosecution Service Guidance says:

Conduct taking the form of an unlawful act involving a danger of some harm that resulted in death ("unlawful and dangerous act manslaughter").

However, in this case the reader knows that the strongwine was administered *with intent* that it should result in Robert's death or grievous bodily harm.  That results in a charge of murder. The offence is committed (again, from CPS Guidance), when a person

• Of sound mind and discretion (i.e. sane);
• unlawfully kills (i.e. not self-defence or other justified killing);
• any reasonable creature (human being); 
• in being 
• under the King's Peace (not in war-time);
• with intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm (GBH).

Unlawful killing may be done by act or omission. It does not have to be the sole cause of death.  

The act or omission must be a substantial cause of death, but it need not be the sole or main cause of death. It must have "more than minimally negligibly or trivially contributed to the death" - Lord Woolf MR in R v HM Coroner for Inner London ex p Douglas-Williams [1999] 1 All ER 344.

Giving a person "spiked" wine that results in that person having an accident is not the sole or even main, cause of death, but it is certainly a substantial cause of death.

So, Lancel is guilty of murder, and Cersei is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and/or incitement to commit murder.

That's very informative.

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

But when they first went hunting, it was to hunt a white hart. There was no mention of boar. Cersei got lucky that the boar even showed up. If Cersei placed the boar there, or the area was well known for boar hunting, or so on, then it would be clearer but I just don't think we have enough information to go on.

That is why I think it is more messing a bit with Robert and praying for an accident than a deliberate chain of events that involved them conspiring to arrange it so Robert would face the boar in an unfit state all by himself. Effectively, they conspired to drug Robert, but not to kill him. Because the latter they couldn't do.

13 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

Under English law, it might be hard to get a murder or manslaughter charge to stick, but you could certainly get them for conspiracy and probably on an attempt charge too. And given that the target in question is the king, it would also be high treason.

Sure enough, by medieval standards even wishing or thinking the king could die can be construed as 'high treason', but that is not really the issue.

13 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I guess it all depends on whether Cersei knew that Robert would be hunting boars specifically.

She didn't and he didn't intend to do that - they were after a white hart originally. We have to assume Lancel had instructions to give Robert that particular wine all the time and hope for the worst (or best). After all, it takes time to get Robert drunk so they would have to keep him drunk for as long a time as possible to increase the likelihood that he would get in a dangerous situation while being pretty drunk.

Even when they were hunting the boar and there was more danger ... it wasn't in Lancel's control to ensure Robert would chance on the beast himself, still be able to face it, or even be in the mood to do it all by himself. He is the king, he is never alone, especially not on a hunt.

12 hours ago, SeanF said:

Giving a person "spiked" wine that results in that person having an accident is not the sole or even main, cause of death, but it is certainly a substantial cause of death.

So, Lancel is guilty of murder, and Cersei is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and/or incitement to commit murder.

Wouldn't the court have to prove in our case that the boar in question could only kill Robert because of the strong wine? Or that the wine in question actually contributed to his death in a manner different from ordinary wine?

I think the accidental death analogy I had earlier is wrong. It is more like, say, a person drinking spiked wine then ending up deciding to have a car race getting killed in the process of that. Because Robert deliberately endangered himself after drinking the wine in a way Lancel had no control over.

What killed Robert wasn't the wine but the boar - and the fact that his bodyguard(s), brother, knights, servants, etc. stood aside at his command when he decided to face the beast alone. Robert wasn't a lone drunk in his car but a man surrounded by other people all the time.

If Lancel is guilty there, wouldn't that mean that, technically, Renly and Barristan are guilty of manslaughter, too, because they also realized that Robert was in no shape to slay a boar yet did nothing?

11 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

In order for Cersei/Lancel to be guilty, none of these events must break the 'chain of causation'. The 'chain' will be broken by events that are 'acts of God', irrational on the part of the victim, or done by a third party. So, firstly, was Robert's decision to hunt the boar while drunk irrational? This is quite interesting. Subjectively, it might not be considered irrational, because Robert hunted drunk before and was fine, but objectively, it probably is - even without the fortified wine, it would be seen as foolish to hunt while intoxicated. Overall, I am not sure whether a murder charge would land. There are cases where people have 'spiked' alcoholic drinks with another substance which lead to X acting irrationally, but here they haven't spiked it so much as given Robert a slightly stronger version of the wine. Robert arguably didn't act in a substantially different way to how he would have acted under the influence of less potent wine - Cersei might try and argue that their actions were not, in fact, the factual cause of death because Robert would have drunken alcohol regardless and died anyway. Alcohol is also not considered to totally impair your ability to reason, unlike some other drugs.

I think there is definitely 'acts of God' part in there, namely, them actually finding the boar and attacking it when they did. Where it was was completely out of their control. Cersei/Lancel have the means to intoxicate (and both may have wished for his death) but they lack the means to actually arrange a death scenario. That could only Robert himself do - with the help of the boar.

I'm also thinking about how far you can take this spiked thing, legally speaking. If I spike your wine and you end up killing somebody in your state am I a murderer, too? You can't take it that far, I imagine. Even if I know you are more aggressive when drunk.

11 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

However, I think charges of incitement/conspiracy to murder would land (not sure about attempted murder though), as would charges of fraud, incest, treason, and possibly administration of a noxious substance.

That is certainly true, although to build such a case there would have to be detailed knowledge of the conspiracy. In Lancel's defense one could argue that the lad may have simply been told by Cersei to give Robert wine from that skin without telling him what was inside. He may have been told or he may have figured it out only later. That might also explain why he feels so guilty about his actions.

10 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Assuming we can consider Robert a functioning alcoholic, while the strongwine didn't affect his judgement, it did affect his physical capability of hunting. He was swaying when he faced the boar. His motor functions were definitely not as good as they were on other hunts where he survived even if drunk. So can that be a factor for the prosecution?

I imagined it would - if Robert ever faced a boar drunk before. But I think the fact that he wasn't alone when he faced it adds a lot to Lancel/Cersei's defense - because even a drunk Robert only faced it alone because nobody intervened. It wasn't just drunk Robert + boar. It was drunk Robert + his hunting party + the boar. And nobody could argue that a not-so-drunk Robert Baratheon - or a sober Robert Baratheon - couldn't have been killed by the boar. So it would be very tough to prove that Robert was killed by the boar because of the wine.

10 hours ago, SeanF said:

An English Judge would direct a jury to ask themselves whether a reasonable bystander would foresee that giving Robert strongwine would impair his judgement when hunting.

If say, Robert was attacked by some brigand, and died while under the influence of strongwine, unable to defend himself properly, such an event would not be reasonably foreseeable.

I think they would have to prove that the strong wine, in Robert's case, did not only impair his judgment but also his ability to hunt.

More importantly, though - and I think that case could also be made with traditional English hunting - the entire activity is dangerous and can get you killed. Genuine hunting accidents happen. So does it make sense to shift blame there to the state you are in? Do you not sign off to falls from horses and attacks from stags and boars and wolves and whatever you might chance on in forests if you go on a hunt?

Is it possible to determine if a drunkard is fit to hunt safely in any case? Just because Robert got lucky earlier doesn't mean he was ever fit to hunt in a drunk state, no? If drunk hunting is game then - which it is, for King Robert -, then, well, strong wine is just a factor in the degree of drunkenness. Robert easily could have been as drunk as he was before during many an earlier hunt before if he had drunken more normal wine - or simply stronger alcoholic beverages.