In a recent tragic hit-and-run incident in Calgary (Canada), a policeman was killed. Shortly after, it was announced that the driver and his passenger had been arrested.
Can a passenger in such an incident be charged with anything? Could they be held partly responsible by not urging the driver to stop after the incident?
Kind of hard to say without more details. With that being said, if the passenger failed to report the incident to local law enforcement at their earliest opportunity then yes, absolutely they can be arrested and prosecuted.
Also remember that there’s a difference between getting arrested and convicted.
Years ago I was involved in a non-hit-and-run fender bender. There were two people in the car that hit me. When the police showed up the occupants lied about which one was the driver. Why? Because the actual driver was drunk with no license and the passenger was sober with a license.
It was good in my case that the police did a thorough job of interviewing both of them and the witnesses. The lie didn’t hold up for long.
For something more serious like hit-and-run with fatality, that “interview” might well involve being involuntarily taken to the station for questioning.
He’s only 17 so will be treated as a minor and get off relatively easily. Back in 1993 in Calgary Constable Richard Sonnenberg was killed by a teen driver out on bail and he didn’t serve much time at all.
Is this the incident? The driver is 17. The passenger is 19. The legal age in Alberta is 18.
That’s it. Here’s a non-paywalled article:
The driver is 17 and therefore can’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The passenger is over 18 and can be named.
Both were wanted for 1st degree murder, but don’t know if they’ve been charged. The initial warrants may have been because of uncertainty at the time who was driving. Will have to wait and see if both are charged with murder. I suppose there may also on the facts be an argument that both of them decided to hit the officer with the car. Charges will depend on the facts.
1st degree in these circumstances would likely be the intentional killing of a police officer on duty.
Latest news reports say the 17yo was driving. The passenger (19yo and identified) was wanted on a previous assault warrant.
Under 18 cannot be identified by name in news reports in Canada, and also - unless raised to adult court - face lesser sentences as a juvenile.
They have identified the 17 year old.
The police obtained a special authorisation to identify him for the purpose of tracking him down. I thought I saw an article that said that authorisation was withdrawn once he turned himself in.
You are correct. But the Internet records everything. Earlier media reports identified the minor. Latter reports do not.
If, as is remotely possible, the driver didn’t have a full licence, then the supervising passenger is the responsible driver.
I can see how this might work for certain charges - holding the supervising driver responsible for leaving the scene of the accident or not reporting the accident or something like that, since the supervising driver could have return to the scene or reported the accident himself. But is it really possible in Canada to charge the supervising driver with first degree murder simply because he was the supervising driver? There are many situations I can imagine where the passenger might be charged because he was in some way an accomplice- maybe there were contraband of some sort in the car and the passenger told the driver to flee/hit the officer to avoid being caught with the contraband. But that sort of thing has nothing to do with being the supervising driver.
I think the underlying issue is whether, assuming this was an accident, 1st degree murder is an appropriate charge under Canadian Law. The fact that it was a police officer killed may be relevant, but who knows.
Because, generally, an accomplice is one who assists (or possibly just encourages) a principal in the commission of an offense. If the killing didn’t have to be intentional, but merely, say, reckless, then it kind of makes sense to charge the supervising adult as an accomplice if they assisted the juvenile in driving recklessly (merely by being there in the car with them and doing a shitty job of supervising).
Alternatively, if this had to be an intentional act of some sort to justify a charge of first degree murder, then the supervising driver might be considered liable by virtue of their omission to act to prevent the collision if they had time/opportunity to do so. Omissions are not generally punishable as criminal acts, except in certain unique circumstances. One of those unique circumstances generally tends to be when the law imposes a duty to act. Such as may be the case for a supervising driver who sees their juvenile counterpart about to plow into a police officer intentionally.
True, but once the order allowing publication expires, anyone who continues to publish the name of the young person is committing a criminal offence. If a Canadian media outlet doesn’t take down the name from their articles, they could be in trouble. CBC has stated in one of the articles that while it previously published the name when the police were trying to find the two accuseds, now that they have turned themselves in, CBC has taken down the name of the young person from their earlier articles.
If it’s an accident, then murder is not an appropriate charge.
That is the requirement. The mens rea for murder is the intention to kill. I’ll be curious to see the police / Crown theory that makes the passenger a party to the offence.
I doubt that the passenger would have been in the situation of supervising the driver. The age to get a driver licence in Canada is generally 16, and probationary conditions normally don’t last more than a year from getting a licence. The driver is apparently 17 and turns 18 in ten days time, so I would think he had a full licence without conditions. This is very much speculation on my part, however, so we’ll have to wait and see what comes out as the case goes through the system.
So here’s what Canadian Law has to say about murder:
If I were to try and string that all together to get to first degree murder from this incident, given the lack of detail available so far, it would go something like:
Under the Canadian Criminal code linked a top, they need not have intended to kill the officer by driving on while dragging him, rather they need only have known that they were likely to cause death in doing so, and yet done it anyway, with an unlawful purpose in mind (such as, here, fleeing the scene of an accident). That would make it murder.
Since the victim was a peace officer in the performance of his duties, and since (hypothetically, assuming the prosecution can establish that first point above) this was murder, it is automatically first degree murder, even if it wasn’t “planned and deliberate.”
The only question after that is, did the passenger here have a duty to act (such as by failing to act as a supervisor) or, if he wasn’t actually a supervising driver, did the law impose some other duty to act. Or, alternatively, did he act with accomplice liability by assisting the driver in some way (unclear) or, (if Canada is one of those “assist or encourage” places), by encouraging the driver to flee, even knowing the officer was being dragged.
I just missed the edit window. If Wikipedia is to be believed, Canada is among the jurisdictions where encouraging someone to commit an offense is enough to make one liable for it:
So even if the passenger wasn’t a supervising driver with associated responsibilities, it seems he could be liable for the murder if he encouraged the driver to drive on knowing that the victim was being dragged and that death was likely to result in doing so.
IANAL. Nor a Canadian.
Under Canadian constitutional law, the mens rea for murder is strict: “there cannot be a conviction in the absence of proof beyond a reasonable doubt of at least objective foreseeability” that death will result. That is generally interpreted to mean an intention to cause death, or such severe recklessness as to amount to objective foreseeability that death will result.
On that test, I doubt that improper supervision by a supervising adult could rise to the required mens rea for a murder conviction. It might be the basis for a manslaughter conviction.
But as stated upthread, I would be surprised if a person who is only 11 days short of their 18th birthday is still a probationary driver, and needed an adult supervisor while driving.
I stand corrected. The probationary period in Alberta’s graduated licence system is two years, not one year, so even if he got his probationary licence soon after turning 16, he would still be on probation and would need an accompanying driver.