In situations that do not involve DUI, how often are drivers criminally prosecuted for crashes with other cars that cause a death? I’m thinking of incidents that don’t involve obviously stupid behavior (e.g., driving 110 down the freeway and then plowing into someone), but more “routine” but serious accidents, like changing lanes into someone, or even traveling at a normal speed but blowing a red light and hitting the cross traffic.
Does the fact that a driver must obviously violate some traffic safety law in order to cause a death lead to a high rate of prosecutions? Or maybe unless the driver was doing something outrageously stupid, are there matters more commonly handled by lawsuits instead of criminal prosecutions?
I believe the term you’re looking for is vehicular homicide. It’s a crime of negligence in most cases, so I would assume that where a surviving driver is at fault, the district attorney would bring charges. (Obviously they would not if the fatality was the person at fault).
I can’t find stat easily, but my understanding is that prosecutors rarely exercise their prosecutorial discretion in cases like these.
Around here, not often. But it certainly does happen. It is not enough that there was an accident and someone died. It has to be caused by criminal or gross negligence. There is an element of intent. You can’t just be careless. Most often in my experience the charges are brought in DUI fatalities. It is possible in cases of excessive speed (when that can be proven). But that speed would have to raise to the level of intentionally reckless. You will probably see an increase in vehicular manslaughter charges in cases of texting and driving.
Round here, (South Africa) criminal charges of culpable homicide would be pursued. Charges of culpable homicide whilst driving a vehicle and whilst not being impaired by drugs and alcohol are rare and if a conviction ensues, a non-custodial sentence is usually imposed.
A notable exception is Jacob Humphreys:
who crossed a level crossing despite the fact that the boom was down and lights flashing, resulting in train crashing into his minibus and killing 10 children inside.
(he has since won an appeal and had his conviction and sentence overturned. He is now serving 12 years for culpable homicide.)
This is a rather extreme example of what OP had in mind.
In the US I would assume it varies from state to state. In Colorado, however, I’ve only ever seen criminal charges accompany some form of suspected intoxication or intent on the part of the responsible party. So far this year I’ve had 6 fatality accidents. Two of them saw criminal charges for suspected impairment. Of those, one has already been dismissed (cleared by a doctor–not on narcotics, just had some lingering brain damage from a stroke) and the other guy is likely going to the hoosgow for a very long time (.23 BAC). But if the only thing you did wrong was to make a left turn in front of an oncoming motorcycle and kill the rider, you don’t get much hassle once it’s clear it was just an accident. If the family wants more from you, that’s a matter of civil law and is generally addressed with money, not jail time.
Where is “around here”? I find it hard to believe that the law in your jurisdiction differs that drastically from just about everywhere I’ve been–and I’ve traveled a lot.
New Jersey. And I don’t think it differs all that much in the US.
Purposely run someone over with your car and they die, that’s murder with the car as the weapon.
Cause an accident in which someone dies, it may be vehicular homicide. But in order for that to happen you must have intentionally performed a reckless or grossly negligent act. Such as getting behind the wheel drunk or recklessly speeding.
Cause an accident in which someone dies and it is determined to caused by a careless act, you are not going to be charged with vehicular homicide. You will get the appropriate traffic summonses. Upon sentencing you are subject to increased penalties such as license suspensions. But no criminal penalties. Sometimes an accident is just an accident.
So how does that differ from where you have been? Just because someone is dead does not mean it is a criminal act. The elements of the crime still have to be met.
I’m sure there are variations from state to state.
Additionally, the happening of an accident does not necessarily mean someone was negligent. Occasional headline-making travesties notwithstanding, The System does make room for a “Shit happens” defense.
What ** Loach ** is describing sounds quite similar to what I can recall of involuntary manslaughter in English Law and does not appear to be drastically different from other jurisdictions.
I live in California, and while I don’t have statistics it matches what I recall from the paper. Deaths due to DUI or excessive speed (or racing) often get prosecuted. I don’t recall many cases of prosecution where the driver stops and is not grossly negligent.
This subject is interesting because I just read an Op-Ed by someone who seems to have nearly everyone who knows who rides a bicycle killed by a car. She was extremely upset by the lack of prosecution. She did not mention any due to DUI, more like people turning and cutting off a bike. So the cases seem to be treated consistently.
Loach’s description also matches my understanding of Canadian criminal law. Our corresponding offence is dangerous driving causing death. There must be a substantial departure from the standards of good driving to trigger criminal liability.
For instance, some years ago the Supreme Court of Canada set aside the conviction of someone who ran a red light, hit a car and killed all four occupants in the other car. Running a red light is a breach of the traffic laws, but was not such a serious departure from driving standards to amount to a criminal offence.
My cousins cousin (related to him but not to me) pulled out into a highway after a complete stop from another highway, to have a motorcycle slam into him @ 55mph.
Motorcycle was large and had multiple headlamps in front. It was a bright sunny day and the road was straight with no obstructions. Investigation found no plausable explination for pulling out in front of the cycle. Cuz just wasn’t paying attention. Biker is dead, Dead, SPLAT!
In a plea deal that I’ve honestly never heard of before in Wisconsin, cuz plead no contest and was found guilty by the judge, but in a defered conviction (as opposed to deffered prosecution).
If he keeps his nose clean after 10 years the judge will “set aside the verdict” and cuz won’t be a convicted felon.
This was in Price County I believe. Defered prosecutions and defered sentences are common, but I’ve never ever heard of a deal like this before.
That’s exactly why I asked, but I didn’t want to raise the question in the context of the contentious driver-vs-bike debate. My first reaction was that for all the many tens of thousands of traffic fatalities in the US each year, I couldn’t imagine that there were also (slightly fewer) tens of thousands of drivers who were being prosecuted for those deaths.
There was recently a “texting while driving” death here that was prosecuted. The driver was unimpaired, physically, just, well, stupid.
Also, a driving while old was prosecuted for killing someone inside the store she plowed into.
In 2009 32% of traffic fatalities were from DWIs. That’s over 10,000 deaths. Now in some of those the person dead was the drunk. But I think it’s safe to assume there are a lot of people every year that are charged with the crime.
Loach: I guess I misunderstood your posting. I got the drift somehow that you said that someone wouldn’t be prosecuted for a death if they were careless. Now, an accidental death not caused by the driver’s carelessness wouldn’t be prosecuted in the many places I’ve been. A death caused by a careless driver and it can be proven that driver was careless and such carelessness was, in fact, the cause of death? Many such cases prosecuted. I’ve lived in California, Georgia, Tennessee, Germany, South Korea, Japan, BIOT, Virginia, Indiana, and a few other places. All of them have had prosecutions for careless driving leading to death.
I think I’ll need a cite. In any accident someone is careless. It is extremely rare that an accident is caused solely by outside factors. By legal definition carelessness is an unintentional act. To gave it rise to the level of some kind of murder or manslaughter all jurisdictions I know of require it to rise to the level of depraved indifference, criminal negligence or gross negligence. There needs to be more than missing a stop sign.
ETA I’m not sure what exactly you mean by prosecuted. The carelessness certainly would be cited. But there wouldn’t be criminal prosecution for manslaughter just for carelessness.
I read of this one in a local paper recently, interesting case due to the last sentence I think…
“Manslaughter is the more common charge for car accident deaths and Tasmanian police were unable to recall another murder charge, Sen Const Nyhouse said.”
There would be in South Africa. The normal charge would be culpable homicide, roughly analagous to English Law concept of involuntary manslaughter. Culpable homicide is defined as the “unlawful and negligent killing of another person.” (bolding mine)
The test applied for negligence is whether the a reasonable person in the circumstances of the accused would have reasonably foreseen that death might result from the proposed course of conduct and would have taken steps to guard against death occurring.
This falls short of gross negligence, but is probably similar to “carelessness”. As I mentioned in an earlier post, magistrates and judges (no juries here) are reluctant to impose a custodial sentence in such cases and a combination of correctional supervision and a fine is the expected conviction upon sentence.
When the element of negligence rises to gross negligence or recklessness, jail time is a likelihood upon conviction. In certain recent cases, the accused may even be charged with murder. (think drag racing down a busy street at 4 on a weekday afternoon, with a cocktail of drugs in your veins and ploughing into a group of schoolkids - and this is not a hypothetical example)
South African law is a mix of English Law and Roman Dutch Law; I imagine many other jurisdictions with an English Law component would have similar laws in place; I find it hard to believe that a driver could carelessly/negligently kill another person in another jurisdiction, including America, and not face charges, however formulated, serious enough to necessitate hiring an attorney/solicitor.
I think I’ll need a cite where deaths in your jurisdiction all caused by careless driving aren’t prosecuted as a matter of routine or policy.
You just contradicted yourself.
Say what?
Ah, so you are aware that there’s more than one level of unlawful misconduct which results in another human’s death.
I mean prosecuted. Rereading your posts in this thread, it occurs to me that I did not misconstrue your assertion. Really? Is it the case in your area that careless driving, such as driving while texting, doesn’t get prosecuted when people die as the result?