# Is This A Crime? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 21, 2008, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-crime/438534 "2008-02-21T08:07:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-crime/438534/21 "2008-02-21T18:02:22Z")
[QUOTE=PaulParkhead] That, in fact, was the rationale for my reply. Is she not responsible for herself? Assuming she was not forced into the car at gunpoint at the beginning of the trip, well, she could have refused to go there. I suppose the question really amounts to “Are we criminally liable if we fail to protect our spouses?” [/QUOTE] If you breach a duty, causing harm (in this case death), you are entering the world of negligence. If a reasonable person should have known that the action could cause harm, and it does, that is negligence. Negligence can be criminal. Note that this is dependent on a duty to aid. There is no duty to aid total strangers in American law. However, if you give a person a ride in your car, you have taken on a duty. If you seclude people from the aid of others, you also have a duty to provide the aid you have prevented others from offering. In addition, there IS an implied duty to aid family members. However, the theory of negligence does not imply any real intent to harm – negligent is the lowest “culpable mental state” out there (some disagree that it should be the basis of a crime). Usually, people in this situation are merely “criminally stupid.” People whose children overheat and die in cars usually fall into this category. If your action exceeds negligence – for example if you knew that those temperatures could kill, but did it anyway – then you reach the mental state of Recklessness. Recklessness also does not require any purpose to kill a person, but you do have to evince an understanding that your actions could result in death. Depending on state law, Reckless Indifference to Human Life is a serious charge. In New York State, under the “Extreme Reckless (Depraved) Indifference to Human Life” theory it can go as high as 2nd Degree Murder. ---
**Author:** ![brownsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@brownsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownsfan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-crime/438534/22 "2008-02-21T19:08:37Z")
[QUOTE=Otto] I would reiterate that if she suffers frostbite or any bodily harm, or even if she doesn’t, you’re guilty of assault per my previous cite. [/QUOTE] I need to read more carefully. Thanks, Otto, and thanks to everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Khampelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-crime/438534/23 "2008-02-21T19:29:23Z")
:Slight hijack: I think it must be a case similar to this that spawned the “In Arizona it’s illegal to refuse anyone a glass of water” meme. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2008, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-crime/438534/24 "2008-02-21T19:39:04Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] However, if you created the situation, the picture changes. If you force someone out of the car into the snowstorm, you do have a duty that’s breached by driving away and letting them freeze. [/QUOTE] What if she gets out of the car in order to throw a tantrum or stomp around or otherwise prove a point in a juvenile way, and _then_ you drive away? Also, what if there’s no snowstorm, no immediately threatening environmental condition, except that you’re just like way out in the boonies? Say, the cornfield where James Stewart got buzzed by the cropduster. There’s no phone, her purse is in the car, basically she’s walking, but more or less physically safe, and you just abandon her. Also: is the situation different if it’s not your spouse, but your _child?_ ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2008, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-crime/438534/25 "2008-02-22T00:33:29Z")
Couldn’t this easily fall under reckless endangerment, as well as negligent homicide? ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2008, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-crime/438534/26 "2008-02-22T00:41:39Z")
[QUOTE=PaulParkhead] That, in fact, was the rationale for my reply. Is she not responsible for herself? Assuming she was not forced into the car at gunpoint at the beginning of the trip, well, she could have refused to go there. I suppose the question really amounts to “Are we criminally liable if we fail to protect our spouses?” [/QUOTE] She went there, under the assumption that she would be going back via car! Taking away her ability to safely return is unethical at the least. I am leaning more towards it being manslaughter though, if the person driving away knows that the weather/terrain is hazardous enough that death is very possible. If anything bad happens to her, the husband is culpable. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2008, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-crime/438534/27 "2008-02-22T02:25:36Z")
I did this to my wife back when we were 16 (except it was a warm summer day, not a freezing night or a blizzard). I did something that made her mad while I was driving us home from Kmart and she smacked me, so I pulled over and told her to get out of the car because it was unsafe to be hitting the driver and blah blah blah. She got out and her sister in the back seat went too. I turned around at the next place I could, a couple miles down the road, and went back to get them … but they were gone. Nowhere to be found. I circled around between two exits on the highway for about 45 minutes before I gave up and went home, freaking out and sure they had been kidnapped by a serial killer. Turned out a friend had seen them walking along the freeway and picked them up about two minutes after I drove off. Phew. But I learned not to kick people out of the car. I wonder … if they’d been hit by a car and killed, would I have been legally responsible for their deaths?\* It’s not like leaving somebody to die in a freezing blizzard, but it’s not totally unforeseeable, either… \*Aside from the fact that I probably would have killed myself if that happened, I mean. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2008, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-crime/438534/28 "2008-02-22T03:32:21Z")
This is usually going to be covered under reckless endangerment. In the New York Penal Code: > [@](#): > > Section 120.20 Reckless endangerment in the second degree > > A person is guilty of reckless endangerment in the second degree when he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person. > > Reckless endangerment in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor. > > Section 120.25 Reckless endangerment in the first degree > > A person is guilty of reckless endangerment in the first degree when, under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person. > > Reckless endangerment in the first degree is a class D felony. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-crime/438534.md?page=1)