As I understand the law of the land in the U.S., if you are commiting a crime and someone dies as a result of your committing that crime you will/can be charged with 1st degree murder; the example used is often a bank robber shouting “I have a gun” and someone in the bank hears him and dies of a heart attack. This being the case, why don’t we hear of people DUI (driving under the influence) or DWI (driving while impaired) that have caused a fatality being charged with 1st degree murder? Pleading that they didn’t know they were that drunk is no excuse because “ignorance of the law is no excuse”. This may make some of these bozos think twicw before driving (or if it happens in Texas, at least keep them from doing it again).
From the Christian Science Monitor, State may give drunk drivers death penalty: N. Carolina is at front of trend that treats vehicular homicide as just plain murder.
North Carolina (and future states’ views) notwithstanding, one reason that Murder 1/Aggravated Murder hasn’t been applied so far is that the primary crime must be a felony (and, possibly a first degree felony) for the murder rap to be added on. In many states, DUO/DWI is a high misdemeanor or a lower class felony.
In addition, most states have a negligent homicide or vehicular homicide statute on the books. Any decent defense lawyer would challenge the initial charges on the grounds that the legislature had already categorized certain actions by creating specific laws and that the prosecutor was trying to abuse the intent of the Law. The defender would generally have a fairly decent chance that the judge would agree, resulting in the prosecutor having to go back (possibly to a grand jury) and get a new charge. It is easier to avoid those hassles by not tacking on the Murder 1.
There is also the issue of culture. 25 years ago, DUI was not much more than a wrist-slap crime. In the ensuing years, MADD and other advocacy groups have seriously challenged the public perception of driving drunk. Many prosecutors are old enough to have seen the shift in attitudes, and they may personally not agree with the way the laws have changed, leading to a less aggressive prosecution in many cases. As more prosecutors enter the field having grown up in an era when DUI was considered a despicable crime rather than a careless mistake, there will be more attempts to prosecute to harsher standards.
It varies depending on the law of the state in which the offense takes place. I don’t think the feds spend much time prosecuting drunk driver homicides. In Wisconsin, we have 1st degree intentional homicide and 1st degree reckless homicide. The first is a class A felony and the second is a class B felony. We also have separate offenses, homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle or firearm (class C felony) and homicide by negligent operation of vehicle (class E felony).
In the case of incorrigible repeat DUI offenders, first degree murder charges for a death resultant from such criminal activity seems entirely justified. There is quite simply a point where such acts go well beyond callous disregard for human life and transit into the realm of premeditated homicide. The operation of a motor vehicle is a privilige and not a right, as so many people seem to mistakenly think.
Zenster, let’s try to stick to answering the general question. In this forum, we can discuss whether such prosecutions are legal, but your opinion about whether such prosecutions are just or not belong in Great Debates. I invite you to start a thread there if you want to.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
The OP refers to the felony-murder doctrine, which basically states that if you commit a felony and someone (quite accidentally) dies as a result, we’re going to hold you responsible. This is a long-standing doctrine in American law, but it’s much more limited in practice. As noted upthread, it has to be a felony and most states categorize DWI as a misdameanor.
More importantly, felony-murder has been falling out of favor for the last several years. Many states have abolished it and the ones that still have it usually put significant limits on its use. The most common is that the felony has to be inherently violent. Note, this is “violent,” not “dangerous,” so DWI wouldn’t normally qualify. Another limit effective in many states is that felony-murder is only applied to specific crimes enumerated in a felony-murder statute, e.g., arson, rape, armed robbery. Unless DWI were to be named in the statute, the felony-murder rule would not apply.
Finally, (and this is a touch off-topic), regardless of whether applying felony-murder to a DWI killing would be just, it’s probably not at all effective. If an armed robber were (credibly) told he’d kill someone tonight and get caught, the penalty to be assessed would play some part in his calculus on whether to go through with it. But a drunk driver wouldn’t care about the penalty; if he believed that tonight he’d kill someone, he wouldn’t get behind the wheel at all, regardless of the penalty. Drunks don’t drive because they think they can kill with impunity; they do it because they’re unable to properly analyze the chance of causing an accident.
–Cliffy