What’s the Proper Charge When the Violation of a Traffic Law Causes Someone’s Death?

In 2014, 1,284 people were killed in traffic accidents in North Carolina. Most of those people were occupants in a passenger car, though motor vehicle crashes also claimed the lives of 172 pedestrians, 190 motorcyclists and 19 bicyclists. Seventy percent of the fatalities resulted from crashes that did not involve an alcohol-impaired driver. While it is fairly easy to determine the appropriate criminal charge when a person drives while impaired and proximately causes the death of another, it is less obvious what the appropriate charge is when a driver’s violation of another type of traffic statute proximately causes someone else’s death. The potential charges range, in order of severity, from second-degree murder (most severe) to misdemeanor death by vehicle (least severe). First degree murder is not a potential charge. Second degree murder. A person commits second degree murder when he or she kills another human being with malice. Sufficient evidence of malice exists to establish second-degree murder where the defendant’s acts show cruelty, recklessness of consequences, or a mind that disregards social duty and is deliberately bent on mischief or where those acts manifest a total disregard for human life. The State need not show that the defendant intended to kill in order to establish malice for second-degree murder. Instead, the State may meet its burden by showing that the defendant “had the intent to perform the act of driving in such a reckless manner as reflects knowledge that injury or death would likely result, thus evidencing depravity of mind.” State v. Rich, 351 [...]