VEHICULAR MANSLAUGHTER – COMPARISON OF “GROSS NEGLIGENCE” WITH “CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE”
[B' Spokes: If I am reading this right "the community’s general sense of
right and wrong" is that it is perfectly fine to pass a cyclist via the oncoming lane with limited visibility (motorist can't see past the crest of a hill.). I think we need to get on MVA's case to provide better instruction if that is indeed the case.]
VEHICULAR MANSLAUGHTER – COMPARISON OF “GROSS NEGLIGENCE” THAT IS AN ELEMENT OF VIOLATION OF OFFENSE DEFINED IN CRIMINAL LAW ARTICLE §2-209 WITH “CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE”
December 21, 2011
The Honorable Joseph I. Cassilly
State’s Attorney for Harford County
...
The New York court also differentiated between “negligence,” as used in civil cases, and “criminal negligence”:
Criminal liability cannot be predicated on every act of carelessness resulting in death ..... The carelessness required for criminal negligence is appreciably more serious than that for ordinary civil negligence[;]the carelessness “must be such that its seriousness would be apparent to anyone who share[s] the community’s general sense of right and wrong”.... Criminal negligence thus requires “some serious blameworthiness in the conduct that caused [the death]”... or some culpable “risk creation” ....
http://www.oag.state.md.us/Opinions/2011/96oag128.pdf
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