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Salt Lake City Driver Charged with Negligent Homicide of Motorcycle Rider
Written by George Tait
Monday, 27 July 2009 00:00
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Salt Lake City prosecutors filed negligent homicide charges against Angelica Lopez this past week. On July 28, 2007 Jerry Layne was riding his motorcycle on 700 East when Lopez came through a red light on 800 South crashing into Layne. Lopez claims that she had taken her vehicle in to have the brakes fixed but the mechanic had to order some parts. Lopez drove the vehicle anyway apparently knowing that the brakes were in poor working order. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that at the scene of the crash Lopez claims her brakes did not work.
Negligent homicide is a class A misdemeanor under Utah Code section 76-5-206. Lopez appears to have known that her brakes were not working properly and decided to drive her vehicle regardless. This is the same principal that applies to persons who drive their vehicles with known medical issues. If a diabetic does not properly care for himself and lapses into a diabetic coma while driving and kills someone he may be prosecuted for negligent homicide because he negligently cared for his knowing diabetic condition. On the other side of the coin is a person driving a vehicle has a sudden heart attack while driving and kills someone they will probably not be charged with negligent homicide because they probably did not know they were going to have a heart attack. The real questions is whether this charge of negligent homicide is enough. I have written before about a case where a woman painting her nails while driving her car ploughed into the back of a motorcycle rider while at a stop sign killing the motorcycle rider. For these cases a charge of negligent homicide just does not seem to be enough. Granted, there was probably no intent to kill by either the nail-painting woman or Ms. Lopez in this case but is it enough just to have no intent. Let's say you have a pistol, loaded, no safety on and leave it in a playground of children. One of the children pick up the pistol, pulls the trigger... Shouldn't the person who placed the pistol in the playground be found guilty of more than negligent homicide? A vehicle with faulty brakes is a dangerous weapon just like the loaded pistol - at least in my opinion!
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written by a guest , February 16, 2011 I agree that a class A misdemeanor hardly seems appropriate for such a grievous act of poor judgement, but I don't believe the analogy of loading a gun and placing it in a playground is apt or fitting. What purpose would one have in mind by loading a gun to leave it specifically in a playground? This sounds a lot like those sickos that place razors in kids candy and hand it out at Halloween. It seems there is clear intent in the analogy to have a kid play with the gun. Where as Lopez simply wanted to use her vehicle, no evil contrivances here, just unadulterated stupidity and/or callousness. Though I appreciate the pathos of your analogy, I think one should stick with the cold facts, instead of trying to stir up the public's emotional dander. I think a more apt analogy would be to say that the woman was using the same bad judgement as those who drink and drive, and thus knowingly place the public as risk, but only worse, as her judgement wasn't impaired. She absolutely deserves to have the book thrown at her and she should have her license revoked.
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... written by a guest , August 06, 2009 Knowing that your vehicle does not have the proper safety equipment for it to work correctly is definately negligent on the driver's part, should there be a stricter law governing this type of behavior? That is a little more difficult to say, in my opinion. It is ultimately up to judge or jury to decide the severity of the punishment. As long as the judge or jury are willing to hand out the maximum punishment maybe negligent homicide would be enough.
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