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Home Motorcycle Law Salt Lake City Driver Charged with Negligent Homicide of Motorcycle Rider
Salt Lake City Driver Charged with Negligent Homicide of Motorcycle Rider PDF Print E-mail
Written by George Tait   
Monday, 27 July 2009 00:00

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.

Salt Lake City Woman charge with criminal homicide in death of motorcycle rider

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 , 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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