Question for the GC Legal Eagles
 

Me and a friend were having dinner the other night and a situation comes up in conversation:

a man steals a car. the car has onstar. onstar shuts the car off. the vehicle ends up striking and killing someone because the driver (car thief) didn't have control of the vehicle anymore.

is it a plausible defense that the man didn't have the intent on hitting someone and thus is not guilty of murder/manslaughter/vehicular manslaughter? any one of the three?

substitute man for woman for the GC feminist.

LMAO.

WOW!!

Damned good question and as of 2007, OnStar is supposedly working on a way to reduce the likelihood something like this would happen.

Onstar Link

OnStar's link


I still think though, should a stolen vehicle strike and kill someone, the criminal would still be responsible, simply because he stole it in the first place. But it would be an interesting conundrum based on the idea that OnStar and local law enforcement had to use the equipment to stop the stolen vehicle and as they were using it, someone was killed. How culpable would they be at that point?

But...I can't wait to see what the legals here have to say on this.

that's what i was thinking, however like you said.....the person wouldn't have been killed had the thief stole the car (her argument). HOWEVER, the person also wouldn't have been killed had onstar not shut the car off (my argument).

And just so that we are all clear, you or your friend didn't steal a car that was OnStar equipped, right? ;)

LMAO!

no, this isn't one of those "so i got a friend, and....."

LOL

It doesn't look like vehicles are disabled with this technology--just the accelerator, and gradually at that. A car thief could still stop the car or steer away from a pedestrian, so my money's on him/her still being held responsible for the pedestrian's death.

Interesting question because on the one hand, he might argue there's no actus reus, i.e., the bad act which kills the person.

The state, however, might argue that the felony murder rule applies. While its application varies from state to state, essentially, the felony murder rule is this -- if in the commission of a certain type of 'violent' felony, you kill someone, that can be first degree murder.

At the very least you're looking at negligent homicide, because stealing a car is pretty criminally negligent because bad things often happen in the course of auto theft, e.g., high speed chases. At the worst, you're looking at 1st degree murder.

I'm a few years removed from my crim law class, but this would make a good test question.. and really, it could go several ways.

LOL. My first reaction when I read this was to have a bar exam flashback.

I get to experience the joy of the Bar exam in July.

Lucky me, huh?

Since it's quite obvious when a car is Onstar equipped, I'd say you're responsible because you stole a car that you knew had Onstar and took the risk of having it shut off on you when it was reported stolen. So simple to avoid: Don't steal cars with Onstar. Errr: Don't steal cars at all!

This is the A+++ answer on the exam.

And I didn't even go to law school! <takes a bow>