aGameOfThrones
12-06-2013, 05:41 PM
Could you be held accountable for allowing someone else to drive drunk? Two 17-year-old boys arrested in Glastonbury, CT on Thursday are finding out the hard way that you can. They were charged with misdemeanors, as police say they knew their friend Jane Modlesky, also 17, was too drunk to drive when she got behind the wheel of an SUV in July before crashing into a tree and dying.
“They very well knew that she was intoxicated and should not have been driving,” Agent James Kennedy of the Glastonbury Police Department tells NBC Connecticut. (Kennedy did not return calls requesting comment from Yahoo Shine.)
The young men, one of whom was driving and the other of whom was a passenger before getting out of the car and watching Modlesky drive off into the early morning, were charged separately. One was charged with reckless endangerment in the second degree, violation of passenger restrictions and operating a motor vehicle between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., while the other was charged with violation of passenger restrictions and operating a motor vehicle between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Both are due in court later this month.
“This is a highly unusual situation,” California attorney Lawrence Taylor, author of the law book “Drunk Driving Defense” and a former law professor, tells Yahoo Shine. “It’s basically saying that they had a positive duty to stop her. But you cannot be prosecuted because you didn’t stop someone from engaging in criminal conduct: If someone is holding a gun and is about to shoot it, and you don’t pull it out of their hand, you cannot be held accountable. So I think the police are kind of overreaching here.”
Taylor further explains that DUI is considered a "general intent crime," rather than a "specific intent crime" such as stealing or murder. “If you have a general intent crime, it’s pretty hard to be an accomplice,” he notes. “But having said that, there are states who have said yes, you can be an accomplice.”
http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/teens-charged-as-accomplices-for-letting-friend-drive-drunk-194849860.html
“They very well knew that she was intoxicated and should not have been driving,” Agent James Kennedy of the Glastonbury Police Department tells NBC Connecticut. (Kennedy did not return calls requesting comment from Yahoo Shine.)
The young men, one of whom was driving and the other of whom was a passenger before getting out of the car and watching Modlesky drive off into the early morning, were charged separately. One was charged with reckless endangerment in the second degree, violation of passenger restrictions and operating a motor vehicle between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., while the other was charged with violation of passenger restrictions and operating a motor vehicle between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Both are due in court later this month.
“This is a highly unusual situation,” California attorney Lawrence Taylor, author of the law book “Drunk Driving Defense” and a former law professor, tells Yahoo Shine. “It’s basically saying that they had a positive duty to stop her. But you cannot be prosecuted because you didn’t stop someone from engaging in criminal conduct: If someone is holding a gun and is about to shoot it, and you don’t pull it out of their hand, you cannot be held accountable. So I think the police are kind of overreaching here.”
Taylor further explains that DUI is considered a "general intent crime," rather than a "specific intent crime" such as stealing or murder. “If you have a general intent crime, it’s pretty hard to be an accomplice,” he notes. “But having said that, there are states who have said yes, you can be an accomplice.”
http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/teens-charged-as-accomplices-for-letting-friend-drive-drunk-194849860.html