[B’ Spokes: We’ve had cases in Maryland where speeding is just speeding, even at twice the speed limit and even if it results in a death.]
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By J. DAVID GOODMAN, New York Times
The crash left a young couple and their baby dead. The driver of the speeding BMW who struck them was charged with criminally negligent homicide. But making those charges stick will be a nettlesome challenge for prosecutors.
It has always been: persuading a jury that a driver’s negligence rises to the level of a crime is notoriously tough. But recent court rulings, which said that drivers’ actions failed to show moral blame, promise to muddy this already gray legal area further, and may work in the favor of the BMW’s driver, Julio Acevedo.
Mr. Acevedo was going twice the legal speed limit down a Brooklyn street when he crashed into a livery cab as it entered an intersection. Two passengers in the cab were killed; their son, delivered after the crash, died a day later. Mr. Acevedo was arrested several days later and charged by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office with criminally negligent homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
Vehicular-crime cases in New York are usually based on a driver’s committing at least two traffic infractions, which prosecutors informally call “the rule of two.” Speeding alone is frequently insufficient to establish criminality.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/nyregion/serious-charges-in-fatal-crashes-pose-challenge-for-prosecutors.html
Biking in Baltimore