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Burnett v. State9/17/1999
de .... However, all other relevant factors demonstrate overwhelmingly that the law is penal in nature. The penalties under the statute are not light but severe; a conviction `gravely besmirches' the reputation of the offender; and the very label `vehicular homicide' identifies the crime as one taken over from the common law hierarchy of crimes involving moral condemnation.
"....
" egligent behavior implies inadvertence and must therefore be sharply distinguished from voluntary harm-doing, i.e.[,] from conduct that includes at least an awareness of possible harm. ... The vast difference between voluntary harm-doing and negligent damage was expressed by Mr. Justice Holmes's graphic terms that even a dog understands the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over.
"....
"... Intentional, knowing, and reckless actions all involve the actor's consciousness of `endangering something socially valued'; the precise culpability level that applies depends on whether the actor intends a risk as the consequence of his actions, or knows the risk will be created by his actions, or is aware of the likelihood of the risk but chooses to disregard it.
"In a fundamental sense the harshness of criminal punishment is fitting only for these types of consciously inflicted wrongs, and so traditionally the criminal law has concerned itself exclusively with conscious wrongdoing. Where harm is perpetrated inadvertently without awareness or choice, recovery for negligence may be had under the civil law, consistent with its aim to fairly shift the economic costs of injuries onto those responsible for them. Of course, when someone is killed through inadvertence of negligence, monetary recovery can never make up for the loss. But even though there may be an unreasoning desire for retribution on the part of the victim's heirs, it can serve no rational purpose of the criminal law to subject the merely negligent actor to the additional punitive sanctions of the criminal law. uch sanction serves none of the principal, preferred purposes of criminal prosecutions -- deterrence, rehabilitation, and isolation of dangerous people from society. ... One who is not aware of the criminality of his conduct cannot be deterred from performing it.
"....
"... he legislative decision to criminalize negligent driving if it happens to result in death does not make a true criminal of a merely negligent driver. Obviously such a driver never intends to take a life, and to make his negligence criminal based purely on this fortuitous outcome can have little deterrent effect on the incidence of negligent driving. A driver engaged in the negligent but unknowing commission of a traffic offense does not reflect at all on the possibility of killing someone; and it is almost absurd to suggest that he would drive more carefully if he knew it was a serious criminal offense to kill someone while driving negligently. A commentator has remarked thusly on `the fallacy of convicting the unfortunate driver':
"`Our finest citizens drive on the highways and are, at times, guilty of traffic infractions. When such an infraction results in the death of another, a jail sentence is not needed for them to realize their wrong. They did not mean to kill the first time, and the resulting mental torture from feeling they took another's life will more than insure that their driving habits will be corrected in the future.'
"Comment, The Fallacy and Fortuity of Motor Vehicle Homicide, 41 Neb.L.Rev. 793, 812-13 (1962)."
Commonwealth v. Heck, 341 Pa.Super. at 197-207, 491 A.2d at 219-226 (1985) (citations omitted).
Like the driver in Heck, a
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