Involuntary manslaughter reckless driving or hit and run?

[Rollieollie22]

Say I'm a lookout for a drug deal thats going on and I see a cop pull up across the street and get out to start walking across the street towards me and I get paranoid and panic and I try to take off down the street in my car but I accidentally run him over and he dies along the way as I drive off out of shock. Will I be charged for involuntary manslaughter or hit and run? It can't be considered murder since I didn't mean for him to die and I only ran him over out of panic right? Please I need a input from a legal perspective not criticism I know I messed up.

 

[cbg]

Might be either. Might be second-degree homicide, too.

 

[CdwJava]

Uh huh ... and that really happened?

 

[Gail in Georgia]

My guess would be vehicular homicide in the commission of a crime.

 

[CdwJava]

It would depend very much on the state. And, depending on the facts, the felony murder rule might apply.

 

[quincy]

Say I'm a lookout for a drug deal thats going on and I see a cop pull up across the street and get out to start walking across the street towards me and I get paranoid and panic and I try to take off down the street in my car but I accidentally run him over and he dies along the way as I drive off out of shock. Will I be charged for involuntary manslaughter or hit and run? It can't be considered murder since I didn't mean for him to die and I only ran him over out of panic right? Please I need a input from a legal perspective not criticism I know I messed up.

You could be charged with a whole host of crimes.

If this really happened, you need a very good criminal defense attorney.

 

[adjusterjack]

I need a input from a legal perspective

Then hire a lawyer.

 

[quincy]

"Panic," as a note, makes for a poor defense to committing a crime.

 

[Just Blue]

"Panic," as a note, makes for a poor defense to committing a crime.

Especially as OP was in a panic cause s/he was committing a felony.

 

[quincy]

Especially as OP was in a panic cause s/he was committing a felony.

There appears to have been good reason for RollieOllie to panic - but not so good a reason to run over a police officer in this panic.

All RollieOllie has accomplished for himself is create one more (and greater) reason to panic, as he faces significant time in prison.

 

[Taxing Matters]

It can't be considered murder since I didn't mean for him to die and I only ran him over out of panic right?

It could be charged as murder if the prosecutor thinks the evidence supports it. Bear in mind that while you know what your intent was, others do not. They go by what they see to infer intent. A criminal keeping a lookout for the crime sees a cop pull up and walk towards him. He then jams the accelerator and runs over the cop, killing him, and flees. That could look a lot like murder — the argument being you ran the cop down intending to kill him so he could not identify you and then take off before more cops arrive to arrest you. You would then have the task at trial to at least prove you didn't intend to kill him (or even hit him) and that it was instead an accident caused by panic. What the jury would decide in that instance is impossible to guess at.

 

[quincy]

And, as CdwJava aptly noted, the state in question matters.