Posted: May 19th, 2017

Despite a double-yellow line, Dave Hornblower passed a slowmoving haytruck. He crashed into an oncoming car and his passenger died as a result. Hornblower insists that he was “sure” nobody was coming from the other direction. Long before he arrived at the “blind spot,” he says, he’d had a clear view of the road ahead, and he was “absolutely certain” that there was no approaching traffic. In fact, the car he collided with had turned onto the road just a few seconds earlier from a small driveway that Hornblower didn’t know about. Under the Model Penal Code

Despite a double-yellow line, Dave Hornblower passed a slowmoving haytruck. He crashed into an oncoming car and his passenger died as a result. Hornblower insists that he was “sure” nobody was coming from the other direction. Long before he arrived at the “blind spot,” he says, he’d had a clear view of the road ahead, and he was “absolutely certain” that there was no approaching traffic. In fact, the car he collided with had turned onto the road just a few seconds earlier from a small driveway that Hornblower didn’t know about. Under the Model Penal Code: a. Hornblower cannot be convicted of criminally negligent homicide because he did not know there was oncoming traffic. b. Hornblower can be convicted of criminally negligent homicide even if he was not consciously aware of the risk. c. Hornblower cannot be convicted of criminally negligent homicide because the car that turned from the small driveway was the proximate cause of the collision. d. Hornblower can be convicted of criminally negligent homicide if he failed to use the care that an ordinarily prudent person would use under the circumstances.