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47 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 121 (2014-2015)
Unintentional Killings

handle is hein.journals/text47 and id is 131 raw text is: UNINTENTIONAL KILLINGS Arnold H. Loewy* I. DEPRAVED-HEART M URDER .............................................................. 123 II. FELONY M URDER ................................................................................ 126 III. C ON CLU SION ....................................................................................... 128 The concept of criminalizing unintentional homicides sounds almost oxymoronic until one realizes that unintentional does not mean fault free. The unintentional killings that have been punished in the last century run the gamut from the blameless to the highly blameworthy. In this brief Essay, I intend to examine the gamut of unintentional killings and assess the wisdom of various courts' treatment of them. Although one would think that liability without fault would never be a basis upon which to predicate homicidal liability, such is not universally the case. More than half a century ago, New York, with a rather extreme application of the misdemeanor-manslaughter rule, held a landlord absolutely liable for the death of a tenant for failure to have adequate fire escapes.' While that might not sound so terrible (big wicked landlord allowing his poor tenants to perish because of the inadequacy of his fire escapes), the actual facts of the case did not meet that eminently explicable explanation.2 The landlord, a previous tenant named Nelson, was a poorly educated African-American.3 His landlord was prepared to close the building, because he knew it was not up to code, and evict everybody.4 Instead, he offered Nelson a chance to buy the building at a low price without disclosing his failure to meet the code standard.5 Nevertheless, by applying the misdemeanor-manslaughter rule, the New York Court of Appeals upheld Nelson's conviction.6 Although for a time I thought Nelson to be a relic of a bygone time, the Ohio Supreme Court recently held that a woman who crosses the centerline of a highway, killing three people, can be guilty of involuntary manslaughter even if the reason for her crossing the centerline was a heart attack that rendered her unconscious.7 While the case, State v. Weitbrecht, merely upheld the state's * George Killam Professor of Criminal Law, Texas Tech University School of Law. 1. People v. Nelson, 128 N.E.2d 391, 393 (N.Y. 1955). 2. Id. at 394-95 (Van Voorhis, J., dissenting). 3. Id. at394. 4. Id 5. Id. at 394-95. 6. Id. at 393 (majority opinion). 7. State v. Weitbrecht, 715 N.E.2d 167, 172 (Ohio 1999) (Pfeifer, J., dissenting).

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