Youthful Inexperience Is Not a Crime

This week's Daily Record column is entitled "Youthful Inexperience Is Not a Crime."  The article is set forth in full below and a pdf of the article can be found here.

My past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

******

Youthful inexperience is not a crime

Last week, the New York Court of Appeals handed down its decision in People v. Cabrera, 2008 NY Slip Op 03994.

In this case, the 17 year-old defendant, Brett Cabrera, was driving an SUV in Sullivan County with four teenage passengers.

It is estimated he was traveling at about 70 mph in a 55- mph zone and failed to slow down in a curve for which the recommended speed limit was 40 mph.

His vehicle skidded off the roadway and into a tele- phone pole. Three of his passengers were killed, and the other suffered a fractured spine. None were wearing seatbelts. Cabrera was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the accident.

A jury convicted Cabrera of three counts of criminally negligent homicide, assault in the third degree, reckless driving and other traffic infractions. He was sentenced to 1 1/3 to 4 years in state prison. He served the full length of his sentence in a maximum-security prison while his appeal was pending.

The verdict and sentence were upheld by the Third Department. The majority opinion acknowledged that the New York Court of Appeals had previously held that excessive speed alone could not form the basis for a conviction based on a showing of recklessness or culpable negligence, but concluded that the necessary level of culpability was established in light of the evidence that Cabrera committed two traffic violations: failing to ensure that no more than two passengers were under the age of 21; and failing to require that all passengers were wear seat belts.

When I wrote about this case a few months ago, I lamented the Third Department’s decision and was hopeful that the Court of Appeals would reverse the ruling.

Last week, my hopes became reality when the Court of Appeals disagreed with the Third Department, concluding that Cabrera’s, traffic violations did not cause or contribute to the crash.

The court held that:

The question on this appeal is therefore whether, when viewed in the light most favorable to the People, the evidence adduced at trial showed that Cabrera's conduct constituted "not only a failure to perceive a risk of death, but also some serious blameworthiness in the
conduct that caused it" (Boutin, 75 NY2d at 696). Measured by that standard, the evidence falls short. For a 17-year-old to badly misgauge his ability to handle road conditions is not the kind of seriously condemnatory behavior that the Legislature envisioned when it defined
"criminal negligence," even though the consequences here were fatal...

This crash resulted from noncriminal failure to perceive
risk; it was not the result of criminal risk creation.

This was a horrific and devastating accident that will no doubt haunt Cabrera for the rest of his life.  What happened in this case was a tragedy for all involved. Young lives were needlessly lost as a result of Cabrera’s negligence.

However, as the Court of Appeals aptly noted, negligent conduct does not necessarily constitute criminal conduct.  If ever there was a case in which prosecutorial discretion was called for, this was it.  Instead, discretion was thrown to the wind and a young man was criminally prosecuted and convicted for the crime of youthful inexperience.

Fortunately, the Court of Appeals had the good sense to reverse this travesty of justice and allow the issue of Cabrera’s negligence to be prosecuted in the proper venue:  civil court.