Increases the penalty for crime of criminally negligent homicide

5 Co-sponsors

• Tony Avella
• John J. Flanagan
• Timothy M. Kennedy
• William J. Larkin Jr.
• Michael H. Ranzenhofer

BILL NUMBER:S943

Title of bill

An act to amend the penal law, in relation to criminally negligent homicide

Purpose

This bill would make criminally negligent homicide a class D felony.

Summary of provisions

Section 125.10 of the penal law is amended to increase the crime of criminally negligent homicide from a class E felony offense to a class D felony offense.

Justification

Judges have expressed the view, during sentencing and after, that the sentence which could be imposed under the limits of the criminally negligent homicide statute, often do not fit the seriousness of the crime committed.

First degree manslaughter is a class B felony and second degree manslaughter is a class C felony. Logically, the next successive or immediate lesser offense of criminally negligent homicide should be a class D felony. However, under current State penal law, criminally negligent homicide is actually a class E felony.

Unfortunately, the discrepancy in the classification of these crimes was all too recently illustrated in the tragic death of a police officer, who died in May of 1996 as a result of injuries sustained while responding to a domestic dispute. During the course of a struggle, the officer fell and was cut by a piece of glass from a mirror which the defendant had allegedly thrown at his wife. The officer subsequently died as result of a severed artery.

The Grand Jury indicted the defendant on charges of criminally negligent homicide, assault in the second degree, attempted assault in the second degree, reckless endangerment and resisting arrest. In this case the statutory discrepancy subjected the defendant to harsher treatment for injuring the officer (assault in the second degree, a maximum of seven years in prison) than for causing the death of the officer (criminally negligent homicide, a maximum sentence of four years in prison).

Obviously, this case and others like it are a complete travesty. Accordingly, this bill will amend current law to make the crime of criminally negligent homicide more compatible with the seriousness of the offense committed.

Legislative history

Passed Senate: 1995-2008 Senate Codes Committee: 2009-10

Fiscal implications

None.

Effective date

This act shall take effect on the first day of January next succeeding the date on which it shall have become law.