75 Pa.C.S. § 3732 is the statute for Homicide by Vehicle in Pennsylvania and Chester County and most of these are handled by a Chester County DUI lawyer. They are tragic all around. No one wins in these cases and the stakes are high. The statute states, "Any person who recklessly or with gross negligence causes the death of another person while engaged in the violation of any law of this Commonwealth or municipal ordinance applying to the operation or use of a vehicle or to the regulation of traffic except section 3802 (relating to driving under influence of alcohol or controlled substance) is guilty of homicide by vehicle, a felony of the third degree, when the violation is the cause of death."
There are a few things you should know -- Concurrent sentences for involuntary manslaughter, pursuant to 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 2504, and homicide by vehicle, pursuant to 75 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3732, could not coexist under the double jeopardy prohibition when relaxed homicide by vehicle crime elements were established by stringent involuntary manslaughter counterparts. Vehicular homicide statute does not violate equal protection because the statute's clear purpose is to punish criminal conduct and to make punishable conduct that is more blameworthy than civil negligence yet which is not encompassed within involuntary manslaughter under the Pennsylvania Crimes Code with its requirement for acting in a reckless or grossly negligent manner while causing the death of another.
Racing on highways under 75 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3367 is not a lesser included offense of homicide by vehicle, 75 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3732, as both crimes require proof of at least one element that the other does not; therefore, sentences for these crimes do not merge. Defendant, while intoxicated, who drove his auto the wrong way down an exit ramp and travelled north on the southbound lanes of the interstate, striking and killing an occupant of an oncoming vehicle, was properly convicted of homicide by vehicle under 75 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3732 as the legislature's enactment was a constitutional exercise of its lawmaking authority even though it borrowed from tort law to impose liability because the law bore a rational relationship to the legislature's goal of reducing highway fatalities.
Trial court did not err in finding defendant violated the pre-amendment version of 75 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3732 because even though criminal negligence was no longer sufficient for conviction, recklessness remained sufficient, and a reasonable jury could have found that defendant acted recklessly where defendant weaved all over the roadway, repeatedly swerved into oncoming traffic an estimated 10-20 times, and did not hit the brakes or even attempt to avoid hitting the victim's car, which undisputedly resulted in the victim's death.