Court Opinion

ID: 9753999
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:37:46.821297+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:46.414158
License: Public Domain

POPOVICH, Judge,
dissenting:
Accepting Commonwealth v. Field, 490 Pa. 519, 417 A.2d 160 (1980), and Commonwealth v. Houtz, 496 Pa. 344, 437 A.2d 385 (1981), both authored by Justice Roberts, as the correct statement of the law, I must dissent.
Both my colleagues, Wickersham, J. writing for the majority, and Spaeth, J. concurring, have, in my view, overlooked a fundamental requirement for conviction of “homicide by vehicle”, Vehicle Code, 75 Pa. C.S.A. § 3732.
In Field, supra, as bright light guidance, Justice ROBERTS cogently pointed out that not only must the Commonwealth prove that the underlying vehicle code violation caused the victim’s death, but also that, at the very least, death must be a probable consequence of defendant’s culpable conduct, citing 18 Pa.C.S.A. 303(d).1 Commonwealth v. Field, supra, 490 Pa. at 523-25, 417 A.2d at 163; accord Commonwealth v. Houtz, supra, 496 Pa. at 349, 437 A.2d at 387.
In other words, there must be a code violation causing death and death must be the probable consequence of the culpable conduct—not merely the possible consequence or conceivable consequence, feasible consequence or imaginable *374consequence, but rather the probable consequence, meaning, of course, the likely result.
Instantly, the Commonwealth, at best, proved only the failure to observe a stop sign, a collision and death as a result of the Vehicle Code violation. There is not a scintilla of evidence to show that death would probably result from appellant’s driving through a stop sign that evening of February 4, 1979. Under the facts presented here, who could have predicted even that a collision would occur, much less a collision, bodily injury and death.
Posit a situation where a vehicle operator ignores a stop light at a crowded intersection. There, an actual death caused by one’s culpable conduct would indeed be the probable consequence of the Vehicle Code violation and not merely a possible or fortuitous consequence as we are presented with instantly.
Here, there has been no showing that the intersecting highway was crowded or even otherwise occupied save for the victim’s car. Thus the majority is telling the millions of drivers in this Commonwealth that if death occurs as the result of any violation of the Vehicle Code, the violator is guilty of criminal homicide.2 Our courts are clogged today with thousands of civil cases arising out of motor vehicle accidents, accidents which, obviously, could not have occurred except as a result of some Vehicle Code violation. Are all these civil defendants criminals but for the fact that the plaintiff did not succumb in the accident? Clearly, the Legislature did not intend such an absurdity.
Unfortunately, the majority here judicially makes that absurdity the law of the Commonwealth.
I dissent.

. “When causing a particular result is a material element of an offense for which absolute liability is imposed by law, the element is not established unless the actual result is a probable consequence of the conduct of the actor.” (Emphasis added).

. The paradoxical irony is that if death does not result and even though the victim of a collision is rendered permanently comatose or handicapped, no criminal liability would attach.