Summary
The Georgia Supreme Court held that strict-liability traffic offenses still require proof that the defendant voluntarily committed the prohibited act. An accident instruction was therefore unwarranted where the defendant voluntarily drove into a crosswalk, although her testimony that the child unexpectedly entered the vehicle’s path supported a proximate-cause defense. The court reversed the Court of Appeals’ judgment.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Georgia's strict-liability traffic offenses contain a criminal-intent element requiring voluntary commission of the prohibited act.
- Whether an accident instruction is available in a strict-liability traffic-offense prosecution when the defendant voluntarily committed the prohibited act but claims that another person's conduct made the collision unavoidable.
- Whether Ogilvie's evidence supported an accident instruction or instead raised only a proximate-cause issue.
- Whether the trial court properly instructed the jury on proximate cause.
Holdings
- Georgia traffic offenses under Title 40, Chapter 6 are misdemeanor crimes and therefore require criminal intent in the form of voluntary commission of the prohibited act, although they generally do not require a specific intent, guilty knowledge, or other culpable mental state.
- An accident instruction is available for a strict-liability traffic offense only when there is evidence, however slight, that the defendant did not voluntarily commit the prohibited act.
- The trial court was not required to give an accident instruction because Ogilvie did not claim that she involuntarily drove into the crosswalk; her claim that the child unexpectedly ran into the vehicle concerned proximate cause rather than accident.
- Ogilvie's testimony warranted a proximate-cause instruction, and the trial court did not err because it fully instructed the jury on proximate cause.
Key quotations
“Thus, “strict liability” traffic offenses are not offenses with no criminal intent element.” (292 Ga. at 9)
“They do not require the specific intent or wrongful purpose that is an element of other crimes, but they do require the defendant to have voluntarily committed the act that the statute prohibits” (292 Ga. at 9)
“Accordingly, a jury charge on the defense of accident to a strict liability traffic offense is available only where there is evidence, however slight, that the defendant did not voluntarily commit the prohibited act.” (292 Ga. at 9-10)
“That is a proximate cause defense, not an accident defense, regardless of how she tried to characterize it.” (292 Ga. at 12)
Factual background
Shirley Ogilvie drove through a crosswalk and struck and killed a seven-year-old boy who was crossing the street. She was convicted of second-degree vehicular homicide, predicated on violating the statute requiring a driver to stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Ogilvie testified that the child ran into the street in front of her car, leaving only a second or two to avoid the collision, but she did not dispute that she voluntarily drove into the crosswalk.
Procedural history
Ogilvie was convicted after striking and killing a seven-year-old pedestrian in a crosswalk. The trial court refused her requested accident instruction. The Court of Appeals held that the instruction was authorized and that its omission was harmful, and it reversed the convictions. The Supreme Court of Georgia reversed the Court of Appeals' judgment.