California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Horn, 158 Cal.App.3d 1014, 205 Cal.Rptr. 119 (Cal. App. 1984):
2 The information alleged that defendant committed vehicular manslaughter by unlawfully and feloniously killing the victim "without malice but with gross negligence, as a proximate result of the commission by said defendant of an unlawful act, a violation of Vehicle Code Sections 22350 [speeding] and 21453a [failure to stop at a red signal], while driving a vehicle ...." In People v. Shearer (1970) 9 Cal.App.3d 74, 77-78, 87 Cal.Rptr. 811, we approved the definition of gross negligence, in vehicular manslaughter as "the failure to exercise any care, or the exercise of so little care that [the jurors] are justified in believing that the person whose conduct is involved was wholly indifferent to the consequences of his conduct and to the welfare of others." (See CALJIC No. 8.92 (4th ed. 1979).) Presumably the trial court found that defendant failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that she was incapable of knowing or understanding that she was driving a motor vehicle with gross negligence.
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