{"id":900,"date":"2020-09-22T18:04:32","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T22:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/?p=900"},"modified":"2022-10-04T13:42:46","modified_gmt":"2022-10-04T17:42:46","slug":"can-drunk-driving-be-charged-as-murder-in-michigan-where-death-occurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/can-drunk-driving-be-charged-as-murder-in-michigan-where-death-occurs\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs?<\/p>\n<p>Whenever a death occurs at the hands of another, a prosecutor must decide how to charge the wrongdoer. In several Michigan cases involving intoxicated drivers where a death has occurred prosecutors have successfully charged murder. Generally, the appropriate charge is OWI causing death, which is punishable by up 15 years in prison. See MCL Sec. 257.625, <em>et. seq.<\/em> However, if a prosecutor can show that a driver had the appropriate mindset, then this charge can be raised to second degree murder, which is punishable by up to life in prison. See MCL Sec. 750.317.<\/p>\n<p>Each crime is made up of elements, and an important element in a murder charge relates to the element of criminal intent. Consequently, in a murder case, the prosecutor will be focused on evaluating any evidence suggesting the wrongdoer\u2019s state of mind, or what we lawyer\u2019s call \u201cmens rea.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/can-drunk-driving-be-charged-as-murder-in-michigan-where-death-occurs\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs?\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs? Whenever a death occurs at the hands of another, a prosecutor must decide how to charge the wrongdoer. In several Michigan cases involving intoxicated drivers where a death has occurred prosecutors have successfully charged murder. Generally, the appropriate charge is OWI causing death, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,25,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-evidence","category-dui","category-owi"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs? &#8212; Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; September 22, 2020<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs? Whenever a death occurs at the hands of another, a prosecutor must decide how to &#8212; September 22, 2020\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/can-drunk-driving-be-charged-as-murder-in-michigan-where-death-occurs\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs? &#8212; Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; September 22, 2020\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs? Whenever a death occurs at the hands of another, a prosecutor must decide how to &#8212; September 22, 2020\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Patrick Barone\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs? &#8212; Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; September 22, 2020","description":"Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs? Whenever a death occurs at the hands of another, a prosecutor must decide how to &#8212; September 22, 2020","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/can-drunk-driving-be-charged-as-murder-in-michigan-where-death-occurs\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs? &#8212; Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; September 22, 2020","twitter_description":"Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs? Whenever a death occurs at the hands of another, a prosecutor must decide how to &#8212; September 22, 2020","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Patrick Barone","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/can-drunk-driving-be-charged-as-murder-in-michigan-where-death-occurs\/","url":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/can-drunk-driving-be-charged-as-murder-in-michigan-where-death-occurs\/","name":"Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs? &#8212; Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; September 22, 2020","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-09-22T22:04:32+00:00","dateModified":"2022-10-04T17:42:46+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/da00f897e195cfccca02fe556b53136f"},"description":"Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs? Whenever a death occurs at the hands of another, a prosecutor must decide how to &#8212; September 22, 2020","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/can-drunk-driving-be-charged-as-murder-in-michigan-where-death-occurs\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/can-drunk-driving-be-charged-as-murder-in-michigan-where-death-occurs\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/can-drunk-driving-be-charged-as-murder-in-michigan-where-death-occurs\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Can Drunk Driving be Charged as Murder in Michigan Where Death Occurs?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/","name":"Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog","description":"Published by Michigan Criminal Defense Attorney \u2014 Barone Defense Firm","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/da00f897e195cfccca02fe556b53136f","name":"Patrick Barone","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/72accf40078879330cdb7caae27be7ad00db64cb0555444fefa6e1a762116037?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/72accf40078879330cdb7caae27be7ad00db64cb0555444fefa6e1a762116037?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Patrick Barone"}}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2800,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900\/revisions\/2800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baronedefensefirm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}