California Criminal Defense Blog

In fact, under California law, they are treated quite differently. Civil negligence (sometimes referred to as “ordinary” negligence) involves simple carelessness. California criminal negligence, on the other hand, involves extreme recklessness.

If you are guilty of ordinary negligence, it means that you didn’t act in the same manner as a theoretical “reasonable” person in your same shoes. Let’s say that you’re involved in an accident on one of our many overcrowded Los Angeles freeways. While you are applying your eye-makeup, you don’t realize that traffic is stopped and, as a result, you rear-end the car in front of you. This is an example of civil negligence.

Now let’s change the facts. You’re on that same crowded freeway but this time acknowledge that traffic is at a stand-still. You’re late for work, so you decide to drive 90mph on the shoulder. As you’re applying that last bit of makeup, you fail to see the stalled car up ahead, rear-end that car, and seriously injure the driver.

This is an example of criminal or “gross” negligence. Not only are you driving on the shoulder, but you’re driving at excessive speeds and simultaneously applying makeup. This is a gross departure from how that same fictitious “reasonable” person would act under the same circumstances.

Unlike civil negligence (which is more or less synonymous with carelessness), California criminal negligence necessarily involves an “I don’t care what happens” reckless attitude towards human life. Consequently, acts involving criminal negligence can result in substantial jail or prison sentences, whereas civil negligence typically (though not always) won’t subject you to criminal sanctions at all.

After the tiger attack that left a 17-year-old zoo patron dead and injured two of his friends, the San Francisco Zoo will have an uphill legal battle to face if lawsuits are in fact filed in connection with the attack. Though it’s likely the legal battle will be fought entirely in civil court, the question of responsibility for the tiger attack brings to light relevant questions of criminal negligence that are faced by California criminal defense lawyers on a regular basis.

What is criminal negligence? In essence, criminal negligence occurs when a property owner or responsible person fails to uphold a standard of care to a person to whom they owe a duty of care, causing that person harm or death. The breach of standard of care must generally be extreme for the negligent action to constitute criminal negligence. The person must fail to see that a person in reasonable circumstances would act with a higher standard of care and must act in a way which causes harm to another person. Criminal negligence is usually expressed in charges such as manslaughter, in which there does not exist an intention to kill per se, but where death occurs due to a person’s gross negligence. If a zookeeper at the San Francisco Zoo were accused of criminally negligent manslaughter, the prosecution must be able to prove without a doubt that the injury occurred due to the zookeeper’s failure to act to protect the patron to whom he had a standard of care.

The many complications of criminal negligence are too lengthy for any blog entry, but suffice it to say that a charge of manslaughter or other criminal negligence is extremely serious and carries with it dire consequences such as imprisonment, hefty fines, the possibility of a civil lawsuit, and long-lasting effects on the defendant’s life and reputation. That’s why it’s so important to find a California criminal defense attorney with the skills and resources it takes to investigate your case and represent you at trial. The lawyers of Neil Shouse & Associates have years of experience in criminal defense. Have you been accused of a crime? Contact us today for a free, confidential consultation to find out if our criminal defense services are a good match for your case.