Reckless driving

The Supreme Court (TS) has rejected the appeals filed by several private accusers who requested that, in addition to the already appreciated crimes (reckless homicide and reckless injury), the driver should also be convicted of reckless driving . The case stems from a very serious

accident that occurred in the early hours on the way back to A Coruña, when the driver had five occupants in a car designed for four , and did not ensure that the minors in the back used seat belts. At the entrance to the city , on a stretch with , in a section with 80 km/h speed limit , he reached at least 145 km/h , lost control, and the vehicle ended up rolling over and hitting a tree. A young man sitting in the back without a seatbelt died, and the other occupants suffered serious injuries. Initially, he was convicted of reckless manslaughter and several counts of reckless injury , with prison sentences, driving license suspension, and civil liability (with insurance involvement).

The main issue in the Supreme Court is not "whether there was recklessness," but a procedural issue because the lower court's ruling had a defect of omissive inconsistency (what the Supreme Court itself calls a "shortcoming in the ruling"), as there was no ruling on the request for a conviction for reckless driving. And, as explained, neither did the judge correct it ex officio , nor did the prosecution properly activate the sentence supplementation mechanism ; they only asked for a clarification on whether the road was urban or interurban.

As in these procedures, cassation is   very limited to the scope of art. 849. 1 LECr, the SC concludes that it cannot intervene to correct this type of procedural issues to now add a new sentence, and therefore dismisses the appeals .

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