Point of View | Crime and Punishment of Epilepsy Patients Driving on the Road

Published:

2022-04-21

If you are an epileptic, can you drive a car on the road? The answer is no! According to Article 15 of the regulations on the application and use of motor vehicle driver's license issued by the Ministry of public security, those who have organic heart disease, epilepsy, Meniere's disease, vertigo, hysteria, tremor paralysis, mental illness, dementia and neurological diseases affecting physical activities shall not apply for a motor vehicle driver's license. Epilepsy is a driving taboo disease, normally, epilepsy patients can not drive a vehicle on the road, but if an epilepsy patient drives a vehicle on the road, if unfortunately on the way epilepsy seizures, and caused certain harmful consequences, then whether it constitutes a crime, if it constitutes a crime, and how to punish it? Let's look at four cases first. Brief of the case Case one Liu Moumou obtained a U.S. driver's license while studying abroad in 2017. After returning to China, he applied for a driver's license from the traffic police department on May 9, 2018. Since June 2018, Liu Moumou has been to many hospitals for consultation due to multiple short-term amnesia, general convulsions and other symptoms. During this period, he became ill while driving on November 9, 2018, causing the vehicle to lose control and causing a traffic accident. In December 2018, Liu Moumou was diagnosed with epilepsy. Since then, he has taken medication, but he still has seizures until the incident. At about 19:00 on May 16, 2019, Liu Moumou became ill again while driving out, and the vehicle lost control. First, he crashed into the crowd waiting for the signal light on the safety island in the middle of the intersection, and then crashed into two motor vehicles waiting for the signal light in the opposite direction., Resulting in three deaths, one serious injury, five minor injuries, and two minor injuries, three cars, four electric bicycles, a bicycle and municipal transportation facilities were damaged with a value of 125897 yuan. After the accident, Liu Moumou remained in the car that caused the accident. The owner of the car who was hit came forward to remind him to turn off the engine. Liu Moumou did not respond. After that, Liu Moumou gradually became conscious and got off the bus. He called 120 Emergency Center when reminded by others. Case II 1. At about 11 o'clock on December 5, 2009, Li Mougui had an epileptic seizure while driving an off-road vehicle without a license. The vehicle he was driving lost control and collided with three vehicles successively, and then rushed into the sidewalk on the east side of the road. Damaged electric vehicles and protective fences on the roadside. After identification: Wang Moujia and Yue Mou's human body injuries were minor injuries, and Li Mou's human body injuries were minor injuries, causing a total of 44492.90 yuan in direct economic losses. 2. At about 19:00 on August 11, 2011, Li Mougui drove a car without a license and had an epileptic seizure on the highway. The vehicle he was driving lost control and collided with the middle guardrail of the highway. Defendant Li Mougui lost 85290 yuan for the vehicle he was driving and 8800 yuan for the guardrail fee in the middle of the expressway. 3. At about 15:00 on September 28, 2012, Li Mougui had an epileptic seizure while driving a small passenger car without a license. The vehicle he was driving lost control and collided with three vehicles successively, causing damage to the three vehicles to varying degrees. Passengers Zhang and Pu were injured, and Li Chungui himself was slightly injured. The direct economic loss was identified as 11960 yuan. Case three In 1998, Zuo applied for a motor vehicle driver's license with a permitted driving type A. In February 2012, the left army was diagnosed with epilepsy by the hospital. In July of the same year, when the driver's license was reviewed, he concealed his illness, deceived the public security organs, and renewed his driver's license. In January 2014 he was again hospitalized for epilepsy. At about 15:00 on May 1 of the same year, when Zuo Moujun was driving a car (carrying his wife and brother) on the road in the city, he had a sudden seizure of epilepsy, causing the vehicle to crash into pedestrians due to loss of control, resulting in 4 deaths and 8 people. A major traffic accident with varying degrees of injury. Case four At about 20 o'clock on February 28, 2019, Tian Mouhong was driving a small ordinary passenger car. On the way, an epileptic seizure caused the vehicle to lose control. It successively collided with the bicycle in the riding and the car in the driving, and caused the cyclist to be rescued. The invalid death, the co-passengers of the car were injured, and the three cars were damaged. Question 1: Do the above four epilepsy patients have criminal responsibility in the case? Epilepsy is a type of driving contraindicated disease. According to the regulations, people with epilepsy are not allowed to apply for a driver's license, and those who have applied for a driver's license are not allowed to drive a motor vehicle after determining that they have epilepsy, and should apply for cancellation of the driver's license. The driving qualification and driving behavior of patients with driving contraindications are mainly based on the fact that patients cannot control the onset time and consequences of their own diseases autonomously, and driving motor vehicles on the road is highly dangerous to public safety. Therefore, in terms of the ability to identify the criminal responsibility, the perpetrator of the crime began to start driving the vehicle illegally, so the identification of its criminal responsibility should be based on its ability to identify and control the vehicle when it began to drive illegally, and the perpetrator's illness in the process of committing the crime does not affect the identification of its criminal responsibility. In the above four cases, all the actors have been diagnosed as patients with driving contraindication diseases before the crime. They have normal identification and control ability when driving motor vehicles on the road. They have the ability to understand and choose the results of endangering public safety due to their own diseases at any time. Their ability to identify and control will be weakened or lost due to the onset at any time, which will cause high danger to public safety, it is the result of free choice when it violates the driving taboo, and it shall bear the corresponding criminal responsibility for the occurrence of the result. Referee result The above four cases are all from the public cases of Chinese judicial documents. In case one, the court held that Liu Moumou was not allowed to drive a motor vehicle knowing that he had epilepsy, and when a traffic accident had occurred, he drove a motor vehicle on the road. The seizure caused the vehicle to lose control and collide with pedestrians and vehicles, causing three deaths and eight injuries, and the serious consequences of damage to related vehicles and traffic facilities, his behavior constituted the crime of endangering public security by dangerous means. The court sentenced Liu to 13 years' imprisonment after comprehensively considering Liu's surrender, compensation and understanding, and confession. The court in case 2 held that Li mougui, knowing that he was suffering from epilepsy and was not qualified to drive, still drove a motor vehicle three times, causing two minor injuries, one minor injury, direct economic loss of 44492.90 yuan, vehicle loss of 85290 yuan, loss of 8800 yuan of highway intermediate guardrail fee and damage of multiple vehicles, two bus passengers and direct economic loss of 11960 yuan, His behavior is enough to endanger public safety, it has constituted the crime of endangering public security by dangerous means. Considering the circumstances of his confession and compensation, Liu was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. In case 3, the court held that Zuo Moujun violated traffic and transportation management regulations and caused a major traffic accident that caused 4 deaths and 8 injuries. His behavior constituted a traffic accident crime and was sentenced to seven years in prison. In case 4, the procuratorate prosecuted the crime of endangering public security by dangerous means. After trial, the court held that the crime of endangering public security by dangerous means was an intentional crime, and Tian Mouhong did not have the subjective intention to pursue the result of the crime or allow the result of the crime to occur, which did not meet the constitutive requirements of the crime. Tian Mouhong violated the traffic and transportation management regulations and caused a major accident that caused the death of one person. He should be identified as a traffic accident crime. Based on his confession and compensation understanding, he was sentenced to one year and six months in prison. Question 2: The same epilepsy patients have a traffic accident while driving on the road. Why are the charges different and the penalties are also quite different. Are there different sentences in the same case, or are the facts of the case really different? From the two charges involved in the analysis. The crime of endangering public safety by dangerous means refers to the act of endangering public safety by using other dangerous methods equivalent to the danger of fire prevention, throwing dangerous substances, breaking water and explosion methods. The legal interest violated by this crime is the safety of the lives and property of the unspecified majority, which belongs to the crime of endangering public security. The crime of causing traffic accidents refers to the act of violating traffic and transportation management laws and regulations, resulting in a major traffic accident, causing serious injury or death, or causing heavy losses to public and private property. The crime also has the characteristics of endangering the unspecified majority. Specifically in the above four cases, the perpetrator knew that he had epilepsy, and he also knew that he was not allowed to drive on the road with epilepsy. That is, the perpetrators in the four cases were aware of the violation of traffic rules. However, the crime of endangering public safety in a dangerous way is an intentional crime, that is, the perpetrator knows that he has epilepsy and drives on the road, which may cause harm to the society, but he still drives on the road and allows the result of endangering the society to occur. The crime requires that the perpetrator is subjectively indirect and intentional. The crime of causing traffic accidents is a crime of negligence. The perpetrator violates traffic rules intentionally. He foresees the possible harmful consequences of doing so, but he is too confident and credulous to avoid it. Therefore, in order to find out the reasons for the different sentences in the above four cases, it is necessary to further analyze whether the subjective guilt of the perpetrator is indirect intentional or overconfident negligence. From the actor's subjective guilt analysis. According to the provisions of articles 14 and 15 of the criminal law of our country, it is an intentional crime to know that one's own behavior will have the result of endangering the society, and hope or allow such result to occur, thus constituting a crime. It is a negligent crime to foresee the possible result of one's own behavior that is harmful to the society. If one does not foresee it due to carelessness, or if one has foreseen it and believes it can be avoided, such a result. Among them, it is difficult to accurately distinguish between the intentional crime of allowing the harmful result to occur (indirect intention) and the negligent crime of credulity to avoid (overconfidence). In terms of cognitive factors, the doer knows that his behavior will cause harm to the society. In terms of volitional factors, the doer does not hope and pursue the social result of his behavior, the main difference is that the former is laissez-faire and the latter is opposed. In case one, Liu, as an adult with a higher education level, has normal cognitive ability. His confession knows that he has epilepsy. When the frequency of onset is high, it is once every two or three days, and when it is low, it is once every ten days. When the onset of the disease will suddenly lose consciousness, sometimes hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, there have been traffic accidents before the incident. Judging from Liu Moumou's confession and previous driving experience, Liu Moumou is not sure about the incidence of his forbidden driving disease and knows that he cannot control the consequences of the disease. He argues that he has a fluke mentality to drive, which does not rule out his laissez-faire mentality of resignation to the consequences of his behavior. In case 2, Li Mougui suffered from epilepsy for many years and could not be cured. He drove on the road without a license for many times, and had three seizures while driving without a license and caused accidents. People with common sense of life and driving experience know that epilepsy is a kind of nervous system seizure disease. The symptoms of epilepsy can be manifested as short-term disturbance of consciousness, and severe as systemic muscle twitching and loss of consciousness, which will cause the patient to lose consciousness and behavior ability for a period of time. Epilepsy is sudden, unpredictable and uncontrollable, and the probability of onset is high before it is completely cured. Patients may get sick at any time when driving a motor vehicle on the road, and once they get sick, they will lose control of the motor vehicle. the result of endangering public safety (dangerous or real harm) will be inevitable. Li Mougui knew that he had frequent seizures, and he had a precedent of seizures on the way before, but he still did not learn a lesson, which shows that he subjectively holds a laissez-faire attitude towards the possible harmful consequences. In the third case, Zuo Moujun concealed epilepsy, deceived the review agency, and renewed the motor vehicle driver's license during the motor vehicle driver's license review, which violated administrative regulations. But it has no precedent for driving while driving, and has been taking anti-epileptic drugs. Therefore, in terms of probability, the possibility of Zuo Moujun's sudden epilepsy while driving is very low, and it is not an administrative illegal act that will cause harmful consequences with a high probability. In addition, Zuo Moujun was hospitalized many times before the incident and has been taking antiepileptic drugs. The treatment has achieved certain results. Combined with the precedent that he has never had an epileptic seizure while driving before, he took his wife and brother on this trip. It can be presumed that Zuo Moujun's opposition to the occurrence of harmful results is both objective reality and customary thinking, and subjectively belongs to the fault of overconfidence. In case 4, Tian Mouhong suffered from epilepsy. After a period of hospitalization before the incident, good results have been achieved. When he was discharged from the hospital, the doctor did not require him to take the medicine on time. But out of caution, Tian Mouhong took the medicine every once in a while for a few days. Before this Tian a red drive has never had a seizure. The prosecutor accused Tian Mouhong of "driving after knowing that he had epilepsy that hindered driving qualifications and stopped taking drugs without authorization", but the court held that the case proved that Tian Mouhong knew that he had epilepsy and drove a motor vehicle without authorization. Insufficient evidence, and then believe that Tian Mouhong does not have the subjective intention to pursue the result of the crime or allow the result of the crime to occur, and does not meet the constitutive elements of the crime of endangering public safety by dangerous methods. A number of major criminal cases have occurred in this case due to the onset of driving contraindications. I would like to remind people suffering from driving taboo diseases not to be lucky and blindly confident. Once a traffic accident occurs, it will eventually harm others and themselves.

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