Perspective | Traffic Accident Special (4): The boundary between fleeing the scene resulting in death and intentional homicide
Published:
2025-08-04
Hit and run resulting in death straddles the blurry line between negligence and intent, commission and omission, sparking persistent and profound debates in criminal law theory and practice. The core dispute centers on whether this act should be punished under Article 133 of the Criminal Law, as aggravated circumstances of "hit and run resulting in death", or under Article 232 as (indirect) intentional homicide. One viewpoint argues that the perpetrator's act of fleeing creates a high risk of the victim being subsequently run over and killed. If the perpetrator fails to provide aid and chooses to flee, allowing the victim to die, it should be deemed intentional homicide. Another viewpoint argues that if the perpetrator flees to evade legal consequences after a traffic accident, allowing the death of the victim to occur, it should be classified as a traffic accident and the provision of "death due to fleeing" should apply. This dispute not only concerns the precise deduction of criminal law theory, but also directly determines the severity of the perpetrator's punishment (the difference between the death penalty and a maximum of fifteen years' imprisonment), profoundly affecting the uniformity of judicial judgments and the public's perception of fairness and justice. Clarifying the criteria for determining the subjective mentality behind "death due to fleeing", as well as the source and boundaries of the omission obligation, has become a crucial and unavoidable key to resolving this dispute.
Hit and run resulting in death straddles the blurry line between negligence and intent, action and inaction, sparking a persistent and profound debate on criminal law theory and judicial practice. The core dispute centers on whether this act should be punished under Article 133 of the Criminal Law Traffic Accident Crime for the aggravated circumstance of "escape resulting in death," or whether it should be judged under Article 232 of the Criminal Law as (indirect) intentional homicide? One viewpoint argues that the perpetrator's escape creates a high risk of the victim being run over and killed by subsequent vehicles. If the perpetrator fails to fulfill their rescue obligation and chooses to escape, allowing the victim to die, it should be deemed intentional homicide. Another viewpoint argues that if the perpetrator flees to evade legal prosecution after a traffic accident, allowing the death of the victim to occur, it should be classified as a traffic accident crime and the provision of "death due to escape" should be applied. This dispute not only concerns the precise deduction of criminal law theory but also directly determines the severity of the perpetrator's punishment (the difference between a possible death sentence and a maximum of fifteen years' imprisonment), profoundly affecting the uniformity of judicial judgments and the public's perception of fairness and justice. Clarifying the determination standard of the subjective mentality behind "escape resulting in death" and the source and boundaries of the inaction obligation has become a key issue that cannot be avoided in resolving this dispute.
I. Criminal Trial Reference No. 923: If the perpetrator fails to fulfill the rescue obligation and allows the death of the victim to occur, it should be deemed intentional homicide.
At approximately 3:00 AM on October 16, 2005, the defendant, Li Haizhong, while operating a two-wheeled motorcycle with license plate number Yu PKC278, picked up the victim, Zhang Cheng, near Gongkang Road in Shanghai. Later, while riding south along Jiangyang Nan Road from north to south, Li Haizhong's motorcycle hit the roadside barrier due to improper operation, causing Zhang Cheng to be thrown from the back seat and fall to the ground. After getting off the motorcycle to check, Li Haizhong found Zhang Cheng lying in the motor vehicle lane, unable to move due to injuries. To evade responsibility, Li Haizhong, disregarding the danger of Zhang Cheng being run over and killed by subsequent vehicles, drove away without taking any protective measures. The court ultimately sentenced Li Haizhong to twelve years' imprisonment for intentional homicide.
The court's judgment is as follows: 1. Li Haizhong's criminal act meets the behavioral characteristics of inaction intentional homicide. After the traffic accident, Li Haizhong had a statutory obligation to rescue the injured person and promptly report to the on-duty traffic police or traffic management department. Li Haizhong had the ability to take preventive measures to prevent the harmful outcome from occurring, yet he left the victim in a highly dangerous situation of being run over and killed by subsequent vehicles. The potential harmful outcome of Li Haizhong's escape after the traffic accident is equivalent to the potential harmful outcome of an act of murder. 2. According to the forensic report, the victim's death was caused by the combined effect of Li Haizhong's traffic accident causing the victim to be injured and unable to move, and the subsequent vehicles running over him. The causal relationship between Li Haizhong's failure to fulfill his statutory obligation and the victim's death was not interrupted, meaning there was a causal relationship in criminal law between Li Haizhong's inaction and the victim's death. 3. Although Li Haizhong's initial traffic accident was due to negligence, when he knew that the victim was injured and lying in the motor vehicle lane of a main road in the early morning hours due to his driving, and was in grave danger of being run over and killed by subsequent vehicles, he still did not take any rescue or preventive measures but chose to flee. In this case, Li Haizhong's actions are a typical case of allowing the harmful outcome to occur, and his form of guilt is indirect intent. Therefore, Li Haizhong's actions should be deemed to constitute intentional homicide.
II. Supreme Court Judge: If the perpetrator flees to evade legal prosecution after a traffic accident, allowing the death of the victim to occur, the provision of "death due to escape" should be applied.
Yang, without a driver's license, hit Zhou, who was riding an unlicensed electric vehicle in the same direction. After the incident, Yang did not call the police or provide assistance, turned the vehicle around, and fled south along East 8th Road. Zhou was later run over by a small car driven by Yang. The Changsha County Traffic Police Detachment determined that Yang was mainly responsible for the accident. The Changsha County Court believed that after the traffic accident, Yang, to evade legal prosecution, knowingly disregarded the legal obligation arising from his prior actions, which could lead to the death of the victim, and ultimately caused the victim's death. His actions constituted intentional homicide. Accordingly, the court sentenced the defendant, Yang Zhenxing, to ten years' imprisonment for intentional homicide. After the verdict, Yang appealed. The Changsha Intermediate People's Court believed that Yang Zhenxing's escape to evade legal prosecution, resulting in the victim being run over and killed by subsequent vehicles, should be evaluated as "death due to escape after a traffic accident" rather than intentional homicide. Accordingly, Yang was resentenced to six years' imprisonment for traffic accident crime.
Judge Miao Youshui of the Supreme People's Court believes: 1. In terms of objective behavior, "death due to escape after a traffic accident" manifests as passive inaction, that is, after the accident, the perpetrator, fearing legal prosecution, violates the rescue obligation arising from their prior actions, disregarding the life and death of the injured person, and fleeing; if the perpetrator actively contributes to the occurrence of the victim's death, then it should be deemed intentional homicide. In this case, Yang did not actively pursue the death of the victim. 2. If the perpetrator allows the death of the victim to occur while escaping, the provision of "death due to escape" should be applied; if the perpetrator has a subjective mental attitude of direct intentional homicide and actively pursues the death of the victim, then it should be deemed intentional homicide. In this case, Yang did not have direct intent to cause the victim's death. 3. "Death due to escape after a traffic accident" stipulated in Article 133 of the Criminal Law is a Resulting aggravated offense legislative approach, and the punishment includes cases of indirect intentional homicide. Although the act of escaping after a traffic accident meets the constituent elements of indirect intentional homicide under certain conditions, compared with Article 232 (intentional homicide) of the Criminal Law, "death due to escape after a traffic accident" stipulated in Article 133 of the Criminal Law is a special law and should be applied preferentially. Therefore, this case should apply the circumstance of "death due to escape" in traffic accidents, rather than being deemed intentional homicide.
III. Analysis: Escape after a traffic accident and allowing the victim to die should apply the "death due to escape" circumstance rather than being classified as intentional homicide.
I agree with the second viewpoint, that is, escape after a traffic accident and allowing the victim to die should apply the "death due to escape" circumstance rather than being deemed intentional homicide.
Classifying a hit-and-run resulting in the death of the victim as intentional homicide presents the following problems. First, the crime of causing a traffic accident is located in Chapter 2 of the Criminal Law, "Crimes Endangering Public Safety," and its core legal interest is the life, health, and significant property safety of an unspecified majority of people; intentional homicide is located in Chapter 4, "Crimes Infringing on the Personal Rights of Citizens," protecting the absolute integrity of individual life rights. In hit-and-run cases resulting in death by neglect, the illegal nature of the perpetrator's actions is the realization of public safety risks caused by violating traffic regulations, not an active attack on a specific individual's life. If evaluated as intentional homicide, it will lead to a structural disorder in the legal interest protection system—equating derivative risks under collective legal interests with direct harm to individual legal interests. Second, indirect intent in the Criminal Law consists of the cognitive element of recognizing the possibility of the result occurring and the volitional element of allowing the harmful result to occur. Those who flee after a traffic accident are often in a state of high stress (fear, panic), and their volitional element is diluted by strong emotions, which is essentially different from the "neglect" of an intentional murderer after calm consideration. Criminal law theory requires a strict restrictive interpretation of the volitional element; otherwise, it will violate the principle of responsibility . Third, the duty to act in intentional homicide must have the characteristics of exclusive dominance (such as moving the injured person to a wilderness to leave them helpless); the duty to rescue in hit-and-run accidents stems from Article 70 of the "Road Traffic Safety Law," which is an administrative law-converted obligation, and its intensity is limited to "minimum rescue" (such as calling the police, setting up warnings), not unlimited life support; the duty to act in a traffic accident is weaker than that in intentional homicide. Fourth, if all cases of neglect resulting in death are upgraded to intentional homicide, it will render Article 133 of the Criminal Law, "death due to escape," void, making the provision on escape resulting in death empty talk, violating the legislator's intention to set up a tiered penalty for traffic accidents.
Applying "escape resulting in death" to hit-and-run cases resulting in the death of the victim by neglect is more reasonable. First, Article 133 of the Criminal Law, "death due to escape," is a closed special provision compared to Article 232, intentional homicide. This provision is the legislator's exclusive legislative evaluation of the act of "neglect resulting in death" in the field of traffic accidents; its protected legal interests include both the collective legal interests of public safety and the individual legal interests of derivative life rights, and there is a dimensional difference from the single legal interest of intentional homicide; the form of guilt in this provision naturally includes negligence and indirect intent regarding the result of death, and there is no need to invoke intentional homicide. Second, the traditional theory of aggravated offenses by result holds that the basic offense (traffic accident) is negligent, and the aggravated result (death) can be intentional (including indirect intent). The legislative structure of Article 133 of the Criminal Law fully conforms to this logic. Third, the nature of neglectful escape is an impure omission , and its obligation comes from the rescue obligation stipulated in Article 70 of the "Road Traffic Safety Law," which has legal particularity. It is limited to timely rescue at the scene of the accident and does not include unlimited life support. Intentional homicide requires the perpetrator to actively block the possibility of rescue (such as moving to a wilderness), while simply escaping is merely a failure to fulfill the rescue obligation; hit-and-run accidents and intentional homicide are not equivalent. Fourth, the rescue obligation stems from the negligent crime of causing a traffic accident, and its core purpose is to reduce risks and prevent the worsening of results, not to directly create a requirement for the perpetrator to "guarantee the absolute survival of the victim," which is equivalent to the duty to act in intentional homicide (such as parents to children), a high and absolute obligation to protect life. Fifth, the statutory penalty for death due to escape in Article 133 of the Criminal Law, "7-15 years' imprisonment," already reflects the unity of criminal responsibility and preventive punishment, which is sufficient to deter hit-and-run accidents, and there is no need to be as harsh as intentional homicide.
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