penalties for vehicular manslaughter in Virginia

Manslaughter is a fairly common offense, in a lot of cases it is more common than murder. This is because of the fact that we as humans are very well programmed to value the lives of members of our own species. Hence, it will take a lot to bring someone to the point where they would end up planning to take someone’s life. Murder requires premeditation in order to be a valid crime to convict someone of. Manslaughter requires the victim to lose their life and the decision to kill to have been a spur of the moment one for the defendant in question.

Involuntary manslaughter is also very common of course, and it requires a lapse in judgment to usually be the cause of someone losing their life. One of the most common forms of manslaughter out there is vehicular manslaughter. There are a lot of reasons for vehicular manslaughter occurring, but perhaps the most common reason is driving while under the influence alcohol or some other drug that could potentially cause you to lose your judgment and end up being unable to drive in a manner that would keep you and the people around you safe.

As you can probably already guess, this sort of thing carries with it a very heavy penalty indeed since it involves someone getting killed. The charge is obviously not going to be as severe as the one for murder because of the fact that the latter crime involves a certain amount of planning that implies malicious intent and anyone that would engage in this kind of activity deserves to be punished far more severely than someone that ended up killing someone simply because of the fact that they were being irresponsible.

There are two possible ways in which you could be penalized if you end up committing vehicular manslaughter and are successfully convicted of this crime. First things first, you are definitely going to end up going to prison. The prison sentence can last anywhere between one to ten years, it is going to be up to the judge that is sentencing you to ascertain how severe the punishment is going to be. If your lawyers are able to present a reasonable good case, you will be able to go to prison for a period of time that would end up feeling rather short in the long run since it will only last for a year or so.

The second of the two punishments does not always occur, it is up to the judge to decide whether this punishment should apply as well. This punishment involves a fine, the amount of which cannot exceed $2,500 dollars. This can put serious financial burden on you, if you have a family to support you would want all of the money you have to go towards supporting them while you are in prison not towards paying a fine that would take a while to pay off completely.

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