Vehicular Manslaughter – Smoking Pot & Implied Malice

For a jury to convict someone of second degree murder, malice must be proven. In this context, “malice can be implied when a defendant does an act with a high probability that it will result in death and does with a base antisocial motive and with a wanton disregard for human life.” People v. Watson (1981) 30 Cal. 3d 290, 300. In a DUI context, this can be driving in an usually dangerous way after smoking enough marijuana to impair one’s judgment, even if one has never been convicted of DUI before but had some education on the dangers of driving while impaired by alcohol or drugs, as in the following case. To read a summary of a rather tough ruling from the Lancaster Courthouse, after appeal to the Second Appellate District, click on the following link – Vehicular Manslaughter – Smoking Pot & Implied Malice