Have you ever heard of a person going to prison for failure to wear a seatbelt?
Well, in New Jersey, our state courts have determined that a person can spend as long as a decade behind bars if they ignore the seatbelt law.
This isn’t because the seat belt law requires it, but rather, because N.J.S.A. 2C:40-18, Violation of Law Intended to Protect Public Health and Safety, can be prosecuted as a crime of the second degree (five to ten years if convicted), a crime of the third degree (three to five years), or a crime of the fourth degree (18 months).
Let’s take a look at the law and then examine how it came to be used in one tragic case of a serious traffic accident.
First, 2C:40-18 stipulates that a person who knowingly violates a law intended to protect the public health and safety, or who knowingly fails to perform a duty imposed by a law to protect the public health and safety, is guilty of a crime. The degree of the crime is dependent on the outcome.
When a person dies as a result of this knowing a violation or fails to perform a duty, the charge is of the second degree.
When a person experiences serious bodily injury as a result, the crime is of the third degree.
When a person suffers significant bodily injury, the crime is of the fourth degree.
One can imagine that a law like this might be applied in a variety of serious situations, like a municipal employee who knowingly performs or fails to perform an act, resulting in a chemical release.
It’s less intuitive that a person should run the risk of a ten year prison sentence for not requiring seatbelt use in their car, but that’s part of what happened when Kirby Lenihan, then 18, lost control of her vehicle and ran into a guardrail, killing a 16-year-old friend in the passenger’s seat.
Police noticed that various aerosol cans were on the floor of the front of the car and surmised that the two girls had been huffing inhalants as they drove.
Blood tests later confirmed this, but police were stymied by the fact that there’s no legal standard for inhalant ingestion to qualify for DWI.
Instead, they alleged that Lenihan, who is legally responsible for ensuring that any minors in her vehicle are properly belted, was in violation of a law intended to protect public health and safety, and charged her under 2C:40-18.
She eventually pleaded guilty under the law as a third degree crime, for causing serious bodily injury to her friend, but was spared from the much longer potential sentence if she had been prosecuted for a violation resulting in death.
It’s not clear whether the law has been used in this way since the Lenihan case, but the fact that such a use has been approved by New Jersey’s Appellate Division means that prosecutors have it at their disposal if they choose to continue to expand its use.
Don’t take chances with this one.
If prosecutors pull 2C:40-18 out, it’s likely that they’re engaging in some experimental legal work, and you need all the help you can get to try to quash it.
Call Matthew Reisig right away at 732-625-9661 and talk to an experienced New Jersey criminal defense lawyer for free.