After watching his fifth-grade daughter play softball, Doug attends a party with her team and other parents at the local pizza parlor. Doug’s daughter leaves the party with her mother, Doug’s ex-wife. Doug consumes ten beers and then leaves the party and smokes some crack cocaine in his vehicle. He thereafter begins driving home. As he is driving in a busy section of town, he hears his phone beep, indicating the receipt of a text message. He grabs his phone and starts reading the text. This lapse of attention causes him to run a red light and broadside a vehicle turning left in front of him, killing a child sitting in the passenger seat. Doug puts his vehicle in reverse, drives around the car he hit, and leaves the scene of the accident. These facts could give rise to a conviction for depraved heart second-degree murder. Although Doug did not act with specific intent to kill, his conduct in driving while under the influence of alcohol and crack cocaine, reading a text message while driving impaired in a busy part of town, and leaving the scene of an accident most likely elevate Doug’s intent from ordinary recklessness to recklessness indicating extreme indifference to the value of human life. Thus the trier of fact could find Doug guilty of murder rather than manslaughter in this case.
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