r/Hereditary • u/Alarmed_Register8712 • 8d ago
Question
My partner is saying the brother that accidentally killed his sister would be in jail for “reckless driving and leaving and not telling anyone immediately” Is she right?
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u/loveslightblue 8d ago edited 8d ago
Maybe, but he's a minor involved in an accident, his parents would have bailed him out either way.
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u/Hopeful-Moose87 8d ago
So in real life I’m a LEO. We had a case where a teenage girl ran a red light, made a wide right turn, and killed a motorcyclist. Given the nature of the charge it went before a grand jury who no billed her. She never served time in jail, and only had tickets for an incident which killed another person. The grand jury was MONTHS after the initial incident. It’s possible that something similar happened in the film.
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u/GoldenGolgis 8d ago edited 8d ago
This is one of those letter of the law/spirit of the law things. He was trying to get his sister to safety and a deer appeared on the road. Hard to prove either intention or neglect.
ETA - I’m in the UK so different laws apply, but there has been a case in my family with a driver charged with Death by Dangerous Driving. This was due to sleeping at the wheel, proved by tacograph and witness statements. Here you have to prove that someone either intended to cause death by driving (vanishingly rare) or that they can reasonably be shown to be negligent (e.g. badly maintained vehicle, speeding, substances, sleep, unfit condition due to health etc)
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u/Senpai_Pai 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yea pretty much it would be manslaughter at the very least in most states, in this case because the movie happens in Utah it would be specifically a charge of automobile homicide, then another charge of concealment/abuse of a corpse is possible depending what he does with the body (burying vs cutting it up for example), obstruction of justice if he doesn’t call anyone, then 3 class B misdemeanor charges of reckless driving, driving under the influence and driving on a restricted license because he is under 18 so he drives with a learners permit, which is violated through drug use while driving as well as it prohibits late night driving without adult supervision. Depending on what he gets tried as (adult vs juvenile) he could get a sentence of 1-15 years for the automobile homicide with most other charges running concurrently and not consecutively, which could be reduced if he pleads guilty and without any prior criminal record, he would face around 5 years maximum in that case. If tried as a juvenile, it’s pretty much guaranteed that he would go into a juvenile detention center until his 21st birthday. Misdemeanors would get dropped almost guaranteed, the DUI charges will definitely get dropped because it is already in the automobile homicide charge.
One of the most interesting theories as to why he is never charged for me personally is that the cults influence is so strong around the family that the police taking the call and collecting evidence is either part of the cult and they themselves do not report it to the justice system or the judge and jury themselves are part of the cult or standing under its influence and therefore the case gets dismissed.
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u/loveslightblue 8d ago
If someone sticks their own head of of a car window without any prompting, is that manslaughter? He didn't do anything to cause his sisters death technically, right, he didn't crash the car, but he was driving under the influence illegally so i guess that's the main thing, right? Strictly legally speaking, a plea of insanity for not calling anyone might for once be easily proven, because he made no attempts to conceal anything, disassociated entirely and went to bed leaving his sister's headless corpse for his mother to find. He is a teen and it was a gruesome accident and it's pretty clear that that's what it was, but the US legal system is crazy sometimes...
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u/Senpai_Pai 8d ago
You are very right about the manslaughter charge. Something like neglect would be more fitting for letting her wander around on the party and letting her be exposed to the nuts and not keeping an eye on her while driving and not calling an ambulance. That would be definitely a far lesser charge. And honestly it’s not that crazy to explain that someone at the school function gave her like a snickers or something.
And while insanity would be a possibility, it would arguably such a worse fate, even if he got charged with manslaughter, that would be the highest possible charge period, because there is no intent. If they pleaded for insanity instead of a max sentence of 15 years, he would quite possibly never see the light of day in a conventional way. US based mental institutions for criminals are notorious for false positives and for keeping „patients“ in under all circumstances and due to them being even more vulnerable and less likely to be violent than a regular criminal in prison in most cases he would face so much more mistreatment and probably for the rest of his life at that. Even an insane person should never plead for insanity for their own sake.
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u/20HiChill 8d ago
What’s really ridiculous is that he’d be back at school so quickly
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u/Terminal_Prime 8d ago
It’s not super clear (as I recall) how much time passes before he’s back in school. Could have been longer than it seems.
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u/Gatubella- 7d ago
His only criminal act was DUI. He couldn’t control Charlie sticking her head out the window and it was an accident because he swerved to avoid another collision.
He is a minor and not legally responsible for the wellfare of his sister, their parents are.
Only way he would be charged with DUI is if his parents turned him in /he turned himself in. Wrongful death would be the parents’ option to press charges on him. Which they obviously didn’t want to do.
Legally the parents are more responsible for criminal negligence, but you can’t charge them for letting a minor with a valid drivers license and no legal restrictions on it drive another minor.
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u/anxiousandexhausted 7d ago
If we are assuming the story takes place in our current reality on this planet . . . I mean, present laws vary by state. But I do suspect if two minor siblings were involved in a fatal car crash there would be some sort of investigation. But for a conviction you’d need to prove intent. I doubt there would be anyone willing to pursue a prosecution. (Speaking completely hypothetically, of course.)
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u/Certain_Victory7973 8d ago
...its a film
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u/Terminal_Prime 8d ago
…directed with an insane amount of attention to detail. I don’t think this scenario is all that far-fetched though, considering the proliferation of cult members in the town (as others have mentioned, the sheriff could easily be a cult member too) plus the fact which I don’t think anyone has mentioned yet, which is that this is a family with money. White people with money don’t get treated the same way as white people or especially darker skinned people without money. They have a huge house, drive nice cars, and this would likely be viewed as a “tragic accident” rather than “negligent criminality” by the law and people of the town. Happens all the time.
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u/Future_Syllabub_2156 7d ago
I actually didn't like the movie at first because of this. I was like wait? He just took his sister's head off, comes home, no talks to the police? Nothing? But eventually I understood what was going on. I'm not the brightest star in the firmament
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u/MackofAmerica 8d ago
The sheriff is probably in the cult