The accusation of negligent homicide is usually an allegation that is associated with road traffic. However, it has not infrequently been levied against nursing staff or those responsible in the medical field since November 2020. The basic scheme is always the same.
The negligent homicide is regulated in § 222 StGB. Somebody must have caused someone’s death through negligence.
Negligent acts are those who neglect the due care required in traffic, to which he is obliged and able according to the specific circumstances and his personal knowledge and abilities. An objective yardstick is used to determine whether there has been a breach of the required care. It is therefore important to ask how a level-headed and conscientious person would have behaved in a specific situation. This is mostly a question of the specific individual case. Here, however, objective indications are whether existing laws, ordinances or rules have been violated.
Furthermore, precisely this breach of duty of care must have been the cause of the death. If it is outside of all life experience or if there is an atypical course of events, this can be denied and death was also not foreseeable. If death had also occurred if the duty of care had been fulfilled, there is also no criminal liability.
An experienced defense attorney can use this very abstract version with knowledge of the actual circumstances in such a way that a defense attorney’s declaration usually leads to the termination of the proceedings. However, clear instructions for action in all cases cannot be given.
The penalty ranges from a fine to a prison sentence of five years. The decisive factors here are the severity of the breach of duty, any previous convictions, behavior after the offense and, in the medical field, especially the professional life and the assessment of the professional environment about the previous activity. In any case, it is worth hiring an experienced defense attorney at an early stage in order to bring the investigation to a standstill as early as possible, as there is a risk of not only a criminal conviction but also claims for damages in not inconsiderable amounts.
Attorney Andreas Junge has been a specialist lawyer for criminal law since 2008 and has achieved the suspension of the proceedings or at least a penalty at the lower end of the possible range in countless proceedings for negligent homicide or negligent bodily harm nationwide. He has the legal knowledge and practical experience to advise and defend you optimally. Lawyer Junge has his office in Berlin-Charlottenburg (directly on Kurfürstendamm) and a branch in Cottbus.
Just send your questions by e-mail or call Andreas Junge’s office. Short-term contact is also possible via mobile phone: 01792346907. Telegram, TelegrammX, Signal and WhatsApp are available as messengers.
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