State v. McGill

MARTIN, Justice.

The single issue before this Court is whether, in a prosecution for manslaughter, the state must prove not only that the defendant was driving under the influence and that this proximately caused the victim’s death, but that the defendant’s intoxication caused him to violate some other rule of the road that in turn caused the death. We hold that only one causal link must be shown — that between the intoxication and the death. No additional misconduct need be alleged.

Around midnight of 26 April 1983, a state trooper arrived at the scene of a two-car accident on a paved, rural…